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Well, the alternative is to show how boring it is most of the time, and that wouldn't work. However, it is also true that some soldiers do get pretty excited in intense combat situations and sometimes don't do what is in the best social interests of America.
When I was growing up, it seemed there was a Vietnam Vet mowing folks down on The Mod Squad on a pretty regular basis.
The theme seemed even more common then (the 70's) than now. Even Rambo started that way, as I recall. At the time I saw the first film, he seemed tragic but not heroic and out of the Mod Squad mold. I'm not sure the idea of making him a hero was in the creators' minds until the public reaction made them see dollar signs.
This sort of thing decreased a little from the 80's and especially in the wake of 9/11, but is still too common for my taste -- it's predictable, lazy and annoying.
I agree with the OP and dislike seeing people denigrate our military. There are those who make disparaging remarks about servicemen and women and say they behave as if their actions are noble. In my opinion, a person making such derogatory comments is equal to a traitor to his country. If I'm too harsh, it's because of recently reading posts that made me sick to my stomach.
Movies and even documentaries can sometimes promote negative stereotypes. Stereotypes are overgeneralizations; they often involve assuming a person has certain characteristics based on unfounded assumptions.
Obviously, there is a big gap between military culture and civilian society, most if not all civilians still rely heavily on media to get information about military. If Media promotes negative stereotypes, then public tend to over generalize.
I personally believe that media portrait of the veteran is incomplete. Some of my veteran friends do return physically and emotionally shattered. But vast majority of my former veteran friends are not only proud of having served, but feel that it made them much stronger.
War films are categorically unique to any other genre of cinema. And this uniqueness requires that war films have a certain moral expectation and responsibility that other genres of cinema do not share. War is violent and should be portrayed honestly. War Films Cannot Serve as Political Propaganda and they should be historically accurate. Sadly, some war film makers don't really follow these rules.
There is no doubt that there are some veterans traumatized by war. Americans need to hear their stories. But pretending that this is every veteran's experience is wrong.
I posted a thread over in the Entertainment forum but here I am venting a bit.
I am sick and tired of former soldiers being portrayed as the criminal on so many TV shows and movies. It seems if there is a criminal element, almost certainly it is some ex-military person, usually with highly specialized skills and having been on active duty in a special unit of some kind.
.......
Actually, I get a kick out of it that is all they see.
There was some TV movie, a Mimi Rogers one I think, where they were looking for someone who was an expert at martial arts, climbing, and a sniper...............and all they were looking for were SEALs, maybe Rangers. As far as that movie was concerned, there were no other types in the Navy who were trained like that.
When I was growing up, it seemed there was a Vietnam Vet mowing folks down on The Mod Squad on a pretty regular basis.
The theme seemed even more common then (the 70's) than now. Even Rambo started that way, as I recall. At the time I saw the first film, he seemed tragic but not heroic and out of the Mod Squad mold. I'm not sure the idea of making him a hero was in the creators' minds until the public reaction made them see dollar signs.
This sort of thing decreased a little from the 80's and especially in the wake of 9/11, but is still too common for my taste -- it's predictable, lazy and annoying.
By the 80s the characters would have been too old to be Vietnam Vets the gulf War was the best thing to ever happen to Hollywood. How so many got into major scrapes in 100 hours of ground combat to fill fictional stories for two decades still amazes me. After 9/11 things were different but by 2005 I started seeing a pattern. Afghanistan vets were good guys while Iraq vets were bad guys. However since pulling out from Iraq in order not to age the characters needlessly all vets, except older guys are Afghanistan veterans.
In the current BBC series "Sherlock" (Sherlock Holmes set in the 21st century London), his Dr. John Watson is a disabled veteran of Afghanistan.
Interestingly, the Dr John Watson in the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories was also a disabled veteran of Afghanistan--from England's earlier campaign in that country.
There are at least two old threads on this forum that addresses this topic. Good and bad films and programs, realistic and unrealistic ones are commented on. A search back might be worthwhile, and perhaps bumping them up to active by adding an opinion could be of interest.
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