Draft Hollywood
THERE HAS NEVER been an age without war, not ever. Mass violence is a continual aspect of the human condition. Peace, like good weather, is always local and temporary -- and what is peace anyway but the result of past victories in war and the effective threat of future war against would-be aggressors?
We play with our children, read books, go to work and enjoy recreations only because people with guns stand ready, willing and able to kill other people with guns who would kill us if they could.
It's sweet to forget this and therefore difficult to keep it in mind. "It is hard for those who live near a Police Station to believe in the triumph of violence," as T.S. Eliot wrote. That's us -- we Americans, protected by a mighty military that by and large obeys the rules of our republic -- safe enough, and keeping much of the world safe enough, so that we find it hard to believe in what would happen if that protection failed.
But these fighters do keep us safe. And because keeping us safe is harsh, dangerous work, we should glorify them, exalt them in story and song by way of appreciation.
"United 93" -- the film celebrating the heroic civilian attempt to retake a hijacked plane on 9/11 -- opened last week. That's great. Well done and about time. But now, let's have some war movies.
We need some films celebrating the war against Islamo-fascism in Afghanistan and Iraq -- and in Iran as well, if and when that becomes necessary. We need films like those that were made during World War II, films such as 1943's "Sahara" and "Action in the North Atlantic," or "The Fighting Seabees" and "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," which were released in 1944.
Not all of these were great films, or even good ones, but their patriotic tributes to our fighting forces inspired the nation.
More than that, they reminded the country what exactly it was that those forces were fighting to defend. Though many of these pictures now seem almost hilariously free with racist tirades against "sauerkrauts," and "eyeties" and "Tojo and his bug-eyed monkeys," they were also carefully constructed to display American life at its open-minded and inclusive best.
Every roll call of Hollywood's U.S. troops seems to include a Ragazzi and a Donovan, a Hellenopolis, a Novasky, and a wisecracking Roth. "Sahara" even throws in the black "Mohammedan" Tabul, a Sudanese ally. This may have been corny, but it was also more or less realistic, and it depicted the war as a conflict between our lovably mongrel melting pot and the despicable Axis ideal of racial purity.
