Ch-ch-changes in How The Military is Potrayed

Since its creation, storytelling has been a popular outlet for communicating feelings about certain climates in time. Movies, TV, books, art; they have all been used to portray emotions in a linear trajectory, but we are here to talk specifically about military movies. In our propaganda episode, Cam and Izzy talked about how Hollywood was a powerful tool used to sway public opinion. More recently, we have seen a shift in the message military movies communicate. This episode, Cam and Izzy are going to take a look at just how much military movies have changed over time.

Cam is challenged by a completely unrelated game of "Animals in Combat" to cap off this week's episode.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/pop-culture-field-manual--5956105/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
In time. In time, there'sa gut to follow to make it through.
You just want let's just go rightinto it, man, let's do
it. Yeah, yeah, man, I want to let me let me
read this thing. I think Chrishas a nice little introduction that I sometimes

(00:30):
Chris Knights writes nice things. Sooh really that I actually just want to
let you know I wrote that.Oh I went to college. Oh man,
Well, then do you want toread it? Man? Since you
read, go for it. Gofor it. If I feel like you
deliver, you have good delivery.So if you want to read it,
I'll try to do it justice.Go for it. Since it's creation.

(00:52):
Storytelling has been a popular outlet forcommunicating feelings about certain time climates in time,
movies, TV books, art haveall been used to portray emotions in
a linear trajectory, but we arehere to talk about specifically movie military movies.
In our propaganda episode, we talkedabout how Hollywood was a powerful tool
used to sway public opinion. Morerecently, we have seen a shift in

(01:15):
the message military movies communicate. Thisepisode, we're going to take a look
at just how much how military movieshave changed over time. So the purposes
and use and point the point ofmilitary movies and what they're meant to communicate.
This is an interesting topic, man, and I actually don't know how

(01:36):
this discussion is going to go because, uh, yeah, it's a it's
a like you say, cinema entertainment. Storytellers can sway public opinion. They
can sway perceptions of things. There'sthe truth of something, which I believe
is very hard to find if youwant to know the truth about an event

(01:56):
or a person or time in history, and you got to do a lot
of work, and most of usdon't, myself included, but you can
tell little bits and pieces of something, or you can actually just use something
like the backdrop of a particular warto tell your own story. And the
war is just really there to enhancewhatever personal story or whatever personal message or

(02:17):
political, social message, emotional,religious message you want to tell. So
war movies are no different. No, no movie escapes. Somebody trying to
show me try and tell you something. Yeah, man, I'm you know,
just like you said, this episodeis going to be very interesting.
I just want to preface with thefact that, like we don't have much

(02:38):
to go off of. You know, usually Izzy and I will have like
at movies written down, but Ithink it would. I think it's kind
of gonna be best for us tojust kind of have main points here and
then just to kind of have amore off the top of the head freestyle
type episode. So this one mightbe different you at the listener, because

(03:01):
movies, not only movies, notonly books, not just pop culture.
In essence, most things change overtime. There's a lot of factors.
War has been there since the beginning, but I mean from a tangible perception,
I don't think it's the same.We started with sticks and stones,

(03:23):
then we sharpened those sticks and foundout how to throw those stones, and
then we found out how to projectthose sticks out of bows, and then
gunpowder and then armor, and thenwhat we have today like laser beams and
shit. So it's, you know, fundamentally, war has changed. Technologically,

(03:49):
war has changed in a tangible way, but also how we perceive war
and how we tell it through thepersonification on the screen. I think cinema
has always been an amazing tool usedeither by governments. Because we've you know,

(04:11):
in our propaganda episode, I thinkit was important to mention, like
we went over this, you know, movies oftentimes, especially in times of
war, in times of just warand times of war against you know,
a specific evil. Movies were sponsoredby governments, you know, they the
government gave movie directors funds in orderto show a story or tell tell a

(04:34):
specific event that would get people behindyou know, what the government was doing.
We saw that with during World WarTwo. Bonds were a big thing.
You know, you can't the warwouldn't be able to be you couldn't
do the war without money. Youknow, Bombs needed to be made,
soldiers needed to be paid. God, it sounds like a nursery rhyme after

(04:57):
in America up there on stage,ye us to sell war bonds. Yeah.
Flags of Our Fathers was a reallygood one with from that kind of
you know, we're using these men'sstory regardless of how tragic the after effects
may be. With the Native Americancharacter, that was really sad. Yeah,

(05:17):
but uh yeah, they were justlike you bet are here to get
bonds, You're you're here to sell. Yeah. They did that to a
World War Two recipient, Medal ofHonor recipient. I think after he got
his Medal of Honor, he didhis actions. He was a warrior,
and I think they tried to keephim, keep him behind, like,
keep him back to do worthy.He's like, no, I want to
go back and actually fight. Yeah, which is crazy, you know,

(05:40):
which is wild, and probably thereaction of a lot of soldiers is a
lot of soldiers. They're not likeshowmen, They're not actors. Can I
do my job now? I don'twant to? Yeah out here, I'm
a small town in Arkansas. Yeah, I'm not in front of cameras.
Yeah. But uh, I meanwith all that aside, you know,
there has been a change in time. I feel like the whole civilian perception

(06:04):
as far as war like starting off, like you know, now we have
a lot of protests going on,like since Vietnam. I think that was
the wars. That's when we startedrealizing like, okay, some wars are
not so good at least from likea general public domain, because you started
to see a lot of the protestsin Vietnam, like those veterans didn't come

(06:27):
home to anything. Yeah, yeah, And that was really I think Vietnam
especially was when we think we startedto see a lot more pictures and video
of the war and of things thatwere going on over there. And and
then of course that's very powerful forswaying public perception regardless of it. I
mean, like new numbers wise,we won Vietnam, if I'm not mistaken.

