Feral Jundi

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Film: Antony Beevor on Films That Rewrite History

Filed under: Film — Tags: , , — Matt @ 2:26 PM

   I want to thank Scott for sending me this link, because it is relevant to our industry and to the military.  There will come a time, when this industry will be represented in film, and the story and message will be in the hands of those film makers.  The question we have to ask is if these individuals care about producing something accurate and fair, or something that suits an agenda of historical revision or politics.  Our industry is old, but to the unknowing public, it is absolutely new and virgin thought territory.  We must engage those individuals that seek to define our industry through film or music or video games, and make sure that they get it right and care to make a good product.  And if they don’t listen, and could care less, then at least we can call them out on it.  

     Or better yet, we can embrace the process and work with them.  If someone was to do a film on Blackwater, would it benefit Blackwater to protest it, or would it benefit Blackwater to work with them and insure that it is accurate and fair?  Shared reality between the two groups, would help out the overall image of the portrayed group in that film.

    Also, if you ever want to watch an interesting show, check out The Unit.  One of the main writers of the show is Eric Haney, a retired CAG officer.  Also, Pete Blaber has contributed to the writing of the show as well.  In essence, the most secretive and best soldiers in the US, are now contributing to a TV show about their unit(Eric wrote the book The Unit, and the show revolves around the book).  Instead of fighting media, they are embracing it, and controlling the quality and content(or at least trying to).  That is a lot better than someone making a show about this incredible group of guys, that have no credibility at all about this subject.   

    Media relations is the one area where PMC/PSC’s really drop the ball on.  Hell, the entire contracting industry as a whole sucks at media relations, and film is one area that we certainly need to be wary of, just for the very reasons that Mr. Beevor discusses in this article. –Matt 

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Antony Beevor on films that rewrite history

From The Sunday Times

January 18, 2009

Open Minds: Films that rewrite history, says Antony Beevor, are fatally warping our sense of reality

Antony Beevor

     In the West, we tend to assume that the greatest threats to democracy and liberty come from outside. We think of the totalitarian systems of the last century or fundamentalist terrorism today, but we fail to recognise the viral strain that has developed out of our own entertainment industries.

     Over the past dozen or so years, television and movie-makers have managed to blur the border between fact and fiction to an unprecedented degree. They pretend increasingly that their film is based on a true story. Every device possible, from computer-generated imagery to place names and dates thrown onto the screen seek to suspend the disbelief of historically illiterate audiences. Alarmingly, the new technology has coincided with a dramatic growth in conspiracy theories.

     The author Damian Thompson has labelled the phenomenon “counterknowledge”. This includes the propagation of totally false legends. They may well stem from a completely unbalanced person who genuinely believes in a conspiracy — usually a government one — and who, through the internet, makes it sound plausible to tens of thousands, even to millions of others who also have grievances and are eager to believe the worst. This is done by seizing upon one or two minor discrepancies in a government report, then joining up all the wrong dots to create a monstrous fable that runs completely counter to the facts.

     Examples of counterknowledge include the notion that Aids was created in a CIA laboratory, that Princess Diana was murdered by the Secret Intelligence Service, and that the 9/11 attack on New York was orchestrated by the Bush administration. The dramatic decline of traditional moderate forms of religion has resulted in a spiritual void and thus a desperate need to believe intensely in something. This has accompanied the “Wikipedia age”. A populist notion has developed that any individual has the right to correct or change the truth according to their own beliefs. It is, of course, the democratic ideal taken to its most grotesque extreme. But in reality it is the opposite of democratic. It is the easiest way for the demagogue to exploit gullibility and ignorance.

     The home-produced movie Loose Change takes the ultimate conspiracy-theory approach to 9/11. It is now said to have been seen by more than 100m people on the internet. A few weeks ago, a leading Russian TV channel broadcast Loose Change to mark the anniversary of 9/11. The film was accepted as completely true by the presenters and the studio audience, who debated it in a three-hour prime-time programme.

