Impact of Movies

doomshot

doomshot

Active member
Hello I am sorry if this should not be posted here but I am not aware of most of the changes that happened while I was gone(accidentally lost the url in a hard drive failure:oops:). However this is movie related. What I am wondering is what movies do you guys believe has made the biggest impact on a society's views and acceptance of war? Preferably I would like the American viewpoint because that is the society I am focusing on, but I will gladly welcome anyone's viewpoints and input because any contribution will help me. In case you are wondering what I need this for is that I am working on a paper detailing the impacts of mass media on a society and I chose the impact of movies on the acceptance and views of war. I am sorry if this should not be here and am sorry for bothering any of you with my research.
 
It's not the movies that get people to accept war. On the contrary, they often show incredibly violent scenes of people getting blown up and ripped apart by machinegun fire.

It's the video games that make people wanna shoot stuff. :m16shoot:
 
Speak for yourself... each time I watch Blackhawk Down I get the urge to jump out of planes and break ****. When I see incredibly graphic violent scenes that depict my countrymen on the receiving end of violent action I want to jump in and help and when they are on the giving end I want to jump in and help. The games... meh... but the movies. Some really pissed me off, "Casualties of War" and "Born on the 4th of July" both screwed with my head for awhile but I have cleared that up now.

Some movies like Burning Man have been argued to have lowered people's resistance to torture being used because audiences see it as acceptable in the premise of the movie. This then becomes a shared context for the population at large to then postulate on in the GWOT and the use of torture. I think there is some truth to that.
 
major liability said:
It's not the movies that get people to accept war. On the contrary, they often show incredibly violent scenes of people getting blown up and ripped apart by machinegun fire.

It's the video games that make people wanna shoot stuff. :m16shoot:
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I know that often it makes people to not want war, but it is good that we do not to fond of it. But you have to admit over this century the image of a soldier has changed. In the 1910-1917, the image of a soldier from movies is of a young Johnny going and patriotically fighting to save democracy and the what not and winning. Then you have movies like Apocalypse Now, and Blackhawk Down which show the weaknesses of soldiers and the mire they get into.
 
Black Hawk Down was a great movie...We Were Soldiers gave me a healthy dose of what it's like for the people left behind. When that guy got out of the car...The woman knew it was coming...That sucked.
 
bulldogg said:
Speak for yourself... each time I watch Blackhawk Down I get the urge to jump out of planes and break ****. When I see incredibly graphic violent scenes that depict my countrymen on the receiving end of violent action I want to jump in and help and when they are on the giving end I want to jump in and help.
Click to expand...

It is natural to want to help out your boys in war, but I thought the point of the thread was to determine whether seeing such violent movies would make people more favorable to the idea of war in the future.

I know when I'm playing a good game like Red Orchestra with realistic ballistics and damage (one-shot, one-kill if you use a rifle) I get the urge to go out and shoot <insert bad guy here>.
 
OK, views on war from movies. Through every type of pop culture, be it a game, be it a movie, be it a book...etc. War is a necessary evil. It will always be around...
 
Yes that is true. luckily war is so terrible, or else we would grow too fond of it. I'm looking for things that made the public feel that it is necessary to fight this war, such as when Corporal York was made in sometime between 1940-1943 as an attempt to show that you can still be a good Christian and be a soldier and was used as a type of recruiting tool , or made them believe that the war is too terrible to have ever sent our people there such as in the Deer Hunter when they were tortured and the characters made to play Russian Roulette by the Viet Cong. I'm sorry if any know better than I and knows whether or not I am actually misquoting the the movies.
 
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Nobody wants to go to war.
If a war never the less comes down the pike there are various degrees of willingness to fight that war.
There are the people that feel it´s their duty to be first in, there are people dodging until they get called upon and there are people that dodge it all together.
IMO only the ones that have not seen a wartorn nation would ever concider a war anything then a last resort.

So to answer your original question. NO, so called warmovies does not make people want to go to war.
To answer your second question. Seeing the towers go down would be enough for me to bring it home that this one was the last resort and make my blood boil.

Those are my answers to your as I see them two different questions.

Just my two cents (and well worth what you paid for them).
 
I agree with KJ. Nobody, unless absolutely forced to, likes a fistfight or an argument. War is a totally different being entirely- it is wholesale killing at its finest- government-sanctioned violence. It is the absolute last diplomatic option of a country; I'm no peacenik by any standard but I believe it is not something to be taken lightly at all.

Anyone who's ever considered joining, myself included, has to consider the moral and ethical possibilities of warfare and come to grips with that beforehand. However, I have to consider the words of Sgt. Matt Eversmann: "I don't believe that there is anyone who hasn't wanted, in some way, to go to war."

Do the very good films depict a skewed version of combat? I didn't notice anything skewed about Black Hawk Down- the men there have earned their lionization, and with a good PR department they could possibly be a recruiting tool.
 
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