Hollywood surprised itself earlier this year by producing an Iraq War movie that was a blockbuster — American Sniper has earned more than half a billion dollars so far, starring Bradley Cooper in the role of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. The film also produced intense cultural criticism about the way it narrowly represented the war, portraying Iraqis as little more than turbaned bullseyes for American valor.
Now comes the trailer for 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, an action film about the attempt by military contractors working for the CIA to rescue two diplomats from an extremist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The film, directed by Michael Bay, is being touted as a cross between Black Hawk Down and American Sniper. The early reviews — I mean the early tweets — are highly favorable. If the trailer is an accurate indicator, or the director’s filmography (Bay also brought us Pearl Harbor and Transformers), the star-spangled hype is probably on the money, and we will be the poorer for it.
I haven’t seen the film yet — it comes out in January, so press screenings are months away. I contacted Mitchell Zuckoff, who wrote the nonfiction book on which the film is based, as well as a publicist for the studio that is producing the film, but they declined to say what’s in the movie. The main hints are the attention-getting trailer (please take a look) and the cast of characters on the IMDB site. There is apparently no Libyan character who merits a last name — there is just a “Fareed” and “Fareed’s wife.” The other apparently Libyan characters have no names at all; one of them is described as “Bandolier Militiaman” and another is “Camo Headwrap.” Who knows, perhaps 13 Hours will be loaded with rich historical context, but Bay, whose films have grossed $6.4 billion, according to his Twitter bio, is known for other things.
One of the problems with Hollywood war movies is that they rarely tell us what we need to know about the wars we engage in. It’s certainly true that American soldiers often perform heroically in the wars they fight — I have reported from Iraq as well as Afghanistan and have seen it first-hand. It is also true that American soldiers don’t always behave honorably (I have seen this too), but Hollywood doesn’t often shine a light on it. Studio executives prefer to back movies we are willing to buy tickets for, and crowd-pleasers tend to have heroic narratives in the John Wayne mold, which is why for every Apocalypse Now or Three Kings there seem to be a dozen American Snipers or Lone Survivors.
Yet the real problem with conventional war movies is their historically negligent portrayal of the people Americans fight against. The Iraqis or Afghans or Somalis or Vietnamese in our most popular war movies tend to be stick figures at best, snarling animals at worst. This is not only epically unfair to the people upon whose lands we have chosen to fight our wars, it hurts us as well, because we just consume more of the intellectual junk that leads us to believe we are always the good guys and they are always the bad guys and the people we kill always deserve it.
And there’s a genre twist in the trailer for 13 Hours, which portrays military contractors as heroes. It’s true that some contractors have acted bravely in the war zones where they were lucratively employed to fight, and some have been killed (including two in Benghazi), but their overall record is terrible. Military contractors — traditionally referred to as mercenaries — are one of the poxes of the new American way of warfare. When I was in Baghdad in the early years of the occupation, military contractors were among the greatest perils to human life, because they were all but unaccountable and acted like it. Driving around Baghdad in an unmarked civilian vehicle, I worried more about being shot by one of the Blackwater cowboys than being blown up by a car bomb. Yet now they are being packaged as a new type of American war hero, a sort of mercenary chic.
Yes, it’s only a movie, and one we’re not able to see until January. But movies seem to do more to shape our understanding of warfare, valor and foreigners than any other form of popular culture, and it seems we are heading toward another feel-good brainwash.
Also read:
How Clint Eastwood Ignores History in ‘American Sniper’
Oscars Make History, So Hollywood’s War Stories Need To Be True
My Review of American Sniper: The title is the “tell’ and the story of a man who’s haunting craft and skill can take life sometimes to protest another. American Sniper is both blatantly pro- and subliminally anti-war. The film is excellently shot, direct and acted to its exacting specifications and purpose to show the perspective of and repercussions for an American Sniper. Chris Kyle the real deal American Sniper as a self professed sheepdog protecting his flock from wolves was able to endure insanity and sacrifice without going insane at least not to the last. American Sniper is Chris’s view into “flatland” through a military spec scope where there are only friendlys, foes and potential threats. There is no third dimension of humanity in flatland the people and landscape are two dimensional. On a flag waving level the film extols the man and his brothers in arms and degrades the endogenous people, this is a loud but perhaps the lesser message. The film has a deeper message. I have asked many a “patriot” over a beer “Would you want your son to group up to be an American Sniper.” The vast majority reply “Oh hell no.” The cost living in flatland can give pause to even ardent “patriots.” Perhaps the bard or film makers did or did not intend the second message. Further many who view the film get stuck on the cheer of the first and miss the whispering of the second message. At one level American Sniper is a powerful antiwar film. I hope this in time becomes the takeaway message.
