black hawk down

January 17, 2002 5:22 AM

black hawk down easy to glamourise a war isn't it, however the story behind the media hype/historical distortions is also in need of highlighting
posted by johnnyboy (10 comments total)

"why do they hate us so much"
posted by sikander at 5:33 AM on January 17, 2002

sorry for the crappy post, its the first story people.
posted by johnnyboy at 5:34 AM on January 17, 2002

I thought this was covered quite well yesterday.
posted by nedrichards at 5:44 AM on January 17, 2002

Indeed it was.

But I don't think the book or the movie is glamourising a war, which it was not anyway.
The book is more along the lines of a minute by minute, event by event documentation of events as seen by participants. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I can imagine there to be some Hollywood embellishment in it.

As for me, I served in the Bosnian debacle from 1995-1997 as CCT in the USAF and the repercussions of Somalia in that theatre were enormous. So much control from rear areas. Lots of fear of over extending....

Well, we whall see what movies we have about Afghanistan in 10 years and see how they portray events, and how their portrayals compare to our memories.

Have a good day at work folks.
BG
posted by a3matrix at 5:57 AM on January 17, 2002

I am afraid that the trailers that are being used to publicise the film on this side of the pond are simply dripping, nah wallowing in the glorification of an event that at best would be better consigned to the past. At worst this film may have been made in the worst possible taste imagineable.
posted by johnnyboy at 7:21 AM on January 17, 2002

Not only is this a double post, but your link was used yesterday in the original FPP. Perhaps you just wanted to emphasize that no one does satire like the Independant?
posted by Mack Twain at 9:24 AM on January 17, 2002

satire perhaps, maybe better then the bruckheimer/scott bludgeon?
posted by johnnyboy at 1:27 PM on January 17, 2002

on lAmerican relations with Somalia, see:
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/shalomsomalia.html
posted by Postroad at 2:17 PM on January 17, 2002

johnnyboy, maybe you think so, but you'd be in the minority. As for the rest of us who think that the event was an important lesson that we should be examining closely, and luckily we have a great story to wrap it in, we'll keep our own counsel, OK? It's a free country.

"Worst possible taste"? WTF are you smoking, anyway?
posted by dhartung at 5:20 PM on January 17, 2002

I think someone should glorify the dude who managed to shoot down a helicopter (at night, if I recall correctly) with a frinking RPG.

That's pretty damn hard.

(There's nothing wrong with respecting the skill of your opponent)
posted by Ptrin at 5:44 PM on January 17, 2002