I was in my local Blockbuster recently carrying on a conversation with one of the associates. “Did you see Green Zone,” she asked. Knowing its anti-Iraq war slant I suggested I needed to wait until I could stomach the conclusion. Her response was suggestive of middle America. “Yeah,” she angrily agreed, “Why doesn’t Hollywood make a movie where we’re the good guys?!” The last time America was shown to be the “good guys” were films from the 1940’s or most any World War II epics brought to the big screen now. Hollywood needs to make pro-American 21st century war films. Left-leaning films such as Rendition, Jarhead, Lions for Lambs, Stop Loss, Redacted, and Brothers, portray an anti-American bias and show our soldiers as either victims or psychologically unstable. My friends in the military become immediately incensed by such portrayals. And judging from the poor showing at both box office and DVD rental counters, the general American public does not care to see its soldiers portrayed in a negative light either.
Toward the end of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, John Wayne, was fed up. He was tired of movies showing our men in uniform as unstable, psychological misfits. So John Wayne made a pro-American war movie, The Green Berets. The only politically conservative war movie to come out of The Cold War was directed by John Milius. Red Dawn included some early film performances by Patrick Swaysey and Charlie Sheen. Of late, pro-American movies have come from France. Luc Beeson, action film writer/producer/director promotes positive views of U.S. justice through movies such as Taken and From Paris with Love. Thankfully Hurt Locker won Academy Awards this past year for a provocative, yet positive perspective on America’s finest. A film which all Americans should watch, however, is The Stoning of Soryana M. The film is based on a true story of a Muslim woman who is stoned to death in her village. She has been set up on trumped up charges of adultery in her male dominated society. The sad tale of women abused makes me thankful again, not just for American freedoms but for those men and women who defend them. You see, American soldiers do not fight because they hate what is in front of them; they fight because they love what is behind them.
The associate at Blockbuster is right: we need movies to show Americans as “the good guys” for a change. I was picking up lunch at a local Subway a few weeks ago. Two men in uniform stepped up in line behind me. Instinctively, as I always do, I turned, shook their hands, and thanked them for their service to our country. Some day I would like to do the same to a Hollywood director. For Moody Radio, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.
The first hymn Mark ever learned was “The Marine Corps Hymn.” He still sings it with gusto to this day. To be aired on Moody Radio, Fall, 2010.