Green Zone -- 2010
The Longest Day -- 1962
I watched Green Zone with Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear. Within 24 hours I watched The Longest Day with John Wayne, Sean Connery, Robert Wagner, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Red Buttons, Steve Forrest, Fabian, Richard Burton, Peter Lawford, Roddy McDowell, Sal Mineo and Richard Dawson (among hundreds of others you'd likely recoginze.
The dicohtomy in presentation made me physically ill and very clearly illustrated just how far we as a nation have slid in the way we view ourselves and our position in the world. The media's relentless "need to know" coupled with general public apathy and compounded by the current "love in, laugh in" generation of radical hippie fucks who have become the establishment all conspire to destroy everything we are and everything we could be -- and do it from the inside.
In The Longest Day, the soldiers were portrayed as heroes, putting their lives on the line and willingly sacrificing themselves in the name of honor, country, loyalty, faith and dury.
In Green Zone, the US is the bad guy, the clueless invader, the arrogant deceiver bent on war for reasons of greed. We lie to our troops, we lie to our allies, we lie to our enemies, we lie to ourselves. That's the message of Green Zone.
In The Longest Day, valor was exhibited by our heroic troops. In Green Zone, the troops were confused and disorganized, their agendas self-serving. The only nobility and valor was exhibited by a one-legged local.
I'm sick of movies that demonize our soldiers, paint our administration (under GWB) as inept and corrupt and portray America as the evil empire imposing its bogus will on the world.
After watching The Longest Day, I shut off my television and said a slient prayer thanking God for the men who spilled their blood and sacrificed their lives so that air-headed shit bags like the pacifist fucks who make movies like Green Zone have the freedom and the right to smear the name and reputation of this country.
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