(06:53):
You guys can check me on this. But numbers wise, in terms
of numbers of losses on either side, I thought we No, I mean,
okay, see that we have themost casualties. Yeah, I think
Vietnam compared to viet compared to Vietnamthough, or compared to the Vietnamese.
That's what I'm saying. Uh,in Vietnam. Uh, it's not a

(07:16):
it's not a history podcast, folks. Yeah, Vietnam war death toll around
three point eight million total casualties.We lost about fifty eight thousand military casualties
or here US war casualties. Uh, you know, you guys are I

(07:36):
don't want you guys sit here whileI look this stuff up. Let me
let me try to let me tryto make my point without offering any factor
figures. Yeah, Vietnam, inVietnam, regardless of what happened to Vietnam,
public perception of Vietnam has always beengenerally negative. And that's I think
why a lot of soldiers had thatnegative reception back to the States, because

(08:03):
people were projecting their negative views ofVietnam in general and their political views onto
these soldiers. When the soldiers arejust told to go out fight, you
know, and that our time,and they lost their buzzes and then they
come home and they're being spit onor whatever and being shunned. And I
think I think a lot of depictions, especially of World War of Vietnam rather
are our negative We got platoon andwe got apocalypse now, and and it

(08:28):
just shows that it's just portrays thislike hell hole, this jungle hell that
everyone's losing their minds and they're allgetting high and they're all you know,
going insane for this purpose purposeless youknow, kind of war and uh,
and then you get stuff like wewere soldiers that tells a different story.

(08:50):
It's the beginning of the Vietnam War. And it's regular army guys, and
it's this it's about the air calfand the use of that, and it's
it's generally pretty pro American. It'sit's it's you know, portrays the Americans
as yeah, is that these goodpeople with good hearts, they got families
back home. And then you know, of course, the Vietnam War lasted

(09:11):
a long time. That's another thingtoo, is there can be these with
a war that lasts longer than acouple of years. They can be like
maybe certain movies or pop culture inthe beginning of the war that portrayed a
certain way, and then towards theend of the war, other movies maybe
start to come out, or afterthe war ends, other movies come out
that add a different perspective to it, you know. Yeah, Vietnam lasted
twenty years, yeah, fifties andthrough the seventies. That you're right,

(09:35):
man, Yeah, so Vietnam wasn'tlike a short little conflict. It was
like a full fledged It was literallyour Afghanistan was Vietnam. Yeah. So
the one thing that I found interesting, at least about like the whole change
is like we see movies that weremade during Vietnam, not necessarily about Vietnam

(09:56):
because we were soldiers, right,probably came out in what the nineties,
two thousand from two thousands versus Platoonor even Apocalypse Now that came out in
the eighties, yeah, two thousandand two, where we were soldiers,
yep. And so you have twodecades between those movies of public mass for
a platoon. Yep, yeah,so like and you see the difference.

(10:16):
So I feel like when in Ifeel like through time, so like we
have the depiction of war like earlierwhen we think of war movies from like
let's say the fifties, like duringWorld War Two? Yeah, Like,
were those did those war movies thatcame out when World War Two is happening
or shortly after? Were they directedtowards a negative perception of the war or

(10:43):
were they like yo, like weare killing the Germans, the Nazis,
We're fighting this evil Yeah. Ithink I feel like most movies post World
War Two about World War Two weregenerally pretty positive. Yeah, I mean
it wasn't positive war, yeah,I mean yeah, And it was something
that I think historically, at leastpop culture wise, is perceived to be

(11:05):
the bad guys versus the good guysversus like we could talk about there's war
movies about World War Two that talkabout the horrors of war, but it's
generally like, yeah, because ofthe Axis, because of the Germans,
because of the bad guys, right, and uh and and yeah they're they're
they're generally pretty glowing and and uhpositive when it comes to American troops or

(11:26):
the Allied troops. I don't knowtoo many. Can you think of World
War two movies that are anti war, Yeah, they're anti either anti Allied
powers. Like I don't know,like there's tons of World War two movies
about Hitler all bad. You know, there's that. There's even Pan's Labyrinth
that was that kind of takes placein fascist Spain, right, that takes

(11:50):
place during World War Two, Andit's like, you know, there's no
not and I'm not saying there shouldbe, right, Yeah, positive portrayals.
I want a good portrayal. Yeah, I want an accurate portrayal of
Hitler, but it were not thatthat's a joke totally. You always have
to p hey, it's too latefor us, I think. But when

(12:11):
it comes to World War Two,you know, like we talk about history,
and history is hard to know andyou got to get all the sides.
You got to really dig deep,and you got to read a lot
to get them a full understanding.I don't know how many stories there are
that tell about the precipitation of WorldWar Two and what was happening like going
into it. It's I mean,I guess Darkest Hour is about Winston Churchill

(12:33):
during like a couple of weeks duringthat time of his tenure and and them
deciding to go to war and thembeing bombed and stuff. But there's not
like this kind of overall unless youwant to see like documentary style. But
it's like it was like World WarTwo is like bad guys Germany, Uh,
you know, access powers, Japan, good guys in America. Uh,
you know, Russia at the time, and then uh and then and

(12:56):
you know, and then Korea andthings like that. So not that there
has to be but it's just interestingwith World War Two especially, I think
the die is cast in terms ofhow many different perceptions and perspectives we can
get on the story of World WarTwo. Like even now, even public
perception about World War Two has notreally changed all that much. Nope,

(13:20):
nope, not that it's not thatit should. I'm just saying, like,
for the sake of argument, forthe sake of the discussion, world
War two movies are always generally gonnabe how they've been world War two movies.
You know, yeah, nothing's goingto change. Still, being called
the Nazi is probably the worst thingyou can be called. Like, oh
yeah, yeah, we don't evenknow what that word means anymore. But
yeah, don't don't get called theNazi. Yeah yeah, So I mean

(13:41):
and then go and let what aboutfilms for World War One, they were
still pretty propagand I mean in ourin our propaganda episode, like World War
One films, we're pretty much like, hey, we're out here, we're
we're doing the job because there isevil in this world that we need to
abolish. Yeah, even on theGerman side, like you need to use

(14:05):
that inglorious Bastards literally I love likethe theater. Yeah, I mean it's
World War two, but like IngloriousBastards is just an example of how they're
using propaganda in films, Like theywant to make a film and show Hitler
so like people will like be superproud and they love it. So during
World War Two, I feel likethat was exactly what was happening. There

