Author Topic: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...  (Read 2410 times)

The Cleef

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Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« on: September 14, 2008, 09:53:43 PM »

Tropic Thunder had a weird after-taste for me. Coming out of the theater, I realized that there were no females roles in the movie (other than Tom Cruise's distant assistant and some minor extras in the drug-manufacturing village). For a film that boasts a pricey ensemble cast and to have no female speaking roles has me little perplexed. Especially considering Ben Stiller as the mastermind who typically uses love-interests for his gender based comedies. It seems like men are the target audience for the message of the film.

Ben Stiller just wants to write jokes. Him and Justin Theroux could write jokes to amuse themselves at a lower financial level but to get the caliber of actors in this flick, they would have to get big-time investors. In broad strokes, portraying the Vietnam war as a series of light-hearted blunders, gives the viewer a cheerful association with war. Any future troop out there considering fighting in the army of one would see this movie and feel encouraged that the war experience would be a fun boys club. Does anybody in the FOT agree that the financing of a war-spoof at this time could have a hidden agenda?



 
Do mysteries really exist?

Josh

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Re: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2008, 09:57:08 PM »
no
"Alright, well, for the sake of this conversation, let's say the book does not exist."

Andy

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Re: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2008, 10:02:22 PM »
Breakfast- I'm havin' a time
Wheelies- I'm havin' a time
Headlocks- I'm havin' a time
Drunk Tank- not so much a time
George St.- I'm havin' a time
Brenda- I'm havin' a time
Bingo- I'm havin' a time
House Arrest- I'm still havin' a time

Trembling Eagle

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Re: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2008, 10:07:42 PM »
it's not Vietnam.

cutout

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Re: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2008, 10:08:05 PM »
No one associated with this film is smart enough to have a hidden agenda.

Phantom Hugger

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Re: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2008, 10:13:29 PM »
You wouldn't happen to have a Ron Paul yard sign?

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2008, 11:27:27 PM »
I'm not going to join the Cleef pile-on, but I will tweak your theory a little bit:

(1) There is a branch of the military in charge of loaning helicopters, airplanes, and other equipment to Hollywood, and in recent years it's become politicized, with military personnel vetting scripts before allowing the equipment to be used.  This isn't exactly an official censor, but if this military office doesn't like the contents of a script, they can demand changes or just refuse to loan the equipment.  Sometimes this is tantamount to killing the movie because military equipment can be so cost-prohibitive.  As far as I know, this sort of thing has been going on for years, though not necessarily in an overtly political way, like the bit about Francis Ford Coppola using the Filipino military in Apocalypse Now that made it into the documentary Hearts of Darkness.  As with other matters like these, the influence is more subtle than out-and-out propaganda, and self-censorship is usually the order of the day - a producer who's self-conscious about offending the military liaison is more likely to demand changes than the liaison himself.

How do I know this?  The Marine (I think he was a marine) spokesman in the documentary Control Room used to have this job and he went on Democracy Now and talked about it.  It's worth tracking down.

(2) All Hollywood movies are propaganda pieces, but the ideology they put forward is not liberal or conservative or even corporate (though a movie can contain any of these agendas).  The ideology a Hollywood movie puts forth is Hollywood itself: the heroic individual is what really changes things, love will conquer all, Hollywood is extremely important, and so on.  I thought Tropic Thunder hit this last one really hard, which is one of the big reasons I wasn't crazy about it.

It's an awfully effective propagator of its own ideology, much more so than anything emanating from Washington, DC, or from the NYT, WSJ, CNN, or Fox.
Oh, good heavens. I didn’t realize. I send my condolences out to the rest of the O’Connor family.

Trembling Eagle

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Re: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2008, 11:48:50 PM »
I'm not going to join the Cleef pile-on, but I will tweak your theory a little bit:

(1) There is a branch of the military in charge of loaning helicopters, airplanes, and other equipment to Hollywood, and in recent years it's become politicized, with military personnel vetting scripts before allowing the equipment to be used.  This isn't exactly an official censor, but if this military office doesn't like the contents of a script, they can demand changes or just refuse to loan the equipment.  Sometimes this is tantamount to killing the movie because military equipment can be so cost-prohibitive.  As far as I know, this sort of thing has been going on for years, though not necessarily in an overtly political way, like the bit about Francis Ford Coppola using the Filipino military in Apocalypse Now that made it into the documentary Hearts of Darkness.  As with other matters like these, the influence is more subtle than out-and-out propaganda, and self-censorship is usually the order of the day - a producer who's self-conscious about offending the military liaison is more likely to demand changes than the liaison himself.

How do I know this?  The Marine (I think he was a marine) spokesman in the documentary Control Room used to have this job and he went on Democracy Now and talked about it.  It's worth tracking down.

(2) All Hollywood movies are propaganda pieces, but the ideology they put forward is not liberal or conservative or even corporate (though a movie can contain any of these agendas).  The ideology a Hollywood movie puts forth is Hollywood itself: the heroic individual is what really changes things, love will conquer all, Hollywood is extremely important, and so on.  I thought Tropic Thunder hit this last one really hard, which is one of the big reasons I wasn't crazy about it.

It's an awfully effective propagator of its own ideology, much more so than anything emanating from Washington, DC, or from the NYT, WSJ, CNN, or Fox.

There was a great article in Harper's some years back about how most Hollywood war movies end up being "War Porn". It was so spot on about the series of Vietnam critical movies in a way end up glorifying the subject matter. Maybe it's impossible to cover the subject matter without glorifying it somewhat, I'm thinking of one of my favs: Full Metal Jacket. I've been around military bases and that is a favourite, most guys love the first half especially.


JonFromMaplewood

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Re: Tropic Thunder is a recruitment film...
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2008, 07:15:28 AM »

There was a great article in Harper's some years back about how most Hollywood war movies end up being "War Porn".


I am just sitting here re-working my mental model of Trembling Eagle.  The M.M.A. fan who wants to hug Sarah Palin reads Harper's?  With that layer, I am starting to appreciate your complexity.
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