Posted by Roosta at h1.iplbath.com on May 25, 2001 at 11:56:23:
In Reply to: You ain't American? And a few points.... posted by Darth Dobbin on May 25, 2001 at 07:01:19:
: But we have had a few shining moments. WWII, and our actions during it, were some of those. Consider this- The US, after WWII, did not attempt to gain territory. In fact, it strongly urged other nations not to(who did anyway, which set the stage for further conflicts..cough..french.cough..) How amazing is that? We had, quite literally, conquored the world, and shown, at that point, complete and total military superiority, and had a weapon that made us THE superpower..AND WE DID NOT ANNEX, WREST CONTROL FROM, OR COLONIZE A SINGLE NATION. In fact, we re-built Japan,taking care NOT to dictate a new form of government, and set into motion plans that helped Germany rebuild as a soverign nation.
: After a war of that scale, with the balance so tipped in our favor, that's pretty fucking noble, dude.
: In closing: PEARL HARBOR the movie-- Feel free to bash to your heart's content, for reasons too obvious to name. Pearl Harbor the historic event, please leave alone. I've seen the spot where the Arizona was sunk. Bubbles rise still to this day. It's a powerful thing, and should be a solemn one, and I'd ask that your specifically NON-american self respect that.
I know nothing about Pearl Harbour the Movie. I do think that some of The Scarlet Spider's comments were too anti-American, but I fell maybe you've missed part of what he was trying to say.
World War II movies seem to be in vogue at the moment. Not to my taste, but there you go. What annoys some people, particularly the British, is the RE-WRITING of the war that goes on in these movies.
Pearl Harbour no doubt (by the very nature of the events it's about) describes parts of the war that heavily involved the Americans. I have no probelm with that but I'm sure it's a shit film for other reasons.
However, MANY nations joined together to win that one, and I feel that you post, Darth Dobbin, displays quite clearly the concerns of some people that these recent war movies paint a picture that the US won the war on it's own. Saving Private Ryan, I believe, was particularly guilty of this. U-571, what was going on there? The British captured the first Enigma, but that movie (although fictional) insinuates that the Americans did it.
In your post, particularly the parts I left above, you use phrases like '"We had", quite literally, conquored the world'. No, you hadn't. You and MANY other counties grouped together to defeat in battle a DIFFERENT group of countries. The USA did not win the war. They helped. They did not conquer the world. They helped other countries conquer part of the world.
I don't mean to belittle what the Americans did in the war, but if hearing these sort of sentiments upsets you, then consider how people in England and other countries that were involved feel when movies of this nature come out and we are ignored entirely.
And (again I don't want to belittle the American involvement in the war, but...) I feel I should point out that the events at Pearl Harbour FINALLY got the Americans to join the war, which the other countries they allied themselves with had already been fighting for some considerable time. Only when there was a personal affront to the American nation did you get involved, whereas Britain got involved because we felt that Hitler's actions in Poland were unjustifiable. Contrary to popular belief, there was never any risk of Germany trying to invade Britain if we'd just left them alone. Hitler admired our coutry before the war (not something I'm proud of, don't worry you heads about that), and only invaded as part of their war effort. Britain got involved to stop an injustice in Europe. America got involved because they got bombed and hit back.
Movies these days do not communicate this fact and there are many people that feel that this is a great, great injustice.
Peace.