The power of BACN compels you to go see crappy movies.

This week I've received automated letters from Sen. John Kerry and the ACLU encouraging me to see In the Valley of Elah and Rendition respectively.  Kerry writes:

You can't help but remember those words when you watch this movie. It's not an "anti-war" film; those words are too cheap and easy and clichéd. 

No, this is a film about soldiers and families -- and a family's search for the truth, and a nation's responsibility to be there for our troops not just when they're sent into battle, but when the boots come off and they come home.

I reviewed In the Valley of Elah very briefly in a recent episode of Show Me Your Titles.  I thought the film was terrible overall but the near hateful depictions of military families  and PTSD were especially galling.  I understand the desire to be a booster for films that address topics that are woefully misunderstood in our larger culture but getting behind films that portray soldiers with PTSD as bloodthirsty psychotic killers is not a productive step towards getting people the help they need and deserve.   

And FYI Hollywood, I grew up in a military family and I spent my entire adolescence around other military families. I've never met a single person who made their bed (with extra the tight corners!) the way every single military person in a movie does. And while we're on the subject, the only neo-Nazis and/or wifebeaters I've ever encoutered were all civilians.  Are you writing this down, Sam Mendes?

Then a few days later I received another e-mail blast from the ACLU telling me that the Reese Witherspoon/Jake Gyllenhaal vehicle Rendition is "all too real" and that it's my patriotic duty to go see this film.  Once again, rendition is a horrible practice that warrants much greater examination and discussion than is currently happening in our national discourse. But is forcing a bunch of soft-minded political melodrama down the throats of the American populace really the mode that ACLU wants to take to inform people about this very real danger?

Hats off to the film-makers who take on politically explosive topics (even when it's cloaked in Oscar-baiting histrionics) but films are supposed to convey emotional truths and possibilities, not necessarily facilitate education.  Political leaders and progressive non-profits should be focusing their efforts on outreach to make these topics more accessible to people, not working as cheap guerilla marketers filling my inbox with half-witted movie reviews.

See also: BACN is better than Spam.

Comments

[Erin]

Blah, you're right. Maybe people are too polite to ask me if my dad was a closet homosexuality (though they're certainly not too polite to ask if he beat my mom, hah!)

I never saw Jarhead but I don't remember that much closeted gayness in the book. Though I was reading through the lens of strange nostalgia for the "the good war".

[James van Maanen]

If you have not encountered wife beaters in the military, then perhaps you were not looking very hard, Erin. Wife beaters actually appear in all walks of life, I believe. What about closeted gays in the military? (Sam Mendes seemed more interested in showing that, by the way, than wife-beating--if we are talking about "American Beauty" rather than "Jarhead".)