Sorry for the lack of posting but our cable Internet has been out since Saturday evening when some serious thunderstorms blew through my little town. So serious that we had two major lightening strikes within about 300 feet of our house, one hitting a tree and the other a telephone pole. The power was out for seven and a half hours and my cable Internet is still spotty.
I had planned on doing some live-blogging about the new HBO mini-series Generation Kill, but that was shot to hell so I just made some notes while I watched the first episode. Here they are.
The show had great production values and acting, but then this is HBO so I expected that. Unfortunately, there were also a ton of typical Hollywood negative stereotypes of those serving in the military and the Marines specifically. In the first 15 minutes you had several Southern-accented racist and gay-bashing statements (because only Southerners hate minorities and gays, of course), disgusting sexual statements about young children and the teachers who sent letters of support to the Marines, and brilliantly insightful lines like, ”It’s destiny dog, white man gotta rule the world” and “White man won’t be denied.”
There did have a somewhat realistic depiction of a Marine unit with regards to uniforms, equipment, grooming, discipline, etc., but there was also obviously an effort to make a very big deal about the fact that the Marines did not have all the equipment they needed, as if this was the first time an American military force went into action under-equipped. There was also much ado about the Marines having to wait several hours to move out, like “hurry up and wait” was something introduced into military operations with the inauguration of George Bush. Then there were several examples of Marine’s bashing the Corps and their leadership, which does happen, of course, since every military member bitches about their own service and leaders. They have that right, after all.
Still the implication here is that this was the first time any of this has ever happened and that our military is predominately manned by stupid, uncaring, unethical officers and abusive NCOs, and that most rank and file Marines are racist, homosexual-hating, homicidal white men who only serve so they can kill people and break things.
In other words, the “Hollywood” military.
Now before you think I am saying our military, and the men and women serving in it, are perfect let me assure you I am not. Surely our military has it’s fair share of piss-poor officers and “asshole” NCOs. If you’ve served you have dealt with them. And surely there are racists in the military. And gay-bashers. And sexists. They are there because they are in our society and the military is a reflection of our society. The good and the bad. But I would argue that our military reflects far more of the good than the bad. No, that’s wrong. Frankly it’s not even arguable. It’s a fact. Our military, despite all it’s flaws, is the best of us. And when the worst of us do make it into our military, the best usually weed them out pretty quickly.
That’s the way it should be and that’s the way it is.
The problem here is that Hollywood sees only the bad. Mostly because they are just ignorant of all things military and what little they think they know is drawn from their reverence for Vietnam-era films like Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Apocalypse Now, the Deer Hunter, and Full Metal Jacket. These movies were the “truth” then so they must be the truth now.
But there is something else going on here besides ignorance. Hollywood and the rest of the liberal media need to believe these men and women are bad in order to justify their anti-American, anti-military, anti-war views. Because if the military is bad, and the people serving in it are bad, then they naturally have to be good for pointing it out. Which makes them feel all warm and fuzzy and special. That’s why they keep producing all these anti-war movies, that interestingly enough, keep failing at the box office because the rest of America aren’t buying it.
The rest of America, the vast majority of it anyway, and that includes many liberals, know there is a difference between the Hollywood military and the real military. They know the former is a warped fantasy and the latter is a reality. And even the first 15 minutes or so of this show, in which every bad military stereotype is thrown against the wall in the hope that something will stick, is not going to convince them otherwise.
UPDATE:
I should note that there are plenty of military guys and gals who like this mini-series and the book it is based on. More power to them. I just don’t see it that way so far, but in the interest of fairness I am going to watch the whole thing and will keep you updated on my opinion.
UPDATE:
A much better writer than I reviews the mini-series, but finds the same faults as I did in the first episode. Still, he says it gets better as it goes along – he’s a pro so he gets to see it ahead of time, lucky guy – so maybe it will turn out to be pretty good after all.
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This is based on a book written by a Rolling Stone writer. I read some of his stuff in RS a long time ago, and really wasn’t that impressed with his portrayal of the military men and women.
And yeah, I know from listening to my husband that there are bad and good folks in the military, but I tend to lump them into a “Frank Burns/Hotlips” category, seeing as how Husband is “just in the Guard.” But he’s bitched aplenty about AF leadership and the treatment Guard and Reservists get from the active duty side.
See, my frame of reference is old M*A*S*H episodes, so I always take stuff with a grain of salt.
I’ve only watched the first episode but I have read the book, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what seems like stereotypes now. For instance, the ‘redneck’ character and the ‘militant latino’ guy are actually best friends and joke about going into business together when they get back home. What the book does well is capture the macho posturing (racist/homophobic etc) of the soldiers but at the end of the day shows that they really aren’t serious about it and mostly say those things for comic effect amongst their fellow soldiers. It’s the type of smack talk that Generation X and Y have grown up with on video games and internet chat rooms. I can see how this will be difficult to understand for some older viewers, but most of it is in jest. (Like the scene with the ’southern redneck, in last nights epsidoe’ they pretty much indicate that he wasn’t all that serious at the end of that scene as the Latino and black characters dismiss him with feigned boredom with the act.) The Rolling Stone writer captures this locker room type dynamic brilliantly in the book. Stay tuned, it gets better.
I was a Marine in the First Gulf War. This is the kind of dark humor Marines use to pass the time. We also had the same scramble for equipment, taping together old junk designed for anywhere but the desert. The same hurry-up and wait, the same mix of idiots, studs, and assholes leading us. I’ve also spent time in the Army – similar stuff just greatly toned down.
Marines have always been screwed and have always bitched about it. “With the Old Corps” was the shocking, truthful WWII version.
I doubt the public is going to get the wrong impression. Our Battle History has very few blemishes on it and those Marines in Iraq did nothing but uphold that tradition.
Bram,
The part of the public that knows and cares about our military won’t get the wrong impression. But what it does is reinforce the negative views liberals hold. Which, of course, is what Hollywood is all about.
But, you see, the NCO’s who take care of us, the ones who make sure that we have their phone numbers in our wallets and cells at all times, the ones who aren’t even in my COC (or branch of service, even) who volunteer their free time to work out with me to help me lose weight to get promoted, the ones who really mean it when they say to call day or night if we need help, the many, many great guys and gals out there???
They’re just boooooooooooorrrrrriiiiiinnnnnnng, dontcha know?
And, like they (^) said, that dark, M*A*S*H humor can be an effective coping skill. But, like you said, there are too many Frank Burns out there who don’t get it.
[...] still think there’s way to many stereotypes but, hey, all stereotypes have some truth to them so [...]
I am a grandmother I don’t get the joke I support the troop my son father was not support when he went off the Veit Nam and never came home he went there so you could have fun but the corp has chanaged to aloud dirty little punk trash talk come out of are soldiers. I like my husband. back if this movie is what are new servie has become. Sorry
I don’t think the men and women in the Corps talk any worse than they ever did – although I don’t think it is as bad as this movie makes out – this is Hollywood after all and everything is exagerated. The Corps is a place where rough men stand ready to do violence in our defense and rough men talk that way sometimes – especially under pressure. They always have. And if the Corps has changed in any way since Vietnam it is that it has become MORE professional, not less.