Why are Iraq films failing?
Call me sentimental, but I still regard our armed forces with reverence and awe rather than with disgust and feelings of revulsion. I believe most Americans would agree. Perhaps this is why leftist-liberal propaganda films flop at the box office.
I’m talking about this clueless and insulting article at Time.com (to both audiences and the troops).
The author mentions how tough it is for far-leftist-liberal Hollywood, “to turn this war into edifying entertainment for the mass audience.” How tough could it be?
…there’s a slew of American movies on the subject: In the Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Rendition, Lions for Lambs and Redacted–and soon, Badland, Grace Is Gone and Charlie Wilson’s War. Most are worthy; some feature Oscar-winning actors and directors. And so far, all show how tough it is to turn this war into edifying entertainment for the mass audience. ~time.com
Obviously, it’s pretty damn hard for liberals to make edifying war movies. But then we know they would have an easier time making movies about the glorious revolution of Hugo Chavez. (Minus the creation of AK-47 factories and the closing of media outlets who dissent from Chavez’s dictatorship.) Their ideologically colored glasses won’t allow them to see anything heroic, useful, or dramatic in this war (or our soldiers). And unfortunately they think that audiences are too stupid to realize that they should revel in the anti-american education the left is trying to give them.
But quality, or lack of it, was irrelevant to audiences. They avoided both films like summer school. ~time.com
Imagine that. Why won’t American audiences take their medicine?
As a critic, I give the Iraq films now in release passing marks for good intentions and audiences an incomplete for poor attendance. ~time.com
What this film critic brings to light is the incredible disadvantage that Hollywood labors under. That is, the albatross of their own liberal anti-american politics. With films like Lions for Lambs and Redacted filmmakers seem to have reached the nadir of their preachy influence. Americans stubbornly refuse to convert to the ‘New Patriotism’ which looks a great deal like old fashioned treason and subversion but is now marketed by progressives as, “dissent,” the new and highest form of patriotism.
For example, a host of liberals will accept nothing less than defeat in war for American troops. Murtha (and Obama) says that our criminals, uh, I mean, rapist cold-blooded murderers, er, American soldiers can’t win this war. Harry Reid said the war was lost a long time ago.
All hail the new patriotism! Long may she waive.
You might be taking the wrong track here– several of the films were politically neutral. The lack of public interest is better explained through the fact that no one wants to be reminded of the war. During the Vietnam war, the movies of the war failed until several years had passed since the end of the war. Only then did movies begin to succeed.
Also, I think you are making a hasty generalization. Saying that the left wingers hate the troops as well as the war is false. Most liberals would see themselves as supporting the troops by trying to prevent more American lives from being lost. In that light, are their goals still immoral? Is it defeatist to believe that the cause we are fighting for is wrong, that the war is a waste of american lives, and that the war has been conducted as a farce?