I hadn't noticed, personally, any issues about TV covering wars. The History channel pretty much lives off it. As does a lot of Sunday TV.

I have a problem with the amount of American Propaganda films (especially about Vietnaam, and how awful the treatment of those mass murdering and raping patriotic Vets was). There's too much glamour and idolising of what should only be a worse case scenario, for my taste.

But I believe in freedom of speach, and if they're getting there voice louder it's because they're saying something most people want to hear.

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by Jayjay
I have a problem with the amount of American Propaganda films (especially about Vietnaam, and how awful the treatment of those mass murdering and raping patriotic Vets was).

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I'm actually struggling to think of a single film about Vietnam which fits the bill of 'American Propaganda'. While most American films inevitably do tend to focus on the American experience of the war, they rarely portray the USA in a positive light. Oliver Stone, most notably, has made films which concern the treatment of veterans, but then, since he was one, I think that's forgiveable.

Examples of Vietnaam films I would call 'American Propaganda':

Platoon
Hamburger Hill
Full Metal Jacket
Missing In Action

These are the ones that leap to mind. Although not technically war films I would also include Rambo II and III (but I'll let First Blood off the hook).

However, Oliver Stone should get a special mention for Heaven and Hell, as it the only American film about the Vietnaam war that even tries to tell the story from the Vietnaamese perspective.

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by JayJay
Platoon
Hamburger Hill
Full Metal Jacket

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None of these films are American Propaganda they are all Very Anti-American and Anti-American Involvement in Vietnam (post the war)
As the earlier post stated they all portray the Americans in a bad light,
Platoon and Full Metal Jacket both have the Americans Burning Villages, or flying over Paddy fields indescriminatly shooting anyone on the ground

Rambo are propaganda, for the vets, it portrays a vet who is not shown to be killing civillains being torchered by the VC, overcomming it and then being mistreated by the Americans for being in Vietnam (as a Result of the Anti-Vietnam films such as those above). The later Rambo films are not only propaganda for the Vets but also for the US as Rambo is brought back as a super soldier winning later covert actions something the Americans failed to do in the overt vietnam war.

The Vietnam propaganda films made during the vietnam war mostly before 1970, I.E. John Wayne (if I remember corretly in the Green Berets, with Vietmanese war ophans being adopted by the American soldiers (ad hoc in camp after the VC or the NVA (not the Americans or ARVN "Army of the Republic of Vietnam" ) killed their parents, the war in these films was being portrayed not just as a war for democracy (despite the fact that The republic of Vietnam (south) was a millitary dictatorship that was refusing to allow a referendum on the type of govenment wanted by the majority either a democracy, the status quo, or unification with the North into a socialist republic) which it had agreed to on independence. The Vietnam war in these films was portayed as being fought for the children of Vietnam (ignoring realities of life such as many children in Vietnam being forced into prostitution and fedual labour by the wealthy Vietmanese minority (most of whome were educated in Paris with forebearers who were a part of the colonial establishment). For the wealthy Vietmanese the only post independence (from France) difference was that they were not near the top of the social order, they were the top, they were able to use the French colonial hotels and retreats. They wanted to keep that, democracy would have cost them it, if democracy led to the ordinary people of Vietnam being given help to build better lives.

(Edited by Gopher 12/07/2002 15:46)

(Edited by Gopher 12/07/2002 15:49)

Now to the original point, a war film can show the Americans in a bad light it lasts for two hours and can have shock potential.
Full Metal jacket
Casualties of War
Platoon
All of which contain good and bad Americans as primary characters and good and bad Vietmanese all jumbled up in the blender of Vietnam.
A series can't do that, you cannot have bad Americans being able to get away with things week after week, it would be sending a message that it is Ok to do what you want.
Tour of Duty, based somewhat on Full Metal Jacket had a platoon not trying to win the war, not super soldiers, not martyers trying to clean up the American soldiers in Vietnam, they made mistakes, they witnessed the actions of bad Americans, used hookers (in effect using the Vietmanese people), and tried to survive, they were not portraying squeeky clean American ideals, they were not butchering raping killers, the series had to walk a fine line so to be able to continue with the same charcters week after week.

