At the end of class on Wednesday we saw a clip of a combat documentary that was shown in theaters during WWII to help people get behind the war and realize what we were fighting for. This got me thinking that since the beginning of the Iraq war there has not been a movie made showing any positives of this war(at least none that I am aware of, please correct me if there are any). Would it make a difference? In an age more driven by pop culture and movies than the 40s would seeing the positive outcomes of this war gather more supporters? Did it even make a difference during WWII?
I found this excerpt from an article at http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/ww2/combatfilms.html
"Many of our deepest images of war's glory and ugliness come from World War II combat films. They helped shape our very conceptions of courage, patriotism, and teamwork. Their images remain firmly etched in our imagination: of Axis troops torturing and mutilating prisoners...but these war films did much more: they helped educate viewers in the reasons why we fought by depicting "democracy in action."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The media has a huge effect on people's moral, just look at Vietnam. Yet with WW2, unlike Vietnam or Iraq, there is far less live action film going into people's living rooms. War was still more romantic and there was a clearer line between good and evil, right and wrong. Today this doesn't hold true.
I too found this extremely interesting. Was it movie studios that were producing these films to play during showings of movies in the theaters? Was it funded by the government? Why aren't these types of films prevalent anymore? Is it since television that they don't have these anymore?
Post a Comment