The Hurt Locker, an award winning Iraqi war film from Kathrine Bigelow, follows the story of Bravo company's explosive detonation unit. Led by Sergeant James, Sanborn and Eldridge fear for their lives under the Sergeant's seemingly reckless disregard for rules and protocol in the scary world of disarming bombs in violence-strewn Iraq. While many viewers see this film as an accurate portrayal of life as a soldier in a time of war, others have blasted the film as war propaganda and a testament to racism against the Arab world.
Racial Ideology is a set of fixed ideas or beliefs about a particular race. In The Hurt Locker, the Iraqi people are shown time and again with stereotypes encouraged to belittle them into something less than an intelligent, thinking society. From the first scene of the film, the Iraqi people come of as menacing and evil. Of course the U.S. is there fighting the rebels, but there isn't a distinction in the film separating the rebels from regular Iraqi civilians. Even the kids are not to be trusted. In one heartbreaking shot, James finds a kid the thinks to be one he earlier befriended turned into a body bomb. Sanborn dismisses any sympathy saying, "they all look the same". The very few appearances by Iraqi women in the film show them to be irrational and hysterical. In my opinion, anyone that comes away from the film isn't doing so with a good, or even fair, picture of who the Iraqi people are. This film encourages fear and ignorance and it pushes the idea of the war machine even further in our society.
No comments:
Post a Comment