Made-For-TV War

In my last post I highlighted a Washington Post article discussing the increasing sense of isolation among troops feeling themselves “alone” in making the sacrifices necessary for a nation at war. I raised the question (again) about the level of awareness and/or regard for the reality of a (real?) war being fought right now overseas. My question found answer in part as I read yesterday of a new Steven Bochco, made-for-TV series scheduled to premier on FX this Wednesday called "Over There."

The show will follow eight American soldiers “as they battle insurgents in the blazing deserts outside Baghdad” but center more on the “intimate human dramas, like one black soldier’s distrust of authority and his white superiors.” Bochco is quoted, “The controversy really comes when you present something like the Iraq war in such a nuanced way that it presses everybody’s buttons a little bit. Now you’ve got a game.”

Now you’ve got game?! Head on over to Making the NIA and listen to Andrew talk about the work he does to calm racial fears between American soldiers and Iraqi troops, and tell me why anyone would make “game” out of racial tensions among American soldiers – let alone the appalling stereotype being reported here. Check in with Tommi at Sentinel 47 where recent posts talk about life on base just "outside Baghdad." Stop in at Six More Months and let Pat tell you about the breath of hope he found in his work yesterday by helping a local community recover clean drinking water. Here is real-war drama, and while Pat is handing out Beanie Babies to the children, Mr. Bochco is celebrating that FX allows him to “use the language … [and] show the reality of the kind of violence that exists in that form of combat.” Otherwise, he says, “…what you’d wind up with would be a much, much paler version of ‘Over There.’”

I am appalled by the tele-reduction of war that needs the color of violence, fowl language, and racism to tell a story about the honorable men and women supporting one another while they serve their country overseas. I am angered by the perpetuation of a “Cowboys and Indians” frame of mind when it comes to thinking about “the insurgents” and characterizing the Iraqi people in so narrow and undeserved a frame of reference. And I am offended on behalf of my daughter and those with whom she serves by a denial of the REAL war our soldiers are fighting – a war to “fix what we broke,” as Pat put it, before we bring our troops home, and I hope that will be soon.

Allison Hope Weiner reports for the NYTimes, “Other television shows, like “M.A.S.H.” and “China Beach,” have ventured onto battlefields, but never while a conflict was still happening in real time, while real men and women were targets.”

It seems to me one kind of loss to experience the forgetfulness of a nation; it seems quite another, however, to witness the everyday risks of war being reduced to a television drama. Speaking to the controversy from which he hopes to provoke a spike in audience viewing, Mr. Bochco smiled confidently and said, “I’m not afraid of anything when it comes to this show. It’s only television."

technorati tags: War, Tommi, OverThere