Sorry for the repost I made some typos and let out some main points to my view that American Sniper is both pro-and very much an anti-war film.
I saw the film American Sniper, the title is the “tell’ and the story of a man who’s haunting craft and skill can take life sometimes in “trade” to protect another. American Sniper on the surface seems blatantly pro- but is subliminally a very powerful anti-war film. The film is excellently shot, direct and acted to its exacting specifications and purpose to show the perspective of and repercussions for an American Sniper. Chris Kyle the real deal American Sniper as a self professed sheepdog protecting his flock from wolves was able to endure insanity and sacrifice without going insane at least not to the last. American Sniper is Chris’s view into “flatland” through the magnification of a military spec scope where there are only friendlys, foes and potential threats. There is no third dimension of humanity in flatland the people and landscape are two dimensional. Combat filters and compresses and magnifies only the most essential information and emotions needed to stay alive and kept your comrades alive. Flatland bleeds into Chris’s psyche and when on the home front distorts his life and personal relationships. Acts commented in flatland can haunt the soul on return to the “real” world of three dimensional feelings. Many veterans can never make the transition retrieving emotions and feelings checked at the door in flatland can cause devastating guilt, dreams and stresses that can spawn a host of problems, addiction, depression PTSD and more. On a flag waving level the film extols the man and his brothers in arms and degrades the endogenous people, these the fortunes of war are the loud but lesser message. The film has a deeper message. I have asked many a “patriot” over a beer “Would you want your son to grow up to be an American Sniper.” The vast majority reply “Oh hell no.” The cost of living in flatland can give pause to even ardent “patriots.” Perhaps the bard or film makers did or did not intend the second message. Further many who view the film get stuck on the cheer of the first and miss the whispering of the second message. At one level American Sniper is a powerful antiwar film. I hope this in time becomes the takeaway message.
The question is very easy to answer. You just need to find out, how the movie is funded.
All I know about Benghazi, how the Republicans tried to overlay their hoax on the real story of Benghazi being a CIA annex, the story about arms trafficking, heat-sinking missiles from Ghaddafi’s arms depots to Syria by CIA, also covered up, this movie is the next “American Sniper”.
You should have mentioned the documentary “Operation Hollywood” and the CIA also runs a huge PR department in Hollywood. Watch “Wag the dog”. You see also the villains switch according to what is en vogue in Washington, which people the military industrial complex needs to be demonized.
It called individual artistic freedom and is a center piece of the culture of a free society. An “Artist’s” work can be a true classic masterpiece or a stupid racist piece of propaganda or as with “Birth of a Nation” both. In the worst case facts and reality are destroyed when selected ideas, works of art such as books, are forbidden or burned. Artistic freedom and critical analysis of it if not the heart beat are the pulse of freedom. Both artistic freedom and criticism should be a given, where one or both are lacking free expression and thought are lost. A film maker can make the film they want and IT can criticize as they wish and we as watchers and readers have the responsibility and duty to inform ourselves and make up our own minds. Opinions, reviewers and reviews vary this is a good thing. A populace that lacks the educational preparation and hard work to make good judgments on art or policy concerning truth or fiction, myth or reality is a bad thing.
The problems we have with propaganda are obvious. “…I worried more about being shot by one of the Blackwater cowboys than being blown up by a car bomb” — that’s a beautiful (and terrible) sentence! But I wonder if we miss sometimes that a movie maker can have a ‘pro-war’ vision that is aspirational – that he might not be motivated, at least not solely, by the desire to cover up the facts, but also the desire to show how the war is supposed to work in the minds of those who had some grand and noble image of it. I mean, there _is_ something beautiful in those films from the mid to late 40s sometimes, isn’t there. despite all their bias?
