#just some family time thassit

[madebysimblr]

A day with the Knox's~

[sonnywortzik]

do you have any recs for movies of tv shows in the genre war and military? something that doesn't glorify war. if you don't you don't have to asnwer this, have a nice day :)

i’d encourage you not to indulge an expectation that there is much in the way of military media that doesn’t glorify war on any level whatsoever. particularly when it comes to the united states military and the things it’s done there will always be an element of propaganda. it’s going to be working on you so you just gotta try to work on it back. 

i also recommend not consuming any screen media about war and/or the military without at least some context (i.e. if you have literally zero background information on the battle of mogadishu, don’t allow “black hawk down” to be your sole source of information about it). at best that context will enrich a well executed piece of art. at worst you’ll be better equipped to call bullshit re: any misinformation or blatantly unexamined prejudice in the material.

also, i personally gravitate toward movies that are character driven, especially re: depictions of trauma. which means i end up watching a lot of movies that are focused on the experience of (typically white & male) american soldiers. i try to counterbalance that through educating myself about the conflict depicted, and usually have more luck finding time and empathy extended to the civilian population of invaded countries, for example, in documentaries than i do in fictionalized american feature films. 

so here’s my little list of stuff that isn’t perfect (and some of which aren’t even necessarily that good) but that i think is worth your time considering where your head’s at:

t.v. shows:

generation kill*

the vietnam war

thassit (i haven’t actually watched much war shit made for television)

movies:

come and see

the messenger

the deer hunter

thank you for your service*

paths of glory

apocalypse now*

jarhead*

full metal jacket

M*A*S*H

documentaries:

taxi to the dark side

restrepo & korengal 

stray dog

the invisible war

drone

*based on a book i’ve read & consider worthwhile. 

“There is talk that many Vietnam films are antiwar, that the message is war is inhumane and look what happens when you train young American men to fight and kill, they turn their fighting and killing everywhere, they ignore their targets and desecrate the entire country, shooting fully automatic, forgetting they were trained to aim. But actually, Vietnam war films are all pro-war, no matter what the supposed message, what Kubrick or Coppola or Stone intended. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in Omaha or San Francisco or Manhattan will watch the films and weep and decide once and for all that war is inhumane and terrible, and they will tell their friends at church and their family this, but Corporal Johnson at Camp Pendleton and Sergeant Johnson at Travis Air Force Base and Seaman Johnson at Coronado Naval Station and Spec 4 Johnson at Fort Bragg and Lance Corporal Swofford at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base watch the same films and are excited by them, because the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man; with film you are stroking his cock, tickling his balls with the pink feather of history, getting him ready for his real First Fuck. It doesn’t matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are antiwar — the actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not.” 

— Anthony Swofford, Jarhead