Flags of our Fathers by Clint Eastwood

Last night I watched Flags of our Fathers. The effects and realistic technical portrayal of warfare were excellent, but the story was dissatisfying, bemoaning eee-vill racist America (hey - I've been to Browning, MT, and I'm told I am part Injun - and during the road trip I came right out and 'blogged "Quit drinking and get a job") and cheapening the Battle of Iwo Jima into a war-bond-selling stunt. I'm seeing a disturbing trend in films these past years (and I can't be the first to notice), deconstructing what have always been societal ideals, like fictional superheroes and the real ones in our military. Remember the Bugs Bunny cartoon with the super carrot, and at the end there was a job calling for "a real superman"? We've gone from that to films like Jarhead and Hancock (click for third-party reviews supporting my point). Even the latest Superman film has him siring an illegitimate child. Now I'm no bible-thumping moralist, but society needs something to look up to, something to strive to emulate, something to point at and say "That is Good and True". There is a habit lately, most especially in motion pictures but in many other artistic fields, of tearing down these ideals and leaving us with... what? A society that has nothing to look up to will get out of the habit of looking up at all. They become dispirited, unquestioning, hopeless, dreamless - less than men.

And that is what some people want.

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