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Originally Posted by Sigaba
TR--
Late last year, you provided a substantial list of issues for an unscripted reality show centering around the every day lives of veterans and their families. IIRC, The Unit, despite its many faults (from a story telling and techincal perspective), and its criticisms from BTDTs such as yourself, addressed each of those issues at least once during its four-season run.
Can any television show or film provide a realistic account of any activity conducted at an elite level, especially ones related to the conduct of war? If such works were possible from a technical and financial perspective, how many viewers would be able to understand what they were watching?
Or should film maakers and showrunners be encouraged to make works that that manage fleeting moments of authenticity that get viewers to reflect carefully about matters that impact members of the armed services and their families?
From my perspective, some QPs are creating a no win situation for themselves and for civilians that invest time and money to understand and to support SF. For example, on this BB, many QPs have expressed repeatedly a preference for civilians to make more of an effort to understand and to respect the sacrifices Special Forces soldiers make in the nation's defense. At the same time, many QPs express unrelenting disdain for many of those efforts, if not also contempt for audiences, because movies and shows do not fulfill expectations for realism.
IMO, there comes a point where the chorus of "You're doing it wrong / This is unrealistic and, therefore, a worthless waste of time" is going to impact adversely the motivation of civilians who have other options in what they watch. In turn, because it is ultimately about the money, producers, directors, studios, distributors, and networks will make different choices in what they bring to the market place.
My $0.02. |
It would appear that exaggeration, generalizations, and hyperbole makes for a good TV show for the masses, but not so much in an academic work.
MASH was a good movie, but the TV show eventually suffered from the egos and prejudices of the actors and staff. Possibly, some people thought that was the way a medical unit conducted itself in combat, but I think your average viewer saw through the anti-war plots and watched to see the interaction between the characters. It was a comedy, or started out as one.
In a similar fashion, Saving Private Ryan was a great movie but had a ridiculous premise or sending a squad with a Captain in command to find a soldier somewhere in France in the midst of the early Normandy Campaign. The underlying theme of mission dedication, brotherhood, and selfless service made it an outstanding movie, even among those who knew that the mission was a complete farce.
BHD has been cited in the article as the greatest war movie of all time. There are several fictions within the movie, but after reading the well-written book and knowing some of the guys who were on the ground there, it was close enough that I had no issues watching and enjoying it. I think Bowden did the story credit without going off track to make a political statement.
Band of Brothers undoubtedly took some poetic license, even while being an ostensibly true story. The interactions between characters is the real story, and the military issues in the background are close enough to real that few other than the characters themselves will know the difference. The story and the characters ARE the feature of the movie. American soldiers are not generally portrayed as psychopaths, deviants, criminals, etc.
The difference between the swill Hollywood makes and the real military is very small. The Unit could have been a relatively truthful story, and still been successful, if not even moreso. Ignorant writers and executives wrote in ridiculous stuff that the tech advisors were unable to convince them to remove, and the show suffered for it. I watched part of one episode, and that was all I could stand. The theme of the show for that night seemed to be diversity, and the non-members had to step in and perform as well as the members would have, and of course, they did. At the level the people in that unit operate at, that is neither possible or plausible.
Any SF soldier on this board could provide enough war stories with at least a kernel of credibility that would resonate to make several shows worth of entertainment. The fact that we don't have Miss America picking up a gun and assaulting with us should not detract from the story line.
It occurs to me that Hollywood today functions much like the Reich Propaganda Ministry in trying to change popular opinion to conform with the executives' opinions. The military soldiers are frequently poor oppressed people who are not smart enough to realize how they are being manipulated/exploited by their leadership, or they are deranged psychopaths who are just there to enjoy the opportunity for some unconstrained violence on the enemy, or innocent civilians, if the enemy is not available. Almost all of the Vietnam movies reinforce those stereotypes.
In short, I don't think the problem is our unrealistic expectations. IMHO, if Hollywood would make movies that the public wants to see, and not those they themselves want to promote to try and sway popular opinion, the quality issues would resolve themselves. Most of the anti-war pics have been flops, despite peer support. The ones that were not as obviously biased have been generally successful at the box office.
None of the movies (and TV shows) I mentioned above lacked commercial success. Not all of them are realistic, but the entertainment value was sufficient to overlook the errors. Does anyone really think the Army depicted in "Stripes" was real? At the same time, IMHO, "Navy SEALs" sucked, except as an unintended comedy. "Lone Survivor" appears to be doing pretty well, and while the story is generally true, the details are largely fabricated. The public is paying to see it, regardless. I saw it with my son and found it entertaining. There are movies and TV shows that can accurately depict wartime service and military units, to include SF, while simultaneously providing quality entertainment. I don't believe asking for both is unrealistic, or is alienating any significant portion of the American population outside communists, anti-war protesters, and the Hollywood back-patting elite.
Look at the opening campaign with SF and the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, the battle for COP Keating, the battle of Ganjgal, any of a hundred SFODA tours, or anyone from this page
http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/afghanistan.html and report the story accurately. No need for fictional characters, nonexistent love stories, artificial toxic leaders, fake animosities, bogus conspiracies, etc., etc.
The stories and ability to portray them realistically enough are there. Hollywood just needs to find those stories, and depict them for the viewing public without trying to spin it with their own message. Watch an episode of "Enlisted" and see how that would make you feel if you were an Army Soldier. The sad part is, very few if any people in Hollywood executive positions today have any military experience beyond a brief MSNBC segment, brought to them by Code Pink. Unfortunately, I have little hope that will change anytime soon.
People are not rejecting military movies and shows. They are rejecting those with an anti-American agenda. Americans generally love their military, and its personnel, and want to see them serving honorably and doing well. After all, those troops are our sons and daughters, and generally their values represent the best in this country. Only a few want to see them cheaply characterized as evil killers, or buffoons.
Just my .02, YMMV.
TR