War porn in the guise of brotherly honour

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2008)

The Enlightenment introduced a new version of honour, based on the idea of war as a rule-bound, principled undertaking. This illusion was somewhat shattered in WW1, when millions were mowed down on the mechanised killing fields. It quickly became clear that national honour was nothing more than a deceptive veneer over organised bloodshed. As such, Hollywood's first few war films were largely pacifist.
Then came the so called Good War. In 1942 "Sergeant York" was released, a filmed biography of the Tennessee rifleman who by killing 23 Germans became the most decorated American soldier in history. The film recast WW1 as a reasonable national enterprise, not a deranged slaughterhouse. "York" can be viewed as the first movie to foster public support for America's entry into World War II by dramatising a new, democratised ideal of honour.
While Democracy was seen to be right and good, war itself was believed to be morally wrong, its causes connected with the aggressiveness natural to authoritarian regimes. Thus, over time, the idea took root that the only just war was a war in defence of democracy. This became the formula for almost all war movies made between 1942 and 1945. Under the guidance of the War Office, most of these films played up the skill and heroism of the ordinary GI, and played down the carnage of battle. This formula lasted into the post-war era because it was effective at promoting the democratic ideal of honour. Like its predecessors, this ideal posits a link between virtue and victory. Nevermind that the "enemy" fights as valiantly as "you" or that these wars are all fought for old fashioned colonialist reasons. No, on the level of myth it's deemed important to show the "sons of democracy" fighting more valiantly than the Other. In 1949 Hollywood released about eight war films that did just this.
In the 1950s we had a few anti war films ("Pork Chop Hill", "Paths of Glory" etc"), most of which challenged notions of "sacrifice", "nobility" and even "free choice". Specious notions of "honor" now could no longer be rationalised. Henceforth soldiers no longer died for country, they died for their comrades. They acted out of loyalty and fear of dishonouring the unit.
The 1960s and 1970s saw the elimination of virtually all film industry controls over violent content in movies. Along with the fall of the Hays Office, this development made it possible to depict combat more graphically than ever before. The technical challenge of rendering the ultimate action sequence became an obsession.
Yet the 1970s also saw a growing realisation that Vietnam veterans were taking heat. So along with the challenge of making war look gorier came the challenge of making vets look nobler. The two goals were reconciled by amplifying violence and reducing war to nothing larger than the ethos of buddies helping buddies (ie- Bands of Brothers).
This ethos now dominates almost all war movies, with rare exceptions. If American war films are wandering back into dangerous, propagandistic and gore-glorifying territory, it is not because they're getting good at simulating the spectacle of combat. It's because, in an effort to avoid political controversy - apoliticism itself being a firm political stance which engenders only more violence - they offer underdeveloped plots and characters to serve an outdated and dysfunctional definition of honour.
Meanwhile "Black Hawk Down", one of Ridley Scott's dumbest film, is content to again rehash your typical fascist tale of victimised, out-gunned white men battling heroically, gloriously, against a savage horde. A remake of "Private Ryan" and "Zulu", Scott updates the White Man's Burden, everyman grunts subjecting themselves to toil in order to save the savage from himself. Unsurprisingly, Scott's Somali victims speak only to condemn themselves, displaying no emotions other than greed and the lust for blood. Their appearances are accompanied by sinister Arab techno, while the US forces are trailed by violins, oboes and vocals inspired by Enya. White troops display horrific wounds and clutch family photos, Somalis drop like flies, dispensable and unmourned.
Of course the film is a mighty misrepresentation of what happened in Somalia. In 1992, George Bush senior announced that America had come to do "God's work" in Somalia. Unfortunately, in Pentagon speak, "God's Work" means bombing nations to hell, Washington arming clan chiefs and warlords in a deliberate attempt to destabilise the region (largely for Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips). The US has been doing this for a long time, backing the brutal Somali dictator Siad Barre in 1978 and pitting him against Ethiopia, before arming Ethiopia and using it as a proxy force against Somalia. Through the IMF, the US loaned over three million dollars to both sides, most of which went to arms and led to untold amounts of bloodshed. The West, of course, has a history of backing puppet dictators and then backing their dictator's enemies when these puppet's get too big for their boots (eg -Saddam Hussein pitted against Iran and Kuwait armed against Saddam, before Saddam was taken down directly by the US).
With no conflicts to justify their presence in the area, the US then seized upon the buzzwords "Somalian pirates" (the pirates are directly caused by Western mega-corps dumping toxins and destroying local fishery populations) and "war on terror" as an excuse to intensify their overt/covert actions in the region. Through these buzzwords, the US - while the UN unconscionably stands by - justified their support of yet more warlords, pitting them against the democratically elected Islamic Courts Union, an organisation which has brought some level of peace, unity, stability and some semblance of nationhood to Somalia.
But of course the West doesn't want this. 30 per cent of America's oil will come from Africa over the next ten years. American hegemony depends on Africa remaining unstable and run by puppets willing to prevent the nationalising of minerals, resources or crack down on law-dodging mega-corps.
2/10 - Sexy evil.