Act of Valor -- Stereotypes

--Happy International Women's Day

[T]he order of knight-errantry was instituted
to defend maidens, to protect widows,
and to rescue orphans and distressed persons
--Don Quixote, Cervantes

I have known many adventures in my time
. . . but war is not really an adventure at all,
it is only a substitute for adventure . . .
War is a disease
--Pilot de Guerre,
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Ma'am I am taking you home
--SEAL to Agent Morales
_________________

Act of Valor Part I -- Gender Relations


"What do you fight for?"

That's the challenge delivered but not answered by the Department of Defense-funded technicolor shoot-em-up, cotton-candy-for-the-mind film, Act of Valor (A of V). It is a recruiting tool par excellence, every bit as much as George Lucas's recent film on the Tuskeegee Airmen, Red Wings, a film he described as “Patriotic,” and “inspirational for teenage boys.” A of V is a piece of bombastic propaganda that might have embarrassed even Goebbels.

Even by measure of romantic notions of honor, courage, valor and warriorhood, the film did not pass muster. What were the brave SEALs fighting for? We presume for what all soldiers fight -- the completion of a military mission conducted in a military manner delineated by a clearly-defined objective that does not always move out to the next woodline.

A of V presents rough and tumble pretend military actions that were simply unfocused violence, as senseless as anything thrown our way by al Qaida. In addition, the objects of the SEAL's wrath were laughable as viable opponents and cut of the same Marlboro Man cardboard.

A Town and Country reviewer (3.12.12) gushed, "Historians will prize this recording of operations so close to the truth of actual combat." We wonder if the Townies are really qualified to make this assessment: Have they actually known anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan?

We had "The Green Berets" back in the 1960's, but we in Special Forces used to laugh at the film, understanding that it was a poor representation of the reality. Ranger thinks this world of gaming-addicted, virtual reality-living youth is not laughing in the same way.

A of V is not John Wayne in the Green Berets but in The Searchers -- a darker film in which Wayne embarks on an endless search fueled by hatred and violence against the Indian kidnappers of a white woman.

A of V grossed $24.5 million its premiere week. Where did that money go? Since my tax dollars funded the film, shouldn't the profits return to the U.S. Treasury? The General Accounting Office should examine this little feat of slicky-boyness. First, the military recruiters brought war game simulators into the malls; now, they've put their spiel in the cinemaplex. Getting future cannon fodder to pay for the privilege is brilliant.

The rest of this review will be in two parts: The Characters and the Action. Characters today; Action tomorrow.

This is a recruitment film, so it does the military well to target their audience of potential enlistees. Therefore, the Jessica Lynch of the film is a Latina Central Intelligence Officer, Agent Morales. In order to curry favor with largest demographic, we have the central action focusing around her rescue by the helmeted and often obscure SEALs.

The military already has a choke hold on the land of Jessica Lynch. If a poor resident desires to leave West Virginia et. al., the military is the still the best choice. However, the new rising pool of potential applicants comes from across the border.

Women in general are weak in the film, in keeping with Faludi's thesis in "The Terror Dream" that the events of 9-11-01 would usher in a neuvo-machismo which patronizes women so as to re-establish the power inequity. In this way, the film is -- as Lucas described his softball "Red Tails" -- “old-fashioned” and “corny”.

The little ladies are treated in fundamental Islamic style, sans burkhas. They are props to their oh-so-manly spouses and baby-making machines, suspended in animation until their heroes return dragging their dirty laundry and tumescent members. The women served up the sentimentality via tears at the final funeral scene.

One wonders why these guys even marry considering their flatline portrayal: Would guys with such low affect even desire a woman? If you are going to put women in your film, their dynamic with the lead should be developed somewhat, especially in 2012, and when the suggested subtext of your wars has been to develop gender parity. One imagines these men as Spartans, coming home only to procreate with their wives, who perhaps are shorn of their hair and dressed in manly clothing for the event. (The screenwriter also wrote the Spartan film, "300".)

Our Jessica Lynch-cum-Jennifer Lopez is captured by terror-supporting drug kingpins, associated with Russian Jewish gun dealers, associated with Chechen terrorists -- What else? She is tortured, and the team launches and rescues her after three days of captivity -- unbelievable in any format other than a Navy-funded action game.

That it is unlikely a Russian Jew would support radical Islamic Chechens is beside the point; this is Hollywood. The Jewish gun dealers are taken right from the canard the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They are hook-nosed villains to parallel the generic Middle Eastern threat, which is never mentioned, by the way. So much for the truthiness of the film.

Why would the Chechens want to attack the U.S. Homeland? Why would Central and South American druglords need weapons from a Russian? Why would they do anything for extremists? Irrelevant, when there is shooting to be done.

If you believe this movie, the lack of reason does not trouble. Like the team leaders says, "There are threats everywhere," and isn't that the nature of bogeymen to be rather imaginary and unreal?