(14:26):
was a couple of examples we didin the pop cl or in the propaganda
episode that were made around the timeof World War One, in like Great
Britain that showed like, you know, we're out here, we're fighting the
good fight. We need your supportby some bonds, you know. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, well that wasa Yeah, World War One is
generally the same kind of way.It's generally you know positive for the the

(14:50):
England, America, mostly England too, because America we we didn't get involved
in very later. Yeah, butyou got I'll Never Go Old nineteen seventeen
and then all Caught on the WesternFront. That was from the German perspective,
but it was about like the horrorsof war. It's been people called
it the best anti war film ever. Yeah, it's just no, because

(15:13):
it's a slow degradation of human humankind. You know, these guys in there,
and from beginning to end they're justtotally taking apart and then they all
die, you know, yeah literallyso and then you know, moving on
down later in the world. Sothen you have Vietnam, which is all
like this is. You know,there's not a lot of glorification of war
except for like we were soldiers.But at the time, like around the

(15:37):
actual time of the Vietnam with publicperception, they were very you know,
in the States, a lot ofpeople were in protest of the war.
I mean it was very clear whenyou had you know, soldiers doing multiple
just staying in Vietnam because they didn'even won't want to come home. You
know, like Mike Eckerd we talkedto he was just like, yeah,

(16:00):
just stayed in Vietnam. You know, you could just do that. You
could just go from unit to youand and be like, hey, you
guys need to need some help,or yeah, yeah, come on this
mission with us. You know.Yeah. No, literally, so like
that wasn't a thing. People wouldrather stay in Vietnam and the war than
come home to like a you know, a country that spit on them at
Taco Bell? Uh was Taco Bellin the seventies, was it? I
don't know, I don't know.That sounds like an eighties and beyond thing.

(16:22):
Yeah, at the local McDonald's.If it was, it had not
become corporatized to what we know today. It was probably some mom and pop
shop that got bought out. Yeah, at a Del Taco and Barstow.
Yeah. But uh yeah, Soaround those movies around that time, the
seventies through like the eighties, thelate eighties, it was like still a
negative perception. When they showed war, it was disgusting, it was brutal.

(16:45):
They for a lot of the troops, Like in Platoon, they showed
the American soldiers as like just savages. Yeah, stabbed and betraying each other.
They're stabbing each other, tracked eachother, They're you know, doing
whatever they want. It's like prettymuch like Vietnam War. Our soldiers are
criminals. So yeah, casualties ofwar is another one. Sean Penn is

(17:07):
there. It's about the rape ofthis girl and her family and them trying
to cover it up. You know. Vietnam is is kind of It's kind
of like if calling somebody Hitler,if you want to, if you want
to portray the US military as badand wrong and evil, you got Vietnam's
kind of like, oh, let'smake a Vietnam movie. You know.
Yeah. I feel like they dothat. They do that with They've done

(17:30):
that with Iraq. I guess alittle bit too, because I think public
perception on that conflict changed over theyears, especially they just want oil Iraq.
Yeah yeah, and or you know, we it didn't I've heard people
like, we didn't do anything.There were no w m ds, we
didn't make any effective change over there. It was a waste of time,
which makes me feel kind of bad. But but yeah, I think Iraq

(17:55):
and then Afghanistan is going to belike Vietnam for US as well too,
because it's it's so weird how thatthere do seem to be like parallels,
Like we get involved, we escalate, we kind of just stay there for
you know, for whatever reason,and there could be a lot of discussions
around that, and then we justkind of leave. We don't we didn't
have to leave or whatever, anew political it's always the political stuff that

(18:18):
comes in, right, Political regimeschange or maybe political sentiment changes, and
then all of a sudden, likewe're going to do this now just because
not because militarily it's maybe the bestthing to do, but just because we
want to. And then we pullout like we do. And so I
think Afghanistan apart from I mean,we'll see in the future, but there's

(18:38):
Guy Ritchie's The Covenant, which Ithink has a great message and its surround
it's about the Afghanistan war specifically.But it'll be interesting to see the movies,
if at all, that come outabout Afghanistan and what they are trying
to say ultimately about the war,because I think we're still or if they
people don't say anything at all,I don't know, maybe maybe Hollywood and

(19:02):
Hollywood elites and people writers and directorslike, no, whatever, we don't
care anymore. Let's just move on. Yeah, No, that's a good
point, man. But it's youknow, as far as changes staying on
theme here, like you can seethe movies are different depending on the public
perception. Sure, I think that'sone of the main main things. You

(19:23):
also have not I mean more theuh in your face blatant changes kind of
tangible chadin is just technological advances andhow these movies were made. Sure,
you know, we go from blackand white, we go from dudes literally
wearing potato sack masks to make themlook Chinese and Korean war movies like yeah,

(19:45):
yeah, all practical effects to beingable to do cgi to get an
even government sponsored or at least militarylike sponsored effort to like you know,
donate vehicles and make things super accurate. Just the way move these were made
are made. Now that's a bigchange in itself. Yeah, the military
has had a greater and greater handin war film making. I think because

(20:11):
there's we talked about a little bitwith propaganda's the US, like the Department
of Defense is very interested in howit is perceived in the public eye,
and they will have Yeah, theywill have either great restrictions or great freedoms
given to certain directors, like MichaelBay for example, that if hey,
you're gonna talk nice about us,we will give you full access to our

(20:33):
weaponry and our our will give youpilots and planes and ships and tanks and
whatever whatever you want for your becausewe know that you're going to make a
film that puts us paints us ina positive light. And so I think
that that has gotten more and moreto be the case as as time has
gone on, and and it's andit's with technological advancements and being able to

(20:57):
you know, tell stories and atechnologically advanced way that only I think is
to the it's to the Department ofDefense's credit that they that they give cooperation
you know, to uh, tocertain filmmakers. Yeah, No, I
mean it's all recruiting for them.You know. The more you can make

(21:18):
the military look cool, the morefancy stuff you can show, the more
toys you can show, the moreit's going to positively impact their recruiting numbers.
People like uh, Top Gun.You know, when Top Gun came
out, then the Top Gun,Maverick, it was like we saw a
spike in Navy recruitment, you know, because people are like, oh,

(21:40):
that's cool. You know, theykind of they're like, I want to
do that job. That's super cool. What do you mean we sing great
balls at fire at the local Likethat's that's cool man. So yeah,
I mean, I don't. Ithink it's a no brainer for military to
want to kind of partner with Hollywoodjust because it makes things so much better.