     Studies of internet sites reveal an unholy alliance between left-wing 9/11 conspiracy theorists, right-wing Holocaust deniers and Islamic fundamentalists. Many Muslims throughout the world now believe that no Arabs were involved in 9/11. Significantly, Islamic websites have also been learning from American creationists and have eagerly embraced their theory of intelligent design, which attributes the origin of life to a higher power and opposes theories of natural selection.

     In a post-literate society where the image is king, the scope for mischief is almost without limit. I suspect that it will not be long before we see a Holocaust-denial movie. It could take the form of a Da Vinci Code-style thriller, and be packaged as straightforward entertainment.

     The commercial potential for such a project is huge, above all in the Middle and Far East. If it were banned under Holocaust-denial legislation in some European countries, this would only convince conspiracy theorists that the Holocaust is a Zionist exaggeration or even invention. Already in British schools, many teachers have stopped mentioning the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslim students. This is because, according to one survey, only 29% of Muslims in Britain accept that the Holocaust took place as western history books describe it.

     Political correctness is so easy to exploit. Universities in the United States, supposedly the guardians of intellectual rigour and scientific proof, have been cowed into accepting courses that clearly reject normal standards of evidence. This is perhaps the logical extreme of the anti-hierarchical revolution begun in the 1960s and now taken to a ridiculous and dangerous degree.

     It may sound alarmist when one talks of these attempts to fragment proven reality. Yet the effects of counterknowledge and pseudo-history might develop a bigger threat to liberal democracy than the authoritarian onslaughts of Stalin and Hitler. This new insidious power to produce intellectual and scientific chaos is easy to underestimate.

     It should be the duty of not just every scientist and historian, but also of every writer, publisher, movie-maker, TV producer and ordinary citizen to fight all attempts to exploit the ignorance and gullibility of audiences. Today’s silly conspiracy theory in the West can easily become tomorrow’s article of faith in the world at large. Quite simply, we play with facts at our peril. From selling fiction as truth in movies to peddling the big lies of counter-knowledge is not such a very big step after all. 

Story Here

 

4 Comments

  1. I just had a thought regarding negative media depictions of PMCs, many negative, particularly in video games… two common charges against them are either disloyalty to nation* or having taken over offensive/"law enforcement" operations, which to me seems to be a threshold between the status quo and a "bad PMC." Is it worth the industry's time to respond to such concerns?

    * If you're playing a PMC member in a video game, expect it to go rogue against your government and you having to fight against it.

    Comment by Edward — Thursday, February 5, 2009 @ 10:00 PM

  2. I think hollywood and video game manufacturers will make whatever movie or game they want. The only thing that controls them is money, and that usually means following a model of story that is a proven money maker. They do like advisors for realism issues, but the story line and plot is all on them.

    So then let me take this back to 'The A Team'. That TV show was made in the eighties and was about soldiers who were criminals, got out of prison, and became mercenaries fighting the good fight for whoever. So that is the model and stereotype that today's A-Team re-make has to build from. That is why I am not looking forward to what they have to make, because just the name brings back the image and concept of that show.

    The video game your talking about would either be Army of Two, Soldier of Fortune, or the Mercenary 1 and 2 games. All of these games play off of the same story lines that you mentioned Ed, and they all sell very well. But no one in the PMC/PSC industry touched them with a ten foot pole, because they think games are stupid or not worth their time. Wrong, games are huge money and certainly influence the masses. Especially kids, but many adults play as well.

    Imagine a video game that was more realistic to the missions of PMC/PSC's, or actually explores past missions like Executive Outcomes, but with a slant on post war peace and stability operations. Sure it is fun to be the first person shooter on stuff, but the real challenge could be winning the peace in that village after operations. The strategy of post war stuff, along with more realistic first person shooter stuff, would make for a far more interesting game. Hell, PMC/PSC's might actually use those games for training purposes, much like how the military uses those games.

