When the movies go to war and seldom give peace a chance

Presentation at St. Thomas More College

Gerald Schmitz, 20 March 2015

Twelve years ago yesterday was an important anniversary. I was celebrating my mother Denise’s 90^th birthday—she’s a still vibrant 102! But returning from her birthday dinner and turning on the television were the images of missiles raining down on Baghdad. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq had begun with the so-called “shock and awe” campaign.

Here we are in March 2015 and Canada, which resisted being drawn into the 2003 quagmire, is technically at war in Iraq, dropping bombs on forces of the terroristic so-called “Islamic State” which controls significant parts of Iraq, Syria, and potentially Libya as well. Canada no longer has any military involvement in Afghanistan. But it’s hardly mission accomplished. Levels of violence against civilians in Afghanistan increased last year to over 10,500 casualties, the highest since 2009. Going on 14 years, the so-called “global war on terror” has had staggering costs in blood and treasure. On current evidence it has to be judged an enormous failure even if Western governments are loath to admit it.

What does this any of this have to do with the movies? More than you might think. From the beginning Hollywood, with its global cultural influence, has been in love with making war movies celebrating patriotic American virtues. As a form of mass entertainment par excellence, movies have long shaped popular attitudes towards war.   Yes “war is hell”, but being on the victorious right side of history in the world wars helped to make it justifiable. So we have WWII movies like Saving Private Ryan which memorialize an ideal of righteous heroic sacrifice as does Brad Pitt’s Fury released last year.