In all sincerity: so what? And I have a few reasons for that reaction, only one of which is empty whataboutism (so I’ll get that one out of the way first).
1. Do the citizens of this he democratic west imagine that our adversaries don’t engage in propaganda? Please, get real. Not saying two wrongs make a right, but unilateral disarmament in the battle for hearts and minds doesn’t seem particularly prudent either.
2. This particular article is scattershot to the point of being incoherent. Also, it’s funny when it criticizes “Clear and Present Danger” for not being true to reality … when … it’s a move based … on a novel. Uhhhh.
3. The article talks about the movies that have resisted military influence and assumes they are better for it, but what about the stories that were improved by military influence? For a variety of obvious reasons, war and the battlefield is pretty fertile ground for human storytelling. It’s natural that these stories get told. It isn’t inevitably and automatically a bad thing if the military has an influence on how these stories are told.
"what about the stories that were improved by military influence?"
This is the best thing I have read this week thus far, and will probably haunt me for the rest of my week.
When I was looking at "Triumph of the Will" with film classes I taught, there was a certain beauty in that horror. The story it tells is definitely less unsettling than the reality it presents.
1. Do the citizens of this he democratic west imagine that our adversaries don’t engage in propaganda? Please, get real. Not saying two wrongs make a right, but unilateral disarmament in the battle for hearts and minds doesn’t seem particularly prudent either.
2. This particular article is scattershot to the point of being incoherent. Also, it’s funny when it criticizes “Clear and Present Danger” for not being true to reality … when … it’s a move based … on a novel. Uhhhh.
3. The article talks about the movies that have resisted military influence and assumes they are better for it, but what about the stories that were improved by military influence? For a variety of obvious reasons, war and the battlefield is pretty fertile ground for human storytelling. It’s natural that these stories get told. It isn’t inevitably and automatically a bad thing if the military has an influence on how these stories are told.