Generation Kill
I've been watching Generation Kill, the 7-episode HBO series about the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, based on the book of the same name by the reporter Evan Wright. I haven't been quite sure how to feel about it.
I had considerable difficulty figuring out who was who and what was being said in the first couple of episodes, and even in the 5th episode cricketk and I had to rewind, pause and match faces to pictures on the internet to identify a character in a key scene. Everyone has short hair and wears a helmet most of the time, and the show doesn't throw the viewer many bones when it comes to deciphering military jargon and acronyms. Fortunately there's a great resource, organised by oxoniensis, that includes transcripts and a cast list with photos. With all the background and offscreen dialogue, those transcripts would have been incredibly hard to do, so my hat is off to all the people who worked on them.
A review I read described the language as "downright Neanderthal in its racism and homophobia", to which I would add, misogyny. I pretty much immediately fell in love with Brad (Alexander Skarsgard's character) for his looks and his calmness and his vocabulary, but he says things like
Given the prevailing climatic conditions, using this lubricant is like trying to buttfuck a virgin underaged Phuket whore with chalk when KY is clearly called for.
and that's when he's talking to an officer!
I appreciate books and TV that inspire me to learn more about real events, though some of the things I learned I'd rather not know, which is probably par for the course when the subject is war.
There's a surprising amount of good fanfic, but it's problematic since the characters are playing real people who just happened to feature in the book, so it's all effectively RPS and you can't use the "they're celebrities and it's part of their public persona" justification.
When I was 15 I sent away for the application materials to the US Air Force Academy (Air Force! And I don't even like to fly!) and since then I've always half wanted to be in the military in a stupid, romantic sense. Watching the junior officers and enlisted men deal with bad orders helped remind me that it would have been a very, very bad career choice for me, a point my parents made at the time. Also, reading about the training Marines go through and watching Rudy Reyes sprint around the compound in combat gear carrying a backpack full of rocks has got me running a bit more again. I desperately didn't want the series to end. The DVDs plus Evan Wright's book and Nate Fick's book One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer are on the way.
I had considerable difficulty figuring out who was who and what was being said in the first couple of episodes, and even in the 5th episode cricketk and I had to rewind, pause and match faces to pictures on the internet to identify a character in a key scene. Everyone has short hair and wears a helmet most of the time, and the show doesn't throw the viewer many bones when it comes to deciphering military jargon and acronyms. Fortunately there's a great resource, organised by oxoniensis, that includes transcripts and a cast list with photos. With all the background and offscreen dialogue, those transcripts would have been incredibly hard to do, so my hat is off to all the people who worked on them.
A review I read described the language as "downright Neanderthal in its racism and homophobia", to which I would add, misogyny. I pretty much immediately fell in love with Brad (Alexander Skarsgard's character) for his looks and his calmness and his vocabulary, but he says things like
Given the prevailing climatic conditions, using this lubricant is like trying to buttfuck a virgin underaged Phuket whore with chalk when KY is clearly called for.
and that's when he's talking to an officer!
I appreciate books and TV that inspire me to learn more about real events, though some of the things I learned I'd rather not know, which is probably par for the course when the subject is war.
There's a surprising amount of good fanfic, but it's problematic since the characters are playing real people who just happened to feature in the book, so it's all effectively RPS and you can't use the "they're celebrities and it's part of their public persona" justification.
When I was 15 I sent away for the application materials to the US Air Force Academy (Air Force! And I don't even like to fly!) and since then I've always half wanted to be in the military in a stupid, romantic sense. Watching the junior officers and enlisted men deal with bad orders helped remind me that it would have been a very, very bad career choice for me, a point my parents made at the time. Also, reading about the training Marines go through and watching Rudy Reyes sprint around the compound in combat gear carrying a backpack full of rocks has got me running a bit more again. I desperately didn't want the series to end. The DVDs plus Evan Wright's book and Nate Fick's book One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer are on the way.