Comics on the other hand do tend to portray the lead charaters as squeeky clean heroes (those in the 80's at least) Battle used to have a series with an German WW2 unit unit that was appalued by the actions of the German Army and the SS, carried out the rules of war on the russian front. In effect they became the good guys.
Johhny red (fighter pilot again, never breaking rules even it it meant going against superiors of his own side).
Charlies war (WW1 and 2) again never killing prisoners, though he did eventually shoot a mad major (on his side) who was killing prisoners in an attempt to stop him.
In no Comic or TV series I can think of were the "heroes" ever portayed as torchering someone, murdering someone (except to save lives or in the normal course of fighting) or raping someone, the enemies were (though in Charlies war even charlie relised that the image of the "Murderding raping hun" was british propaganda) and secondary characters brought in just for that part of the story were portayed as doing that, eventually to be removed and stopped by the actions of the primary character.

So Whilst films can have Anti Heroes (Freddie Kruger, Haniball Lector), and even sequels, series cannot, they have to be watched (or read) for hour after hour, you cannot base a series around the concept of having someone do bad things for 7 years (seasons) keep the viewer waiting avidly for justice to be brought on the anti hero, then in the final episode have that justice be brought, in the same way you can in a two hour movie.

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by Gopher
So Whilst films can have Anti Heroes (Freddie Kruger, Haniball Lector), and even sequels, series cannot, they have to be watched (or read) for hour after hour, you cannot base a series around the concept of having someone do bad things for 7 years (seasons) keep the viewer waiting avidly for justice to be brought on the anti hero, then in the final episode have that justice be brought, in the same way you can in a two hour movie.

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And why do we need to see justice be brought? Indeed, in 'Silence of the Lambs', nothing of the sort happens to Hannibal Lector (haven't seen or read 'Hannibal, so don't know about that). For an example of a very successful TV show which does have what might be called an anti-hero (and indeed, almost no sympathetic characters at all), see the Sopranos.

Good points in a state of dan
Forgot about the ending of Hannibal, though at the end of the film he was living free in a costal resort (if I remember right) society had judged him as guily, he was convicted.
Not seen the sopranos so I can't really comment on it.

Hamburger hill,
I was trying to come up with a reason why Hamburger Hill could not be called an American propaganda film. However as it was so long since I have seen it, and I have seen so many others I could not remember and be sure any memories of parts of the film are from that film.
However Hamburger Hill has one thing in common with an earlier book and film "All quiet on the western front", that is it shows the U.S. millitary leadership making errors costing lives. They kept on trying to take the one point, attack after attack, friendly fire due to bad communication.
The Americans were not the first to make this mistake, the French made exactly the same mistake in trying to hold a position against the Viet Minh at Dienbienphu in 1954, when French soldiers eventually surrerendered, as the French had kept on pouring in more and more troops to that location in an attempt to hold it.

OK, I'm going to try and explain why I used the phrase 'American Propaganda' and listed the films that I did.

Firstly, I do not mean to imply that they portray all Americans as perfect gents fighting a noble war with strong leadership. What these films do is portray a general body of the US army as being basically good boys, with a few psycho bad apples, and incompetent leadership, making their lives hell. The message is - Our guys went through hell and died needlessly.

I consider this American propaganda as it backs the dominant post-war opinion of events in Vietnam - that it was a messy war which the American troops never stood a chance of winning. Which misses the point that it was an immoral war, and a brutal attack on the Vietnamese people, all because of the American People's paranoia about the Soviet regime, and therefore all forms of Communism. And if you read the reports of events in Vietnam, you'll also realise that it wasn't just a few psycho bad apples, but that the heinous acts committed by US soldiers happened on mass. I would recommend anyone to read about events in My Lai to get an idea of just how bad things were.

I should also point out that I left out First Blood, as essentially in tackles issues of social exclusion, and the plight of US veterans of the Vietnam War after returning home. There are some references to the nature of the war, and its merit, but these are few and far between, and are additions made (at Stallone's request, as I understand it) to the original text from the book it was based on.

However, the two sequels make it quite clear that the position of the writer is that the Vietnam could have (and should have) been won, if it werenÂ’t for a bunch of hippies and pencil pushers in charge of the army. The message is that the reason of the war was just, only the ending of it was wrong. This is why they epitomise what I am complaining about.