A of V plucked every American macho stereotype from James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales to Jeremiah Johnson and Lawrence of Arabia, from Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey to every Western ever made.

This derivative aspect of pop culture has been the norm for several generations now, and make no mistake, A of V is a representation of pop culture. It is time for something new -- a new hero, a new idea.

Act of Valor provides neither.


NEXT: Act of Valor Action

Metrosexual

Don't, don't you want me?
You know I don't believe you
when you say that you don't need me
--Don't You Want Me, Human League

I didn't mean to hurt you,
I'm sorry that I made you cry,
I was feeling insecure,
You might not love me any more
--Jealous Guy, John Lennon

All you pretty women,
Stand in line,
I can make love to you baby,
In an hour's time.
Now I'm a man
I spell M-A-N...man
--I'm a Man, The Yardbirds
_________________

(The middle photo shows Mr. Obama trying to navigate a gate in New Orleans, 8/28/10. The L.A. Times ran a salient group of questions in the link to accompany the difficult scene.)

It plays into Ranger's experience at the recent Old Airborne Instructors Association reunion in Columbus, Georgia, where most of the usual members were in attendance, though the ranks are thinning.

The ages ranged from a 91-year-old paratrooper to the Vietnam vets, usually the youngest group. Most of these old troopers had their Master Parachute Wings before Ranger was out of the 4th grade. These are the men that trained and mentored many a young troop of my cohort.

They continue to inspire and awe, leading to today's topic:

What defines Manhood today?

Looking at and listening to the congregation of old troopers, one needn't mince words. Their manhood has slumped their shoulders and damaged their spines, demolished their knees and left behind the ravages of time, yet they still stand as tall.

But what is it that constitutes a man? Let's look at our recent top dogs: Are Obama, Bush or Clinton exemplars of manhood? What about the vaunted scholar-General Petraeus? What about the assassin McChrystal? Do our leaders have a confidence inspired by action, exuding from them like sweat on a trooper's brow?

Could anyone imagine any of our congressional leaders leading an assault on a bunkered up machine gun? There are a few exceptions -- Bob Kerrey, John Kerry, Daniel Inouye, Bob Dole, John Murtha, John McCain, Jim Webb, our own Alan Boyd -- but they are the exceptions in the upper echelons of our government.

Can you imagine President Obama humping a ruck sack or eating MRE's for six solid months? With nary a leaf of arugula in sight? In "Moral Clarity in the Age of the Metrosexual", Bernard Goldberg described Obama as "more of the risotto with green apple kind [of man]." Or, is this not the measure of manhood? Perhaps we are firmly ensconced now in the era of "feeling one's pain" versus sharing it.

A scan of manhood depicted in film and t.v. presents an abysmal portrait of inane ineptitude and buffoonery. What movie shows us how to man-up? For every film that displays manliness, there are 20 that show man to be craven and clueless.

The animated programs The Simpsons and Family Guy paralleled the come down (predominately) of the white male in other media. The popular t.v. show 2 1/2 Men features three Peter Pans -- alcoholic and clueless pussy hounds. Like the leads in Boston Legal, as often as not they conclude the program in their own company with an alcoholic beverage, sans the solace of their supposed goal, a female.

This in itself reveals a societal trend as some of the males have sired offspring, but none manages to cohere the family unit. Their lust for sexual gratification begins and ends there, their offspring becoming a chiding inconvenience, nonetheless accusatorily standing as representative of what was once a more mainstream view of manhood. For these men it is all of a piece: A woman or a drink -- something to slake their loserly essence and remove them from their resistance to mature.

Another in this genre -- Rules of Engagement -- labels men as either fey metrosexuals or boorish brutes, whom the women spend their their time either trying to model or escape. It is I Love Lucy, 2010-style, both sexes jockeying for their best position, the men usually on the losing end of the stick. This program is followed by "The Big Bang Theory" which is lacking for Big Bangs, but not short on brilliant but clueless nerds.

We suppose it is G(r)eek tragedy in action: Every man has his Achilles heel. But these men have no anchor, their manhood, unballasted. It is as though they are taking clues from fashion magazines or Marlboro cutouts on how to be a man, and the result is an unappealing thin semblance of manhood.

Programs like MI-5, 24 and The Unit, all masculine names or numbers (which are presumably, also masculine) offer the opposite extreme of ballsiness, lacking for any middle ground. Where is a man, or at least, a Hollywood facsimile of such? Where is the template that a young man can apply to his life to help him determine how to assume his manhood?

Ranger has been advised by women that a man should be macho while also possessing the attributes of tenderness and emotion. Using this definition, he concludes that women want men to behave like butch lesbians. Women want us to be both tough and feeling, and these qualities seem contradictory.

Maybe this is a moot point when Lady Gaga represents femininity (though Camille Paglia compellingly argues that she represents the Death of Sexuality.) Maybe men have been superannuated.

Nonetheless, we are game if you are: What is your definition of manliness? (this is an Equal Opportunity contest, prize as-yet to be determined.)