Don't forget "tears of the sun", where a group of special ops guys risk their lives to save a group of africans. They even throw in a peace corps
worker, very anti war at the beginning of the film, and by the end she is crying and embracing the heroic soldiers who saved them. What kind,
honorable men those soldiers where...right?
The nature of modern media is one of the factors that contributes to the glorification of these conflicts in cinema. People's attention spans have
been zapped to practically nothing by that little box sitting in the corner of every room. So attempting to actually explain the cause of these
conflicts (economic sanctions / actions of imperial puppet regimes leading to hunger, poverty, and eventually chaos) would have a negative effect at
the box office. Have you ever heard someone say "I thought there would be more action, it was just some stupid story about etc. etc." ? Filmmakers
don't intend to be propagandists all the time, but I am sure the studios have a list of people that they don't want to piss off. And we are
definitely not on that list. Anything not produced by a large studio is not seen in mainstream theaters, plain and simple. Actors and Writers /
Directors can cry all they want about the state of the earth right now, but the studios call the shots in the end, things get rewritten, you know, to
make it more "uplifting", and the stars and stripes come out shining. We need another "Full metal jacket" right about now.
This could possibly have been an unintended effect of new media, but they sure know that it exists, and they'll use it any way they can. What a
lucrative strategy..... get more hits at the box office, more recruits in boot camp, more support for the troops, more fear of the "bad guy", and
more glorification of the kill.
www.ict.usc.edu...
"The U.S. Army, in an unprecedented alliance with Hollywood and a major university, is providing funding and technical advice for video games that
aim to hone the skills of the next-generation of military field commanders.
The Institute for Creative Technologies, which is jointly operated by the United States Army and the University of Southern California said on
Thursday it would develop two combat video games, with financial and tactical backing from the Army. "
memories erased and burned and scarred,
trade in your history for a VCR.
cinema simulated life, ill drama,
fourth reich culture, amerikana.
chained to the dream they got you searching for,
a thin line between entertainment and war.
