Hollywood Goes To War?

USA Today had a piece the other day about Hollywood's response to the Iraq war.

No, really. They have one. I was amazed, too.

The piece starts:

In a reflection of America's conflict in Iraq, a proliferation of TV and film projects is focusing on the U.S. military, the war or both.

Big-screen ventures in the works range from dramas (No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah, set to star Harrison Ford; and Jarhead, about the Gulf War and starring Jamie Foxx and Jake Gyllenhaal, opening Nov. 11) to comedies (The Tiger and the Snow, starring Roberto Benigni) and documentaries (Gunner Palace, opening March 4).

I'm almost interested in "No True Glory", which is an adaptation of a not-yet-released book by Bing West, author of (among others) The March Up, one of the best books yet about the Iraq War.

More:

Television is even more emboldened:

• Three cable channels are solely devoted to all things military.

• Award-winning producer Steven Bochco is creating Over There, a drama series about an Army unit serving in Iraq, set to air this summer on FX.

• Even NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives has a plotline about a Marine who is deployed in the war on terror.

Bochco. Ugh. Stand by for the world's first military soap opera.

I don't know about you, but I'm picturing "NYPD Blue" with tanks; Dennis Frantz will play a crusty, complex general with a dark side.

But not any and every angle of war is being depicted. One aspect is glaringly absent from most projects: negativity. The U.S. soldier is the hero; his cause is just. Storylines featuring the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal or war protests are no-nos.

"That gets you into arenas of policy," says Bochco, who has written four episodes of Over There, which is filming in Santa Clarita, Calif. "We'll be telling the story about young people's experience in war. I've always tried to stay off a soap box. I don't think proselytizing is good storytelling."...FX's John Landgraf, who came up with the idea of setting a show in Iraq, says it's surprising there haven't been more projects about recent military conflicts.

"The best purpose of television and film is to tell stories that are truthful and of the moment and dig into the human experience," Landgraf says. The Iraq war "is such a grand natural human drama."

But it's also an explosive issue that can alienate viewers and advertisers. Criticize the war, and you could be accused of criticizing the warriors, Maltin says. Even Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's scathing documentary of the Iraq conflict and the war on terror, was careful not to attack the troops, he says.

"In Vietnam, the anti-war movement gradually became an anti-military, anti-soldier attitude," a concept that was reflected in pop culture, says Bing West, 62, who is writing the Battle for Fallujah screenplay with his son, Owen, a Marine infantry officer.

"The films coming out now are pro-soldier. I think it genuinely says that Americans across the political spectrum have a strong degree of admiration for the military" despite how they might feel about the war in Iraq, West says.

Alternate explanation: Hollywood looked at the results of the last few elections and realized that the MASH market is dead and gone.

I'll be interested in seeing No True Glory. The rest? Not so much.

Posted by Mitch at February 10, 2005 05:00 AM | TrackBack