(22:02):
It makes things better for everybody,It makes a better movie, and
then it also portrays a better message. But are you a fan of practical
effects versus CGI? What do youprefer? What do you what's your kind
of what's your kind of take onthat CGI? Like, practical effects is
another tool in the tool belt ofa filmmaker. I think we rely on

(22:22):
it too much these days. Computergenerated effects. If you can't tell that
they're there, I think it's that'spretty awesome. You watch something like Mad
Max Fury Road. There's there's stuffthat obviously is CGI, but then there's
other stuff like when they're driving throughthe mountains or whatever that those mountains aren't
even there, right, They're justdriving through a straight in a straight line,
or they're not even moving, andyou can't tell. So cgi I'm

(22:47):
more for practical effects because I thinkin most cases if they're if they're the
eye, the human eye can tell. There's that uncanny valley where you can
perceive maybe something, maybe on anunconscious level, that it's something's not right.
So I like, I love practicaleffects, and I'm I'm very much
against the kind of push of Hollywoodfor not using real weapons with blanks on

(23:10):
sets anymore ever since the whole rustthing happened. Now that is to say,
you know, not to say likeGuy Richie's The Covenant, just use
an example. I think they onlyused airsoft weapons on that one, and
then they see gied in. Yeah, like the muzzle flashes, Yeah exactly.
And so I mean that's like yousay, if you can use it,
well then it then I think it'sall right. But I don't think

(23:33):
that there's anything wrong with using realweapons on set. You just gotta be
safe about it. We had hadvery few incidents and then one big,
hope, high profile incident happens,and I think it's just because most people
in Hollywood are anti gun anyway,they're gonna use it as a big push
to be like, oh we can'tsee how bad guns are? We Yeah,
do you know who really shocked methat I didn't that was came out

(23:56):
as like anti gun and then uhand then like has used guns in so
many movies. I was really shockedby the what Dave Bautista. Oh really,
I was super upset. I wasa big Dave Bautista fan. And
then he like, I think hedid like a tweet where he's like,
if you have an AR fifteen,you're a fucking idiot or something like that,

(24:18):
and it's like, oh, man, I really liked you and like
all your movies you use guns andeverything, so it's like, why do
you take those roles? Then ifyou think that's the case. Yeah,
yeah, I mean yeah, it'sany it's any number of rationalizations and excuses
that people have, you know,gun freedom, gun rights for me,
but not for the kind of thing. It's like, well, he'll Dave

(24:41):
Batista's gonna hire he'll hire gladly somebodyguards that have weapons on him to protect
himself, but the average citizen theyshouldn't have them. And it's and it
doesn't help the conversation too if I'mtalking about that kind of stuff to just
fire out a tweet like that callingout Yeah, it's you know, like
you want to have a conversation aboutit. Let's have a conversation about it,
but don't it's not helpful to theoverall atmosphere. Yeah, you know

(25:04):
of that. I mean, that'sthat's another change over time. We talk
about a public perception on violence,right, yeah, movies, yeah,
violent video games. Yeah, honestly, man, I actually maybe I can't
even say that the he there hasbeen a change because movies are just as
violent today as I would say moviesare more violent today than they used to

(25:26):
be. We have better technology toportray the violence. You look at movies
like Extraction or or The Covenant,or you know, any any other number
of war films that are out there, or even just violent action films.
We love our violence. I don'tthink we'll ever stop making violent films action

(25:47):
films, because it's just people justlike it too much. It's just too
much in our nature to fight andthen to be fascinated by what violence and
gore and uh, you know,and weapons. I think I think that's
why people you Deve Batista and Hollywoodactors, they're never gonna have a problem
with using a weapon in a moviebecause they know that people love they love

(26:11):
their violence, they love their guns, you know. Yeah, and regardless
of whatever the political situation is.I think the day we stop having action
movies, we really need to startworrying because something weird has shifted in society.
I think weird has shifted. Yeah, yeah, well it's it's one
of those changes, you know,Yeah, yeah, change is I think

(26:33):
with the what were you gonna know? You go ahead, I feel like,
no, no, I'm gonna sittingover here. Okay, Well,
I mean with those, I meankind of on the same theme as far
as like character driven. Uh.We live in a time, you know,
considering a good or a bad thing. We live in a time where
like inclusiveness is like a more idealtheme and it's storytelling. Uh. You

(26:56):
know, back in the day,there are no movies with women leads.
But now you have, yeah,tons of war movies. Yeah, articulars.
I think there was one that cameout in the fifties that told the
story of a English spionage who workedfor like the Special Operations Executive program in
Britain that was collecting intelligence. Iforgot what it was called. Man War

(27:22):
movies bear with me, folks,it was called Is it Charlotte Gray?
Is that? Is that a war? That? Isn't it a more recent
one though? Is it? Letme see, here's the link that I
had with Kate Winslet Carved her Namewith Pride came out in nineteen fifty eight,
oh Okay, based off R.J. Minni's book with the same

(27:44):
name, which was the chronicles ofthe life of the second ever woman to
be awarded the George Cross. DuringWorld War Two, she recruited. She
was recruited as a member of theSpecial Operations Executive whose job was to gather
intelligence on enemy forces. So basically, you have, you know, a
movie out of from the nineteen fiftystill Black and Gray, that had a

(28:07):
female protagonist versus nowadays. You know, I'm on a simple movie web list
now and like the top ten MeganLevy twenty twelve, Testament of Youth twenty
fourteen, Return twenty eleven, gI Jane nineteen ninety seven, Private Management
nineteen eighty, A Battle of Sevestopoltwenty fifteen, The Stopover twenty sixteen,

