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War according to Bruce Willis

Bruce Willis is feeling a bit of John Wayne patriotism, planning to make a film about the war in Iraq, about "who do what they are asked to for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom." David Kline blogs about Willis's plan, considering it an exercise in futility a la "The Green Berets," the John Wayne film about Vietnam:

Critics at the time called it "unspeakably stupid," and not just because it substituted white men in blackface for the dreaded Vietcong, Georgia pine forests for the tropical jungles of Vietnam, and a sun setting to the east off a beach in Da Nang for the usual place where the sun sets for the rest us in the real world (i.e., the west). The script was godawful, the characters aburd, and as a piece of political propaganda it was about as effective in generating public support for the war as General Westmoreland's "light at the end of the tunnel" speech -- which is to say, not effective at all.

Since the Willis film doesn't exist yet, it's hard to criticize – perhpas he'll make a film that ignores the dubious political motives behind the war and focuses on the bravery of combatants who believe they're fighting for democracy, and not for the schemes of neoconservative think tanks.

jon posted this at 11:45 PM
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