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Anti-War Movies Are a Growth Industry
Last night, I attended the premiere of the movie "War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." It was a documentary-style film version of the 2005 book by the same name written by Norman Solomon, a longtime lefty media critic. (PRWeek reviewed the book and has run two separate Q&A's with Solomon in the past— subscription necessary).
In the film, as in the book, Solomon asserts rather persuasively that the US government has, for the last 50 years, succesfully co-opted the press in order to rouse up support for wars that are generally started for purposes far removed from the "democracy and freedom" rhetoric that so often accompanies them. The film focuses on Vietnam and the current Iraq war, but every military engagement since WWII gets attention, as presidents are shown repeating the same catch phrases in the various run-ups to conflict.
The failure of the mainstream media to thoroughly report on legitimate doubts preceding the Iraq War has been covered well by Solomon and others, perhaps nowhere better than on Bill Moyers' recent PBS special, "Buying the War." Solomon noted in a Q&A session last night that the press often does an exemplary job reporting on its failures well after a war has started— but by then, it's too late. He said he hopes to persuade hundreds of people across the country to hold screenings of the movie in their own homes, a tactic used successfully by other liberal, independent filmmakers like Robert Greenwald.
In one form or another, those outlets that symbolize "the mainstream media" in the public mind will have to have a very public reckoning soon about their failure to unearth the flaws in the Iraq arguments. The constant and continual drumbeat of criticisms over their reporting will do much to damage the already low public opinion of the journalism industry.
© 2007 PR Week
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Show AllAs important as war documentaries are, I don't think most Americans will ever see them (especially young people), and therefore won't be affected by them. Growing up in the 80s, what turned me off to the horrors of war were some of the great Vietnam films that came out that decade: Casualties of War, Platoon, the disturbing final portion of First Blood all come to mind. Tom Cruise in a Wheelchair, racism, rape, fear, filth, madness. They all showed this dark, stupid, evil world which had passed, hopefully never to return. But here we are.
Mentioning the mainstream in this article is almost ironic. The anti-war movement's really going to conquer this country only when it gets into mainstream cinema and music and television. Where are the anti-war songs on the radio? Where are the mainstream hollywood films about the true horrors of Iraq? Screaming silence. Maybe we have to wait a decade. Documentaries are great, but there's this sense of sort of preaching to the choir. Who else is watching them but my anti-war friends and I?
Alas, most people do not yet understand that anti-war is not the same as pro-peace.
There are too many fine independent political documentaries being produced to keep up with. People are taking up the job left undone by the mainstream. Many are available on the web.
"...there's this sense of sort of preaching to the choir."
Preaching to the choir, sadly, makes up 99% of all political discourse.
Yea, let's all watch another IMPORTANT something. Not do something important, just watch. Sadly, spectators rarely win the Super Bowl...
Come on frank1569, the discussion's about education, with no necessary exclusion to action thereafter. The worst thing in the world is somebody DOING SOMETHING with a brain full of nothing (and there are all kinds of those people around, left, right and sideways). Learn and think before you act, or you get something as silly as Jane Fonda atop North Vietnamese military material, or Falwell embroiled with the Teletubbies, or some clown-guest on Fox letting Bill O'Reilly tear him apart. This isn't spectators at a Super Bowl, it's citizenry in training. Balance is the key, my man ...balance and good planning!
So, then why is it that "How I won the War" has not been made available in the USA on DVD?