Rambo/ The Deer hunter - Hate propaganda

[Wild Wiglin Willie]

Not sure if American POWs being forced to play Russian roulette
as depicted in Deer Hunter is fictional. I do think it is true they
suffered the most barbaric treatment in prison camp at the hands
of the Viet Cong.

There was barbaric treatment on the American side and in every other POW situation.

Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

From late 2003 to early 2004, during the Iraq War, Military Police personnel of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed human rights violations against prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison. They physically and sexually abused, tortured, raped, sodomized, and killed prisoners. There were also incidents at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

You are very unlikely to hear about American atrocities in North American media at the time of the Vietnam war. This sort of thing even happens in American and Canadian prisons.

Admiral Jeremiah Denton Jr. used his eyes to blink the word "TORTURE" using Morse Code during his captivity in Vietnam. He was being filmed for propaganda purposes and this video was broadcast around the world. Naval Intelligence was able to decipher his "strange" blinking. He was awarded the Navy Cross, our Nation's 2nd highest military honor for his heroism as a P.O.W.

A prisoner of war blinks out the word torture was later awarded medals for this act. At that time it was reported that he had blinked out vital information that was useful to the American military, this was not the case as we all know that it takes many dots and dashes just to make up one letter in Morse code. This information was released in the media to gain American support for the war. When this news got back to the North Vietnamese he was beaten, he later got the medals for the beatings and for being a US military propaganda patsie. ( unwitting )

There was an social study experiment at Stanford University in the early 70s of one group of students hired to guard prisoners and another group hired to be prisoners. Before long the captors were maltreating the prisoners.

http://www.prisonexp.org/

http://www.prisonexp.org/

 

[Vermeer27]

There is one line in Oliver Stone's Platoon that makes me shudder, when Charlie Sheen in voice-over says "we did not fight the enemy...we fought ourselves". If I was a Vietnamese person with any relatives who died in the war, I think I would puke from hearing that statement.

 

[Aardvark154]

The Deer Hunter can be forgiven, the Vietnam War was still an open wound to Americans when it was made.

But Argo is unforgivable, all of a sudden the bumbling CIA are the heroes? It has bad as the the Americans claiming to take the Enigma Machine in WW II in U-571. And Ben Affleck is too shallow an actor to redeem himself like Matthew McConaughey did. I hope Batman vs Superman crashes and burns, with Zac Snyder at the helm that shouldn't be a problem.

As we discussed in the run up to it's winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards last year, Argo is based upon "Tony" Mendez's memoir The Master of Disguise and a 2007 article in Wired: The Great Escape: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran.

Given that the movie was based upon a book and article from the perspective of the CIA, it is not surprising although certainly hurtful that the Canadian efforts were not given greater credit. Then you have Hollywood, for instance much easier to have a line "the British turned us away" than explain there was a demonstration around the British Embassy, in fact at least one of the six had stayed in the home of a British diplomat, but the Revolutionary Guard were making apartment to apartment searches of the neighborhood and he had to relocate.


In fairness Argo does give Canada much credit, and it doesn't pull any punches about CIA incompetence such as the scene at Hagia Sophia "Iran is one hundred percent not in a pre-revolutionary state"

I'm a big believer in historical accuracy, and have criticized movies such as U-571 and The Patriot in other threads, however, Hollywood is Hollywood and they write and edit movies so as to maximize the amount of money they will make and that means the U.S. and Asian Markets.

 

[scouser1]

John Rambo is a Hollywood creation with one of the most bizarre character developments ever. He went from psychologically damaged Vietnam vet, to action hero and was made into a cartoon even!!! (anyone recall Rambo: The Force of Freedom in the late 80's)

 

[Moviefan-2]

You were sucked in by Lawrence Gelbart. Dr. H. Richard Hornberger, M.D. (Richard Hooker), the author of the semi-autobiographical novel on which all else was based, despised the movie and television series stating that he had written a novel chiding Army bureaucracy, and Hollywood turned it into an anti-military film and T.V. Series.

I never realized that he hated the movie.

I knew he hated the TV show, but I thought he had enjoyed Donald Sutherland's portrayal of Hawkeye (who was actually Hornberger) in the movie. Wikipedia claims he saw the movie many times, and the New York Times obit said Hornberger liked the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hooker_(author)

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/07/arts/h-richard-hornberger-73-surgeon-behind-m-a-s-h.html

In any event, it wasn't much of a novel. It was the screenplay (and subsequent improvising by Altman and the movie's cast) that made the movie a hit.

 

[legmann]

This is the first pro-Nazi post I have seen on TERB.

My thought exactly.

 

[diehard]

This is the first pro-Nazi post I have seen on TERB. You probably thought you were on another board.

Bullshit.