    Imagine a video game that could be highly modified and open sourced to match the current environment of today's wars, and thousands of gamers could war game that current conflict? This would bring to light the difficulties, the geopolitics, and the strategy involved in making things happen in a war zone. I read in Wired's Danger Room about the Navy wanting to make a simulated Afghanistan model online to war game on.

    The military consults on video games all the time as well, and even use video games for recruitment. They are embracing them, and using them as a tool. We could be doing the same things, or we could ignore this technology and the entertainment industry will be sure to define us by these ridiculous mercenary cartoon stereotypes and simplistic and unrealistic missions.

    Comment by headjundi — Friday, February 6, 2009 @ 2:37 AM

  3. You're about right regarding what games I meant, although I'll add both Metal Gear Solid 4 and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. to that list; by the second charge re: offensive/LE operations I meant that instead of merely doing stuff like personal security details they'd taken offensive operations as well; this seems to be a common sign of "PMC gone bad" in fiction, with the U.S. military being the good guys. (Only parallel I can think in real life might be the story of a Blackwater team supposedly holding a U.S. Army unit at gunpoint in Iraq… only mainstream source I could think of is Ralph Peters.)

    P.S. Regarding your idea for an open-source massive-multiplayer game? I would be SO in if you can somehow keep out the griefers and team-killers…

    Comment by Edward — Saturday, February 7, 2009 @ 4:50 AM

  4. Hey Edward, imagine if during the Gaza conflict, that those that supported the Palestinians were somehow able to collaborate and fight in the virtual world, and those that supported the IDF could collaborate and fight for their side in that same virtual world? And moderators would control the scenarios and politics as news came in from the actual conflict. Basically war game the thing, as it is happening. With today's technology, that is pretty close to possible.

    And if that war game was worldwide, you could even implement information war game. You could start Facebook groups or Twitter posts, to support your virtual war, that is simulating an actual war. You could try to rally protests with your information war, in other parts of the world. You could even make videos of your war game assaults, and post them on Youtube, to somehow rally support for your cause–much like the Hamas and the IDF did during their war.

    Today's war games must include the information operations side of conflict, and I think the future of online war games and first person shooters will reflect that. You already see it with the fantasy war games, but the next evolution of gaming will be to play the war, as it is happening, and truly play a game of extreme challenge. Imagine the geopolitics, the military strategy, the history of the region, and thousands of gamers all using winning strategies against one another. It would be like the MMA of military strategy, and we will soon find out what strategies dominate, and in what regions.

    The other use I could see for this, is implementing this civilian/military effort that everyone keeps talking about in Afghanistan. We might be able to spit ball some really interesting ideas of organization and management, all based off of a virtual war.

    Or take the gaming concept to the smallest level. Call it the village game, where the entire game is about protecting that village and winning them over. There are so many challenges and complexities to that task, that everyone from the Platoon Sergeant to the aid worker could all benefit from a realistic virtual simulation. And if it was on their laptop out in the field, they could war game their current problems in the safety of a virtual environment first, before diving head first into something blind. And if that simulation was open sourced, then you could actually build the history of that village, and include into it all the dealings that village has had in the past with NGO's and Soldiers. So not only would it be a virtual world, but a running log book of what that village has been exposed to–good and bad. You could even contact individuals on that virtual game, and ask them or view their old moves, and ask first what worked and what didn't. The question to ask with a portable sim game like this, is would help that unit or team or whatever, in the task of learning a better way and accomplishing the mission? Will it help them to defeat the enemy, by mentally preparing those soldiers?

    This kind of wargaming would certainly be of value to understanding today's conflicts and becoming better learning organizations, and it would make for interesting play. Now I know some that are reading this are saying, Matt, they are already doing this. And that maybe true for some generals and commanders, but what I am talking about is 'Google-fy' this thing and bring in the world to play these games and open source the crap out of it.

    Comment by headjundi — Saturday, February 7, 2009 @ 5:34 AM

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