A Meta WIP Post
I started this essay which I called In Defense of The Pacific back in Jan. pretty much a week before a) I got sick b) my grandmother died on my 27th birthday c) I then had to go to said grandmother's funeral d) my sister got sick e) my sister was in the hospital for a month most of that time spent in scarily bad health status we're not going to re-
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as for my personal reaction to the shows (i haven't seen genkill so i can't comment on that) - band of brothers is my personal favorite because i do like the experience of following a group of people, i'm a very person(and group)-oriented individual, and i liked that aspect of that story. the pacific was much, much more brutal (which i think may partly be what turns some people off? despite them both being war shows, band of brothers ...while not light, definitely has a lighter feel than the pacific) and this made it much harder to get through, but it didn't make me like it any less. my personal experience has been that after you watch the pacific, it has to almost, marinate, while your brain takes in the enormity of what you've seen, and then it grows on you? it's easier to balk at because it is tougher - and colder, in the sense that it doesn't focus so extremely on one group or person - so it makes sense to me that people would say: i don't like it, without even understanding quite why.
but i love the fact that the pacific followed the men home at the end. that's the episode that i cried through, the last one, after the war is over, because we're finally getting a glimpse of the aftereffects of the experience, which are such a real and integral part of war. ...man, even just talking about it now -- i think it really is true that the pacific just takes a much longer time to grow on you, and to even start peeling back those layers in retrospect, because looking back on it now my amazement for it is growing so much. whereas band of brothers, on the other hand, i felt like i had a pretty good grasp on the story and the amazingness of it by the end of my first watch-through. perhaps it is because the pacific covers more expansive ground - since it really is about the entire PTO?
i guess, it makes sense to me that people don't like it as much because it's... probably one of the toughest things i've ever watched, and there's people who just aren't in the place to watch that -- and may have been expecting it to be on the slightly less brutal level of the other shows? and dislike it for its honesty, in actuality.
AHHHH IDK I'M RAMBLING AND I'M NOT SURE IT MAKES SENSE.
TL;DR - i really agree with everything you said. o:
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I totally agree that The Pacific needs to percolate in the brain. You need to watch it through once, then re-watch at LEAST once more to start to get the full effect and expanse of what it's shown. It's not a show that can be taken for face value really, and some of the most amazing things are the subtle parts you don't pick up on until your third or fourth re-wathc.
BoB really does provide an instant connection b/c you meet these guys, and you're with them for 10 episodes, and it's hard not to connect with them and love them. As entertainment, I think BoB wins hands down, but idk, for me, personally, I appreciate what The Pacific does more. And like, there are parts of BoB that are really hard for me to watch, but by and large, I can re-watch and marathon all the episodes at once and be cool. No matter how often I re-watch The Pacific, when it comes to episode 9 there are cetain scenes I just have to watch through my fingers. Still.
And I totes understand that there are a whole bunch of people who can't watch TP, or finish it, b/c of how deep and dark it goes into the human psyche. And I completely get and respect those people. It's the ones who call TP horrible b/c it has "bad writing, or bad characters, or it's not funny" or something that make me get a teeny bit ranty, b/c that's really not a fair thing to say about a show that honestly delves deep into the human response to war.
Thank you for all your thoughts, bb!
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'i do think though, that a big part of it, /commented this on shannon's entry
is that the pacific is a WHOLE lot tougher to watch it's brutal. and a lot of pepole aren't in the place to deal with that? or it's triggering personal things for them, and the initial reaction, especially if you're not clued into why you're upset is I JUST DONT LIKE THIS, IT SUCKS --and because it isn't so much about one certain group of men and doesn't focus quite as much on the commradery you don't have that comfortable part of the show to focus on as much to distract you from the painful reality -nor do you have a strange sort of commradery between the men you're following and their enemy (which is both horrible and comforting, in a strange way, all at once) - so there's a sense of chaos and brutality in this place of the war that freaks ppl out'
that's kind of my opinion on some of the haters who think it has bad writing or bad characters, and i TOTALLY agree if they go in expecting BoB (or GK, i'm assuming) they're going to be disappointed. AND OF COURSE IT'S NOT FUNNY (though it totally has its funny parts! though they are partly dark humor - that's human nature, to find something that amuses you) they're going to be disappointed. ahh, it does frustrated me to (/has now been linked to that little spattering of secrets!post wank)
...and damn, i'm pretty sure the pacific will be much more painful to watch the second time (i only watched it for the first time within the last month!) but i really need to do this soon -- because you really do develop an appreciation for it over time. jesus, okay, IMO ALL OF THESE SERIES ARE BEAUTIFUL. AND REALLY DON'T NEED TO COMPARED, BECAUSE THEY'RE DIFFERENT SERIES, and really, in essence, even though the timeframe is the same, different wars.
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That is pretty much my mantra. B/c they are NOT the same things, one should not be held up to the other to judge what is better, even if people will do so by default. I love ALL of these series for very, very different reasons.
I love Gen Kill b/c I appreciate the humor, the docu-style of the filming and story-telling, the miniseries that has no story from a war that seemed to have no real meaning. And it pretty much turns the idea of the myth of the Marine on its head, while never insulting the service these men do.
I love Band of Bros, b/c it is a beautiful piece of art, in a lot of ways it has a warmth and sense of coming home whenever I watch it. And it does such a good job at showing that ideas of brotherhood and leadership. There are thousands of other reasons I could mention (the acting, the sets, etc.) but those are my main ones.
I love The Pacific b/c it's brutal, complex, deep, dark, and honest. Because even if it is disjointed in terms of traditional story-telling, it still tells a whole story, shows the journey of change and how you can compare that to a child of Italian immigrants who became a war hero and living legend in Basiolone, to Leckie's journey through life that changed him and set him on his historical writing path, to the loss of innocence in young Gene Sledge from AL, showing what a hell of a war can do to a soft-hearted boy.
All of them are lovely bits of television, but TP kind of gets shafted I think b/c a) it's the youngest and b) it really does take a commitment to get into and c) as you've said, it's just far too hard for a lot of people to watch.
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i'm curious to watch GenKill now, but not sure i'm ready to take in another war show (or be absorbed into another fandom... i'm quite enjoying being in BoB and TP fandom right now, it's more than enough for me /not great at multitasking fandoms) -- and i also just, intuitively, feel like it's not quite the right timing yet. i put off watching BoB for months after i was recced it, because the timing didn't feel right, and when i ended up watching it it really did end up being the perfect thing to watch at the perfect time, so i'm listening to myself (:
i completely agree with why you love both BoB and TP (and hng, sledge's loss of innocence was actually one of the things that hit me hardest the first time watching? i was nearly tearing my hair out as soon as he joined, and even before his first battle, because i just knew what would happen and it was so painful to think about. I JUST WANTED HIM TO STAY HOME /dies;; -- and on that note, thinking of the scene in the last episode where sledge has the flashback while going hunting with his father, it really does amaze me that people say the pacific has bad acting, because ...i think it's rather beautiful.)
on the topic of not being able to watch -- i tried to show my mom a trailer for band of brothers today and she couldn't finish it. and she's a very, very strong woman, but i think because of her own past experiences with violence and trauma, it's just too painful to think of what these men went through. she's already seen enough tragedy. but i really don't TP should get a bad rep just because of it's brutality, because, as you said in your post, it's not gratuitous, it's just honest.
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Funny you should say that. I didn't watch the last ep of TP until several months after it finished airing because I was waiting. And once I did, it was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me :'D
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it's a good way to do things! =D
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TOTALLY GOOD TO KNOW I'M NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO'S LIKE THIS 8D
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I APPROVE 8D
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