From an article discussing "Fahrenheit 9/11" and American attitudes towards the military:
I also didn't appreciate the way U.S. servicemen were depicted in the film. The first time Moore shows servicemen on camera, they are bragging about the heavy metal they listen to in their tanks while they kill Iraqis. War provides "the ultimate rush," one young soldier claims. The second time Moore shows servicemen on camera, however, they are lamenting the way the war is being fought and sound as disillusioned as they do anxious to go home. As Jethro Tull plays on the tank's speaker system, one soldier rhetorically asks the camera, "It's not that easy to conquer a country, is it?"The problem is, these two vignettes don't make sense when paired together. Are American soldiers merciless killing machines pumped up on the "XXX" soundtrack as they mow down Iraqi soldiers and civilians? Or are they scared kids from the heartland who resent U.S. policymakers and want nothing more than to come home alive?
Moore stumbles into a revelation here, albeit clumsily and unwittingly: Soldiers aren't so easily stereotyped.
The author here misses the point. Moore wasn't presenting simultaneous, contradictory images of soldiers. He was presenting two different snapshots in time. The first, with the gung-ho heavy metal, was during the initial heat of the conflict, when many thought the whole thing would be a cakewalk, and most of the troops would be home before the end of the summer. The second snapshot is months later, after deployments had been extended, the insurgency had been going on for months, no WMDs were found, and many began to question what the hell we were doing over there. There's no contradiction here, unless you assume that no one ever changes their mind about anything.
Posted by Jason at July 14, 2004 12:46 PM