I think sometimes a writer or director pictures his film, novel, comic book being seen by children, and he’s not really looking to have a bunch of people think that our military is out there acting like Captain America – he just wants the people who join those forces to have had a chance to DREAM of being Captain America, and not just of getting the chance to spoon peanut butter up some nobody detainee’s behind.
In literature there are so many different factors that can be balanced, so many ways to highlight one thing or another about society, so when is an author of fiction truly wrong?
In other words you’re trying to tank it before it even comes out. And because you love Clinton you’re hoping this doesn’t make her look bad but just in case you’ll start bashing the movie now.
What do you base this statement on? “And because you love Clinton…”?
This is getting ridiculous. So American Sniper and Lone Survivor didn’t portray the people we were at war with in a positive enough light? Just a crazy hypothesis I have, but maybe one of the factors involved in this decision could be that these were films made by and for Americans. Mind-blowing, I know, but perhaps a theory that warrants consideration.
“This is getting ridiculous. So American Sniper and Lone Survivor didn’t portray the people we were at war with in a positive enough light?”
Understanding why people act isn’t equivalent to showing them in a “positive” light. The problem is that there isn’t any context for the actions the attackers take in either of the two movies, so the “bad guys” come off as bloodthirsty hordes of mostly nameless brown people, merely evil and opposed to us because of their wickedness. Art like that doesn’t elucidate people; it just disorients them by obfuscating history.
I’m with Team America; Michael Bay sucks Big Time. Pearl Harbor was a Hollow Cost. How low can he ball that jack?
Gaming rights pending…Imperialdickheads: Homegrown Edition.
I’m about as anti war as it comes, especially this “war on terror” that is never ending. I finally broke down and watched Sniper because I let my husband pick the movie for movie night..I fully expected the war worshipping, biased depiction I heard it was. I didn’t get that from watching it, and I was looking for it. If anything, if I had been pro war, it might have made me rethink that stance after seeing how war negatively impacts both soldiers and civilians. I think it handled the human and internal conflicts very fairly and well.
The negative reaction to the film is probably more related to the timing than the content — you know, why this and why now?
And it is worth asking, why are we being offered a hero sniper movie concurrent with the growing painful awareness of the illegality and cost of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and their aftermath, the destruction of middle eastern economies, and the resulting flood of refugees into Turkey and western Europe?
Yet somehow it sells, and it looks like most people (westerners, at least) would rather hear this kind of story faced with the alternative (not that it helps the returning soldiers any). Personally, I think most of it is about pressing the right emotional buttons.
“American Sniper has earned more than half a billion dollars so far . . ”
Yes, it seems like the psychological templates developed to sell these things have actually evolved the market to the point where it now wants to consume what the studio produces. Anyways, I can’t tell the difference anymore. 13 hours looks like this year’s model SUV or something.
Yes it is just a movie but cinema is the new mythology. It is not the fault or responsibility of the bard to tell the truth, they tell a story often a myth to entertain that can have elements of cultural bias or even propaganda. This is only a problem as in America today when our educational system fails to teach the difference between history and mythology, reality and cinema. We are too often left with culture without factual context. Left to ignorance of self education I for context like to contrast films for example a double feature of “Birth of a Nation” and “Blazing Saddles” both are entertaining but farcical.
The U.S. might as well misrepresent its history through cinema. No one will be much the wiser.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/07/30/3686060/conservatives-get-major-win-fight-ap-history-classes/
Pearl Harbor was Tea Pot’s service station for the surplus after installing the western oil infrastructure under our no-bid noses, Domeheads. Next, those Squirts took the Navy off of King Coal to usher in a new era in energy consumption. Rather conspicuously once the turd got out and Tea Pot blew…I thought you knew, Vera Cruz.
Imperialists enlisting our naval reserves for their future bombardment patterns. Over. Take out Pearl – you only got squirrel power in those Pacific engines, matey. NUTZ!
See The Nostalgia Critic’s review of Pearl Harbor. His review is extremely critical, and not for trivial reasons, but for reasons that really matter and that address your concerns about this “13 Hours” movie that Michael Bay has directed.
Nostalgia Critic — Pearl Harbor 30 minute youtube video
“It’s certainly true that American soldiers often perform heroically in the wars they fight” – more glorification of the nonsense. War is murder and it shames US all.