(28:30):
Charlotte Gray two thousand and one Battaliontwenty fifteen. So just for example,
like those dates we had, Ithink after nineteen fifty you had a thirty
year gap, and then you hadPrivate Benjamin, which was a comedy which
was like some rich lady that joinedthe army and tried to survive, and
it wasn't like a noble you know, like she's a hero. But then

(28:52):
you had all these movies come outtowards like nineteen ninety seven Gi Jane,
which was like, this is afemale badass in the Navy seals, right,
and then all of a sudden boomfemale protagonists, female protagonists for male
protagonists. So that's that's a bigchange that we've seen from like you know,
from earlier war movies, there weren'ta lot of female led ones.
But then to be fair, historically, there weren't a lot of women involvement

(29:14):
sure in these wars, right.Yeah, it's a wars have been majority
fought by men since pretty much atthe beginning of time. There have been
there have been exceptions to that rule, but they they are exceptions that prove
the role and and and as youknow, I'm not going to say whether
or not we should have more orless movies starring women and leads. I

(29:36):
think the push for uh, diversityis more motivated by kind of other social,
other social motivations rather than just likenot like a job well done.
Yeah, hey you learned women.Yeah, it's like no, it's like
no just women, women women,because women and women. But I think
some of some of them are Ihave been, you know, really kind

(29:57):
of fun. I've I've really appreciatedzero Dark thirty. Yeah. Well well,
and now it wasn't a particular character, one particular person. I think
the character that she played was anamalgamation of all the teams and the different
people. But I think it justa great example of like a hard nose,
hardcore agent who has a mission andis very driven, and it kind

(30:22):
of shows the show's a bit ofthe emotional toll of what she goes through
in order to get this guy andget this stuff done. And she doesn't
go on the actual mission, whichis fine. She's the one who facilitates
the information gathering and all the hardwork that goes into the years of work
that went into finally capturing or killingyou know, Osamavid Laden, which you

(30:42):
know, the whole strong female characteris like that's like the thing, you
know, right, And so Ithink that's a great example, she doesn't
never actually pick up a gun.She's not atomic blonde where she's beating up
dudes and throwing haymakers and shooting dudeswith double guns, jumping through the air.
But she is a strong woman becauseshe perseveres and she sacrifices a lot,

(31:04):
and she's she's flawed, you know. And so, uh, it's
a it's it's it depends on whatyou how you define strength in terms of
a war movie. And as weknow, we've seen a lot of war
movies where it's the The war movieis a great, uh setting with which

(31:25):
you can visually show things like perseverance, self sacrifice, pride, even like
weird you know, odd, youknow, selfishness and darkness. It's just
because war is this really like intenseexperience, you know. But and so
you know, I think that there'slots of different ways that that you can

(31:48):
you can show that. And alsoone of the cool things about whether Charlotte
Gray or car of her name withpride is how we underestimate women. Yeah,
in the wartime setting, because obviouslywar a very physical activity it obviously,
but there's a lot of background stuff. There's a lot of espionage and
a lot of secret stuff that anda lot of kind of there's a lot

(32:08):
of finesse and a lot of youknow that you have to use that.
Women they've got that guile man,they've got the advantage. Yeah, they've
got that advantage and they can andthey can use it well to with great
effect. If I know, onething about women is they could be quite
manipulative. Just kidding to an extent, but but yeah, no, there's

(32:32):
like so everyone thinks, like inthe you know, in a wartime setting,
you just need to be a hardcharger. You just need to be
the most physically fit, aggressive,violent person. And you know, war
isn't a one solution thing, right, It's multi dimensional. Yeah, there's
the there's the physical side of it. This is there is the boots on

(32:52):
the ground side of it. Butthere was also the psychological side of it,
the manipulation side of it, theswaying public opinion, the propaganda,
the site of the pretty much.You know, I think there's a lot
of women involved in special operations thatI encountered were on the psyops side,
yeah, and the c A side, the civil affairs, Because who do

(33:13):
you think is best fitted to dealwith women in charge women and children on
target. The guy that's hopped upon steroids and pre workout that's thrown her
you know, that will just throughher husband through a fucking window because he
felt like it. Or the verysoft spoken, the caring, more emotionally
intact female that we bring outside ofon target. It's just there's you know,
different skill sets for different people.You know. Females have their strength

(33:37):
in war, so do and thenmen have their strength in war and large
skills and soft skills exactly exactly,and and anything that whether it's like a
Few Good Men or Megan Levy oranything any war film that portrays the strength
the inner strength of women, Ithink is really good because there's kind of

(33:58):
this I think popular perception. Theonly strength is physical strength. The only
competence is is combat confidence a competence, you know, The only skill is
gun skill, you know, andso I Atomic Blonde is just an easy
you know that we had, well, we had Damsel, you know with
uh Millie Bobby Bobby Brown. Uhrecently it's like, ah, you know,

(34:21):
she's got a sword and she's gonnastab up the good dragon. And
that's the only kind of strength thatwe're really honoring and and uh and because
we really you know, I mean, what is a woman anyway? Right?
I mean you could just be jumpback and forth, you know.
And so I think we're kind ofmissing out on some amazing stories that about
women in war and in conflict thatdon't involve them just punching dudes out and

(34:45):
and and and shooting shooting dudes witha M sixty by your by your by
you know, holding it by yourbicep or whatever. It's like, oh
man, that's like you say,war is multifaceted, and women have played
a pivotal, if not an overlyand large role within the war effort.
But man, they I think mostlybecause people are under estimated in a lot

(35:06):
of in a lot of ways,that they can get in there and they
can they can have that quiet strengthand they can get the job done that
doesn't necessarily involve violence. Yeah.No, that's a that's a really good
point. So I mean it's beena good change too. Like, there
are so many great stories out there, and you know they don't all involve
just you know, acts of herorismembellishing violence. You know, just like

(35:31):
like you said, you know,there's some amazing stories of women behind the
scenes doing the thing. Like I'mthat I'm just reading the just reading that
that movie title from the fifties andlike reading what it's about, I'm like,
oh, that's pretty cool. Ididn't even know there was like a
special operations executive that gathered and tellthat's probably like super spy stuff. So

