I don't have to tell anyone that September 11 changed how safe Americans felt in the world. Our willingness to forsake our principles seemed far more acceptable in the face of our fear. Yet, there were still people who stood up, and told us to remember that principles are just ideas when they are forsaken because they are hard to keep. Hollywood and the mainstream news media couldn't be counted amongst the brave. Instead of taking the risk of changing minds, making the American people face the truth of their behavior, they grabbed their bongos and started playing the war melody.
Films tend to reflect the population who watch them. In the last year a number of movies have come out finally attempting to show the truth about the run up to Iraq, the consequences to innocent people because of the war on terror, and how our unwillingness to face our own culpability has been the cutting off of our nose to spite our face. Reviewers, probably relieved that realistic portrayals of our actions have finally have come into the mainstream media, call these movies called brave, unabashed and courageous. Many of these movies are powerful, well acted and beautifully shot but all they prove is that the American media is only brave enough to kick a dead horse.
As of late, the vast majority of American citizens want an end to the war in Iraq. They wanted it so badly, they voted in a new party into Congress in hopes things would change. It's no surprise then that Hollywood studios began to produce films reflective of the changing views in America.
Based on true events, a star studded cast, and a story of how we torture people by taking them to countries that don't have torture laws, Rendition could have been an eye opening experience for the American public, four years ago. Three years after the first reports of sexual assault and "enhanced interrogation methods" came out of Abu Ghraib surfaced, Rendition splashed on the big screen. After the outrage, after the anger, after the pervasive shame by Americans, after the rapes and tortures were allowed to persist for years, after the turn of American sentiment away from the war, after it was useful or profound, Hollywood finally got off their bums and showed those people who might not understand the consequences of torture what their support has been doing to their country.
Which people don't believe torture is wrong anymore? Only those people who still believe in the validity of it, no matter the shocking consequences. Those people won't be swayed by a movie. Logic can't even make a dent in their dogmatic belief that torture is an effective tool. Hollywood missed their chance to actually make a difference in the minds of those people who may be enlightened by the story in Rendition.
Lions for Lambs looks back at history to try to prevent the same echo chamber parroting by the media during the hype for the War on Terror in the future and attempts to stimulate the armchair disgruntles to get up and do something. While I agree with the ideas brought up in the film, the brave thing to do would have been to point them out before we went to war in Iraq. If Hollywood had been ballsy enough to flash the light on the same topics before we went to war in Iraq, there is a distinct possibility our soldiers wouldn't be dead and millions of Iraqi people would not be dead or forced to flee their homes.
Being brave is doing what's right, even if it isn't easy. There is no courage in wholeheartedly shouting, "What they said." Hollywood doesn't direct public opinion, public opinion directs Hollywood. There is no such thing as bravery in Hollywood, maybe because there is no such thing as bravery in the American population.
First Published: December 2007
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