What’s worse is the cinematic glorification of an existential enemy: the Confederate States of America, depicted as a gallant lost cause, from “Birth of a Nation” through “Gone With The Wind” and “Outlaw Josey Wales” to “Gods and Generals.” About as vile as it gets.
We may have an interesting counter-narrative when the Matthew McConaughey film “Free State of Jones” comes out next year.
Obama and Clinton stand with hands on their hearts at the Benghazi memorial. What hypocrites; they are the ones who killed these men, after all. Yet, you, Maas, are getting all in a sweat about a little Hollywood veneration of heroes and denigration of maniacal killers. Why’s that? You in the business of excusing the bad guys, blaming the victims and scolding some poor innocent loser for the actions of some Islamist lunatics, too? I wouldn’t worry about a little Hollywood exaggeration, if I were you. I can see past the propaganda all the way from Canada, and I bet most Americans can, too.
The second part of your statement totally cancels out any credibility you claimed for yourself in the first part. Most Americans obviously cannot see past the propaganda. That’s why there is multiple millions to be had making dangerously nationalistic movies such as American Sniper. And billions to be made by owning corporate bottom line propaganda network and Cable TV . Horse shit sells. Just watch any political campaign unfolding in the US from top to bottom. Who is currently leading in the Democratic and the Republican presidential campaigns? Clinton and Trump, You cannot make this stuff up to be worse than it actually is.
Since you’re claiming or betting that most Americans can see past the propaganda, I have to very much doubt that you yourself “can see past the propaganda” all the way from Canada. By the way, a lot of “Hollywood” movies are actually produced in Canada.
You missed the point. Clearly out of your depth.
Which was … what, exactly?
Did you know that Steve Harvey wears the same pantsuits as Hillary Clinton does?
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These movies are dissapointing to me coming from Hollywood. The true incident is still fresh in recent memory, and they are already producing a movie about it. It is hard not to see this as some kind of perverted propaganda glorifying the U.S. I’m all for a good war movie. But this with American sniper is no better than those communist war time propaganda announcements.
“Studio executives prefer to back movies we are willing to buy tickets for, and crowd-pleasers tend to have heroic narratives in the John Wayne mold, which is why for every Apocalypse Now or Three Kings there seem to be a dozen American Snipers or Lone Survivors.”
In fairness there have been some Hollywood anti-war films like Redacted and Green Zone, but they’ve all bombed at the Box Office. Even Hurt Locker failed to gain much of an audience, despite the Oscars. Part of it is that since Vietnam there’s been a weird cult of the solider that’s grown even as the wars themselves are very unpopular. I don’t think you could make a Platoon or an Apocalypse Now in today’s climate. It’s odd because many of the soldiers in Vietnam War were draftees while troops in Iraq and especially contractors are very well paid professionals.
I haven’t been to a movie theater in fifteen years but I will be going to this movie. I want to support the five CIA contractors that risked everything to save over thirty people. If they had been given the red light to go right away they could have save everyone. Two of the contractors died during the 13 hour battle, President Obama should give the remaining hero’s the highest honor.
You must be unaware that those that died were willing sacrificed to keep truth from the public.
It was a set up to silence the truth about arms deals and curruption by the US. The whole of the Libyian mess was a foreign policy discission by Hilllary Clinton. She allowed the demise of players that could have been a thorn in her side. Hence the disception by her since. And you fools will elect her president.
If this is what’s coming up, I’m beginning to get a little nervous about “Snowden.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3774114
I mean, Zachary Quinto? As Glenn Greenwald? (I suppose it could have been worse, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Glenn and Jesse Eisenberg as Snowden, but even so.)
More Ziowood trash to keep dupes duped.
“One of the problems with Hollywood war movies is that they rarely tell us what we need to know about the wars we engage in.”
Isn’t this the job of the news, not Hollywood movies? Does every movie have to be a documentary? It’s a movie. It’s about war. Some people will watch it and think it’s real. Those are the same people that think believe in Oliver Stone movies, pixie dust, unicorns, and generally vote democrat. The rest of the country realizes its just a MOVIE.
“Yes, it’s only a movie, and one we’re not able to see until January. But movies seem to do more to shape our understanding of warfare, valor and foreigners than any other form of popular culture, and it seems we are heading toward another feel-good brainwash.”
You the man.
Propaganda by any other name would smell so fetid.