(35:53):
I'm like, oh, I mightwant to check that out. Yeah.
So that's you know, that's abig change that we've seen. Now more
are popularly in modern times, butobviously that's due to the political push.
Sometimes good uh, sometimes sometimes Ghostbustersthat's all. That's all I'll leave with
that. Uh, sometimes she Hulkyou know's yeah, I mean yeah,

(36:21):
it depends on what depends on whatyour uh, what your goal is,
you know, and also just talkingabout like ethnic diversity right right with representation
representation films, Uh, the warfilm is, I mean, it's it
depends on what the story you wantto tell. That's that's my standard.
Right If you're gonna tell a storyabout a unit in Russia during World War

(36:44):
Two fighting against the Nazis, wherewe're not gonna have a lot of black
people in it, you know whatI mean? Yeah, unless unless that's
the point in which case you gotto find a way to like shoehorn them
in. But then again you canalso you can also go the other way.
We had what was it Battlefield Uhno, no, no, not
Bad Off for Los Angeles. Iwas thinking of the Call of Duty or

(37:05):
Not Bad which which was the onethat had the female sniper in it that
you know, Oh, anyway,just there's there was a it was the
one that didn't do very well,which maybe maybe I'm I'm brain blocking it
because but anyway, so if youyou know, you go as somebody say,
hey, we want diversity in thiswar film or in this war movie,
or well, let's try to lookfor situations in history, soldiers in

(37:28):
history that were women that did dothese kinds of things and then just tell
their stories. That's cool because that'sjust real history, and it just gives
truth to the argument that, youknow, war affects everybody, and people
get involved and everybody has different strengthsand skills. So imbody, remember we
had our buddy on the the sniperguy. He was like, yeah,
women are great snipers. They're actuallybetter snipers and men. I'm like,

(37:50):
oh, well, that's kind ofinteresting. I know that. Yeah,
but anyway, you know, interms of like ethnic diversity, it's just
like we got to shoehorn people inthere somehow, when historically that's war is
usually like a historical endeavor too.You're trying to tell a story about a
specific thing, It's like, well, you know, do we want to
do we want to give weight tothe truth of the story. You want

(38:13):
to tell what actually happened? Ordo we want to fulfill some kind of
like current kind of cultural narrating youknow what I mean? Yeah, I
mean that's one of those changes that'snot necessarily a net positive. I feel
like it affects the storytelling in abig, big way, like for example,
the Buffalo Rangers Korean Wars Buffalo Aor the an all black ranger company

(38:35):
that was undersupplied and fought tooth andnail through the winters of Korea. A
very famous ranger company, I thinkit was. I think they were there
Echo Golf Company, Delta Company inKorea, because in Korea the ranger companies
were all set up. I thinkit was like Alpha through Hotel or something,

(38:57):
but they're all black, and thatwould have been a maze. I
think that's overdue for a movie orsomething like that. Yeah, so that's
like, you know, that's it'sfactual, you know, that's what actually
happened. Just like that's why Gloryis one of the best, you know,
is the best of civil war movie, one of the best, you
know, war movies of all time, just because it shows it shows a

(39:20):
true story. Yeah, involving thatyou mentioned Damsel and I was watching it
and I'm like, I didn't knowthere were any African American people's in medieval
times in Europe. And it's literallyher mom or her caretaker is like the
adopted whatever the daughter, right,It's like her mother is Angela Bassett.
Yeah, yeah, I was like, what is she doing here? You

(39:42):
know, it's a true fantasy.It's just that you know, at genetics
has no bearing on this magical fantasylandthat works. It's something with her skin
palettes. It's like the plasma withinit easily but that it was like when
you like throw some e I Dstuff in that like and when you peppered
in that way, it takes awayfrom the storytelling. I think it throws

(40:04):
the audience off, you know,either they're not focused on the story anymore,
and depending on the person they're sofocused on, like, you know,
placement and historical, historical authenticity orsomething like that. Whether they're like,
oh my god, there's an Asianman in you know, thirteen hundreds
Europe before they were even new oftheir existence. Oh that's so great,

(40:29):
or they're like, why is thatAsian guy in thirteen hundreds of Europe?
You know, Yeah, it's likethrows the audience off from the actual story.
I don't know if that's like atool they're doing it because their writing
is so poor that they're like,hey, maybe if we throw a just
a zinger distraction in here, theywon't realize that we just royally shit the
bed on this writing, which usuallydoes not happen fortunately. Yeah yeah,

(40:52):
yeah, yeah, so, butI mean, you know when it I
guess one more thing I'll say aboutthis is if you if you want to
see I mean, if your goalis to see us come together somehow and
look past our differences and unite asone, which doesn't seem to be a
lot of filmmaker's point, But ifthat is your goal, history has got

(41:14):
tons of stories where we came togetherto despite our differences. Man, we
talked about glory, We've talked about. Uh. You know, uh all
there's there's just shock full of them, you know what I mean, Like
the World War even World War Two, when we had when we had like
anti Japanese like laws and we hadinternment camps for Yeah, there were still

(41:35):
Japanese people that volunteered for the militaryand went out and fought for America because
they're like, listen, I thisis all wrong. But I believe in
the promise of America. And eventhough my family is in an internment camp
or whatever, Uh, I'm gonnago out and fight for America because I
believe in what it in, whatit can be. There's so many good
stories about that, you know,and the ugliness and the imperfection of the

(41:58):
American tapestry. Uh. In warfilms, I think that's one of the
good purposes that war films can cando, is to talk about overcoming our
differences. Despite these very strong,powerful, even important differences, we overcome
them to uh conflict with you know, common enemy, that kind of thing

(42:19):
for the promise of one American plea. You know, Uh, it's it's
it's good man. It's There's alwaysbeen a ton of diversity in uh,
in the military what do you got, you got anything. One more thing
in terms of evolution I think hasgenerally been a positive one is a lot
of more, a lot more countriesare making their own war films about the
history of their own conflicts. Andone of the great things about that is,

