They don't make war films like they used to

It is far more common in contemporary war films, regardless of the conflict being depicted, for the three elements of the classic war movie to be turned on their heads. U.S. troops are more likely than not to be portrayed as sick, warped, and demented--in any case, very different from normal Americans. The audience quite often is manipulated to root for the other side, whoever or whatever the other side happens to be. Furthermore, whatever the war, the audience is left with the idea that it is meaningless.

Think of "Platoon," which won the Academy Award for best picture in 1986. It gives viewers an absolutely nightmarish vision of Vietnam. Most of the characters close to the main character, played by Charlie Sheen--including a demonic sergeant portrayed by Tom Berringer--are dangerous, dysfunctional, and horrible. The U.S. military is seen as being in Vietnam primarily to kill and torture people and burn villages--and, of course, the message is that the war was totally meaningless. Or consider "Dances with Wolves," another Oscar winner, in which Kevin Costner stars as an officer who is a traitor to his country. He abandons the Army and goes to fight with the Sioux. The American military--again--is seen as sadistic and disgusting and inferior in every way to the peaceful, refined, and altogether enlightened Sioux warriors.

"Cold Mountain" is a Civil War film in which every aspect of that war is seen as nightmarish and pointless. Then there was "Revolution," a perfectly dreadful picture in which Al Pacino, his Bronx accent fully intact, plays a veteran of the American War for Independence. It has George Washington and company kidnapping people and forcing them to fight against their will, whereas the British are decent and the entire war is shown to be hypocritical at best. The list could go on and on. In "A Few Good Men," Tom Cruise exposes the military monster played by Jack Nicholson. "The General's Daughter," starring John Travolta, oozes with military corruption--but you get the point.

So, why the change in approach? Why has Hollywood decided to make movies that characterize the military as unrepresentative and twisted, the U.S. as a malignant force in the world, and all wars as pointless? Apologists will say that, in Vietnam, we discovered a different face--the true face--of the military. We saw the hideous acts of Lieut. William Calley, Jr., who massacred several hundred villagers at My Lai. We heard stories, such as those told by John Kerry before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, about how U.S. atrocities in Vietnam were not the exception, but the rule. Furthermore. these Hollywood apologists will say the Vietman War revealed American idealism to be a sham and demonstrated that the U.S. is not a beacon of freedom, rather an imperialist threat. Thus, Susan Sarandon, one of the "intellectual leaders" of the Hollywood community, stated in 1991 that the U.S. "is a land that has raped every area of the world." As for the idea that war is meaningless, this is presented as a natural (and beneficial) realization arising from Vietnam as well. Because 58,000 brave young Americans died for no reason in Vietnam, they maintain, it is inevitable and good that people have become deeply and permanently disillusioned about war in general.