On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 05:27:32 -0400, Stephen Harding
wrote:

["The Patriot" being a pack of xenophobic rubbish]

It was a *movie* not a documentary.

So was "The Eternal Jew".

It wasn't "offensive myths".

I'll be the judge of that, as my nationality was on the receiving end
of the mythology concerned. I'll let an American judge how offensive
or otherwise a Vietnamese movie portraying Americans as effette,
murderous war criminals might be. If you find the demonisation of
American which passes for popular analysis in Arab and European
culture to be offensive, I can tell you right now I wouldn't be
appearing to patronisingly lecture you about why you shouldn't feel
offended about the inaccuracies and lies this involves, in fact I
would be agreeing with you.

But what is the sum of those "liberties": an All-American hero who
uniquely refuses to own slaves on a Carolinan estate*, British forces

Not so unique, or even if it was, so what?

So much for the historical factual background you attribute to it.
When the level of accurate representation involved means that the hero
happens to employ a sizeable percentage of the entire free black
population in the Carolinas at the time, you should question the
validity of the historical representation involved. And if the
validity of the historical representation doesn't matter, just give
them all automatic weapons and make the British invading Space Aliens
instead. Somehow, I suspect you'd agree in those cases that
historical accuracy can become significant.

It was unique but not unheard of for Blacks to own slaves as well. Again,
so what? I suspect a movie about such individuals would not be well
received by the political Black community here, although I think it would
be an interesting study.

It would indeed, and it would serve a more valid pupose than yet
another outing for the hackneyed Anglophobic rebels vesus effete
aristocratic British tyrants hero myth.

Road runners don't blow up coyotes.

The road runner cartoons aren't specifically and deliberately located
in a particular historical framework. "The Patriot" was.

What these "liberties" amount to is a distinct and discernable agenda,
and is just as ideologically driven as a Communist-controlled film
about revolts in the Imperial Russian Navy.

So I take it you're giving the movie a three thumbs down?

As I stated, it's a pile of ****, relying on the exploitation of
prejudice to entertain. Strangely enough, being on the sharp end of
that prejudice isn't particularly entertaining for some people.

Contemporary films do their share of simplification of issues in the other
direction as well.

All films simplify. The point is that the simplifications and
distortions in this case are specifically designed to demonise one
specific agency in an ahistorical manner.

Although there aren't many projects involving Indian
characters, is there any such thing as a "bad" Indian in a movie any more?

Indeed, precisely my point. For whatever reasons (political
opposition, political correctness, even genuine fatigue with the
cliches involved) Hollywood has moved, or been forced to move, from
the prejudicial portrayal of American Indians and blacks. No such
sensitivity or ability to cast aside historical prejudice exists when
it comes to staging a drama based on the American revolution. Even
the Germans in WW2 get a more diverse approach these days.

It was a *MOVIE*!!!

So you keep saying. As I said, "The Eternal Jew" is also a movie. Do
you find *it* entertaining? Or are you aware of the prejudice and
antagonism that particular production exploits, and do you find it
subtracts from the entertainment value somewhat?

That's a transparent fig-leave of consideration in the torrent of
national prejudice being poured out in that movie.

You're not going to give it any points whatsoever are you.

Not after "Braveheart", but then I actually have to live in the
country that Randall Wallace and Mel Gibson liked to inflame
nationalist prejudice in. I am aware of the consequences of it. They
can fly back to Hollywood.

I'd have to wonder if you've ever found a military aviation movie to your
liking, given the vast majority of them are so blatantly wrong in the
technical depiction of the subject.

I've enjoyed several. I'll willing to suspend my disbelief if the
simplifications, generalisations and compromises inevitable in any
film production aren't grossly offensive. In "Angels One Five", for
example, there is plenty of stock cliche which was dictated by the
contemporary context, including a rather patronising portrayal of a
pilot from northern Scotland (i.e., where I come from) which relied on
blanket stereotyping. That could very easily have been gratuitously
offensive, but it was written and acted in a subtle and shaded enough
fashion to be believeable.

But that kind of movie will never be made. It just doesn't hit the
right buttons in an audience that has been simply brainwashed on the
subject since their earliest history lessons in school.

There are lots of great subjects, with complex interactions, that
could be made into great movies, that aren't.

Indeed, but "The Patriot", with a little less graphic violence could
have been made in 1956 or 1936 or written as a stage play in 1876.
Charles Laughton reprising his role as Captain Bligh as Tavington,
Clark Gable as Gibson's character, etc, etc. If it had been made then
I wouldn't have the same problems with it to any extent. It wasn't.

Doesn't mean there is any
"guarding of myths" political agenda being carried out to suppress such
enterprises.

I don't believe anybody is suppressing such movies. I believe Randall
Wallace and Mel Gibson knew very well that a movie celebrating the
traditional cliches of the murderous, aristoctatic British and the
rough-hewn, down-home, heroic American guerillas would hit the right
requirements to capitalise on existing American prejudices.

People go to the movies to be entertained, not educated.

It's not a question of education. There's no reason a film which
avoids such gratuitous stereotypes and ahistorical distortions has to
be worthy, dull and boring.

If you want
to brush up on the intricacies of Revolutionary War history, even Ken
Burns isn't going to do it fully right. You need to read a lot of books.

It's not a question of the minutae, it's a question about the most
basic and fundamental approach taken. Why did Mel Gibson make a
propaganda movie about a conflict when ended two centuries ago?

If you stay true to your demands on pure historical and technical
accuracy in movie making, you're probably not going to like *any*
movie that makes *any* reference to historical record.

It's not a question of moving to a ridiculous extreme to discredit any
attempt to make better movies. In the case of "The Patriot", it's a
question of moving it away from a ridiculous extreme that it inhabits
_already_.

The "Patriot" was simply a *movie*. It wasn't the gumint preparing for
war against the UK by initiating a brainwashing campaign on its citizens,
who will now riot if war is not declared.

It was a movie which was designed to reinforce existing popular
historical mythology about the very origin and definition of the
American state, and what defines you as an American. I'm sick and
tired of that depending upon the demonisation of the other nationality
involved.

Gavin Bailey

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