(42:45):
uh is it shows the commonality ofthe brotherhood of war. You see,
you know, like whether it's Malaysiaor France, or or or Russia
or whatever, making a making amovie about a conflict way back in the
day, and it's like, man, you know, the soldiers never changed,
Guys never changed, people never change, and there's still that bond that's

(43:07):
created when you're going through on ahard time together you're going through a war
type situation. Uh. And alsodifferent perspectives, like we watched recently Malbot,
the Malaysia Battalion movie, which youknow had its flaws. Admittedly it
was not was not the best moviethe you know, the Americans with Australian
accents. Yes, yes, butthat was what the Malaysian unit was doing

(43:31):
while the black hawk Down situation washappening with the Americans. So we offered
this other perspective and this fuller perspectiveon this one. Conflict that I thought,
oh, that's that's really cool,you know, And and the more
other countries tell their stories, Ithink that pop culture is out there for
people to explore and uh and maybeget a better perspective or a wider perspective

(43:54):
on whatever war conflict we're talking about. Ye no, that's a that's an
excellent point. I think the globalperspective. You know, when we watched
Mabot, even though it wasn't likethe greatest movie ever invented, it's like,
dude, that I mean from aguy that has you know, that's
looked into Somalia and knew that likeTenth Mountain Division and you know, and
the Pakistanis and the Malaysians were there, just they didn't have their story to

(44:16):
be told. To see a moviethat finally represented them, you know,
it just expands that. It makesthat event more, you know, it's
it just adds to the value ofyou know, Operation Gothic Serpent. But
that's just one small example. Youknow, there's when we're doing the Korean
you know, whenever we go overthe Korean War, most of the movies

(44:37):
we talk about about the Korean Warare from the perspective of the Koreans.
Yeah. So, like, youknow, even I've seen movies on World
War Two about the Japanese soldiers.There's that the Last Samurai or the Last
Ronan about the guy who lived inthe jungle when the war was over and
he's like, oh, war's notover, and like the Americans are,
please the war's over. It's fromhis perspective, and it just adds more

(45:00):
depth. I think it adds morehuman emotion. I think it you know,
it's really easy to get sucked upinto a perception that like the enemy's
the enemy, you know, andit's like, oh, but we're all
human, So it's you know,I think it makes it a little bit
more. Uh makes it a littlebit more what's the word like involved with

(45:21):
my makes it adds context, adsperspective exactly. Okay, that's thank you
for filling in my brain with goodwords. Yeah, it adds context.
It just adds more emotion. Itmakes an event not seem as if it's
just written down on a piece ofpaper for us to read later. Uh
So I think, uh, Ithink it's you know, global perspective is

(45:45):
a good thing. It's just andI think that's really because the access to
technology, the ability to make thesemovies and countries that you know might not
be able to So that's another thing. But I'm intrigued to see, you
know, we have all these changesthat we see from you know, when
the invention of movies to when theystarted making war movies to what we have
now here in twenty twenty four.I'm excited to see or I'm more intrigued

(46:07):
to see how the changes, ifthere's going to be any more changes,
or what those changes will look likein the future. Like I think one
thing we talk about all the timeis like, Okay, well you know
how World War Two is that war? You know, it happened over fifty
years ago. I think we're comingup on seventy years, close to seventy
years since World War Two. Ithink seventy five, this will be the

(46:30):
seventy six. No, it's longerthan that, seventy eight. Yeah,
we're probably maybe more eighty years we'relooking at. Yeah, we're getting close
to eighty years because I think theyear I got out was the seventy fifth
anniversary, so that I was twentyeighteen, so adding six years, so
eighty one years. So we're likecoming eighty one years since World War Two
and we're still making movies about thatthing, Like what's going to be our

(46:50):
World War two? You know?Is it like is Afghanistan going to be
our World War two? Or I'mintrigued to see how that will happen and
what changes will look like during that. Yeah, but yeah, that's I
think. You know, change.Change is a good thing, but change
can also be a bad thing.It's just it really depends on what you're
changing and how you're changing it.Yeah, either way you slice it,

(47:13):
change is inevitable. Yeah, it'slike just like we're going to change to
the game. Oh you wait toleave it on that one changes it is.
And by the way, folks,if you like all this stuff,
I just want to give a quickshout out to our YouTube channel. If
you're watching this, thank you forsupporting. If you're listening to this,
head over to the pop Culture FieldManual YouTube. And we got some more

(47:36):
great content. We got some gamereviews, which is what Cameron and I
are originally known for from the Gameologydays. We got the game recons and
we got the debrief coming out onFridays with Cameron giving you some his perspective
on some recent military news, alwaysinsightful and always strong opinions on that one,
and so yeah, yeah, tonsof great content folks. You can

(47:58):
also check out my horror gaming channel, the is Files. Type that in
on YouTube and uh yeah, alsoa lots of great stuff. Check out
our Patreon subscribe. We got fullerepisodes, extra episodes and then a live
stream this week or this month,we're gonna do con Air, So if
you can you sign up real quick? Yes, yeah, or maybe this
is coming out afterwards and you totallymissed it, I'm wrong for you.

(48:20):
Yeah, we're doing another if ifit is, we're doing another awesome movie,
probably a legendary movie you won't wantto miss. That's right, that's
right. But now we're moving intothe game as we often do traditionally.
Do we got a game? Thisone's for you, Cameron. I will
be the game master. Sure,and in a seize maic shift from what
we normally do, this game hasnot even a little bit related to the

(48:44):
episode topic. It's called Animals inCombat. Okay, all right, I
like animals in Combat. I'm goingto give you the name of a cuddly,
cute little animal and you tell meif it's from a movie, real
life or both. Oh yeah,okay, you ready, we got like
five of these, I think fiveor six of these, So let's get

(49:06):
this first one. Sergeant Stubby wasa dog and the unofficial mascot of the
Oh shoot, maybe I don't knowif I should say that. Okay,
I guess. Maybe I just giveyou the name and then you tell me,
and then I tell you the becauseI got a bunch of great information.
But maybe I shouldn't talk about whatit is. You probably shouldn't,
but I will say starting Sergeant Stubby, I think was the mascot the official

(49:30):
mascot of a British Was it aBritish troop or was the official mascot of
a Marine Corps landing troop? ButI think it was. It was a
real animal, and he was ina real world, real war. I

(49:51):
think it was like World War twotime. But you tell me if I'm
wrong, I could be thinking ofsomeone else. You are half right.
He was a real, real worlddog and then also subject of a movie.
So he was a dog in theunofficial mascot of the one hundred and
second Infantry Regiment this is World WarOne and assigned to the twenty sixth Yankee
Division. He served for eighteen monthsand participated in seventeen battles and four offensives

(50:15):
on the Western Front. Stubby isThat's also the subject of a twenty eighteen
animated film, Sergeant Stubby an AmericanHero. Wow. That's awesome, dude,
Well a legend, legendary Sergeant Stubby. All right. Next one,
bow tat, bowtat, bowtat,bow tat. All I gotta say,

(50:40):
is real movie or both. I'mjust gonna say movie. That is correct.
It is the elephant from Operation Dumbo. Drop the elephants and the real
stories. Names are lost to time. So that was the movie version.
I don't know what the real Igotcha in the movie. That was his
name? All right? Next one, voitcheck, voit check. Why does

(51:05):
this one sound really familiar? Voitcheck. I'm gonna say both. Ooh,
you're half right. He is areal bear. Boy? You have
Russian Bear? Yeah. Russian Bearwas a Syrian born brown bear bought as
a young cub in the mountains ofIran by Polish Second Corps soldiers who had

(51:28):
been evacuated from the Soviet Union inorder to provide for his rations and transportation.
He was eventually enlisted officially as asoldier in the rank of private,
and was subsequently promoted to corporal corporalvoid. Check. What a great mascot,
man, I know, be like, what's your mascot? We got
a cat? What's your mascot?We got like a we got like a
dog. What's your mascot? Wegot a bear? We have bear?

(51:52):
We have bear voitcheck calvid ethel withme and have a thick of it.
He likes cigarettes apparently. Oh that'sawesome for a smoking bear smoking the bear.
Yeah nice, Okay, all right, next one, Sergeant reckless.
Sergeant reckless. I'm just gonna oh, sergeant reckless sounds reckless. For some

(52:17):
reason, I believe this tod belike a small dog. You know how
like dogs have like a like areally small dogs have a lot of attitude.
Yeah right, yeah, So I'mjust gonna say this was Sergeant regular.
I'm just gonna say both and sayit's a small yapper dog like a
winnie dog or like a chihuahua orsomething. Well, you're wrong about what
animal it was, but it doesn'tmatter. You're also wrong about it being

(52:42):
in a movie. He's a realit was a real war horse who held
the warficial rank in the United Statesmilitary. Was a mayor of Mongolian horse
breeding out of a horse a racehorsedam. She was he She was purchased
in October nineteen fifty two for twohundred fifty dollars from a Korean stableway at
the Sole Racetrack who needed money tobuy an artificial leg for his sister.

(53:05):
She diserved in numerous combat actions duringthe Korean War, carrying supplies and ammunition.
Was also used to evacuate the wounded. Learning each supply route after only
a couple of trips, she oftentraveled to deliver supplies to her own troops
without benefit of a handler. Thehighlight of her nine month military career came
in late March nineteen fifty three duringthe Battle for Outposts, Vegas, when
in a single day she made fiftyone solo trips to resupply multiple frontline units.

(53:30):
She was wounded in combat twice andgiven the battlefield rank of corporal in
nineteen fifty three, and then abattlefield promotion just sergeant in nineteen fifty four,
several months after the war ended.Wow dude, that's a cool story.
By itself. That's a strong independentwoman right there. Yeah. Wow,
hats off to you, lady Sogant. Yeah, Sergeant Reckless, that's

(53:53):
pretty cool. That's a really timegone by, a by gone time of
using horses, the cowboy, youknow, and using horses. So speaking
of strong women roles, dude,right there, where's that one? Yeah,
strong females, I could see it. We need more Korean war pop
culture, all right, we gottwo more. Man. Rin Tin Tin

(54:14):
rented in Tin Rinting Tin. Uhjust I think it's just a movie,
right, it was both oh asall as you are half right was a
male German shepherd born in Flirey,France, who became an international star in
motion pictures. He was rescued froma World War One battle filled by an
American soldier, Lee Duncan, whonicknamed him Renty Duncan or Duncan, trained

(54:38):
Rintin Tin and obtained silent film workfor the dog. Ntin Tm was an
immediate box office success, who wenton to appear in twenty seven Hollywood films,
gaining worldwide fame. I remember RintinTin. Yeah, that's cool,
all right? No one more chanceto redeem yourself from all these half truths.
And half acas joe Joey, Oh, Joey Australian kangaroo. Let's just

(55:06):
say he was both. He wasboth as always, Cameron, you were
half right. He was a movieIt's the horse from the movie war Horse.
His name was Joey Joey. That'syeah. That was it that well,
that that was the horse, thatwas the stunt horse. Probably yeah,

(55:30):
yeah. I don't know if youknow if it was based on a
true story or not, what thereal horse's name was, but that's the
movie version horse. I got you. I was thinking of the kangaroo from
I mean, you're all wrong.There's a lot of Joey's out there in
Australia. Remember the Emu War.Probably some Joey's servant lost and they lost

(55:50):
the wars. But man, thatwas a challenging game. But I'm glad
we played it because I learned somuch. So I am actually very happy
being half wrong, or I'll sayhalf right. That's right. See,
you're a you're an answers half rightkind of guy. I am a answers
half right type of guy. Well, folks, how many did you get
right? Let us know by sendingus an email to pcfmpodcast gmail dot com.

(56:14):
We always love receiving emails from you. It makes our days and it
also has a chance of being featuredon the episode. So ask us questions.
If you want to know anything fromIzzy's underwear color to some of our
greatest aspirations in life, send usan email at pcfrimpodcast at gmail dot com.
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(56:34):
and check us. Ending the episodeBuzy cue music