I've always been interested in WWII history. I was excited to hear there was a movie about the Tuskegee airmen. I must admit I found by accident whilst wandering around the internet. I am pretty much out of touch with current Pop Culture.
Of course George Lucas totally screwed with history and he is proud of it.
To quote from Lucas in the Huffington Post,
"They have a right to have their history just like anybody else does," Lucas said. "And they have a right to have it kind of Hollywood-ized and aggrandized and made corny and wonderful just like anybody else does. Even if that's not the fashion right now."
How incredibly condescending and wrong! It is actually a racist view in my opinion. What Lucas is essentially saying is that the Tuskegee airmen didn't accomplish anything "movie-worthy" on their own.
So, essentially he is creating a legend by repeating some nine documented historical errors as the truth.
Of course the activists, steeped in the culture of victimization, promoted the film like crazy, and made another Hollywood arsehole even richer!
To add insult to injury the movie was filmed in the Czech Republic with somewhat low production values, as in a low cost movie cranked out to make a buck on the race card.
Why not an Historically Accurate movie about the Black Airmen which shows their struggle to not only achieve combat status but also their contribution to the war effort? It doesn't matter if they did or did not sink a destroyer, if they never lost a bomber or if they lost 25, their contribution was heroic and they should be role models for any person facing adversity.
Of course they were treated shamefully by the Government. The exploits of the airmen were used cynically for propaganda purposes to recruit more Blacks which were then used mostly for menial tasks, ditch digging, graves detail, quartermaster corps, and when those soldiers came home they were not given the respect they deserved. Perhaps that would be a good story to tell...
I'd still like to see the move but I suppose it would annoy me so much I would be unable to enjoy the flying scenes.
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It already was done w/o the corn!
ReplyDeleteThe Tuskegee Airmen is a 1995 HBO television movie directed by Robert Markowitz and stars Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding, Jr., John Lithgow, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
Ottumwa, Iowa native, Captain Robert W. Williams, a wartime pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps' "332nd Fighter Group", the all African-American combat unit trained at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, wrote a manuscript years earlier, and worked with screenwriter T.S. Cook to create a screenplay originally intended for a feature film project. The plot combined fact and fiction to create an essentially historically accurate drama. Linking up with Frank Price, owner of Price Productions in 1985 finally gained some traction for the project and when financing was eventually obtained nearly 10 years later, Williams stayed on as co-executive producer and Price as executive producer
Yes, the word that the HBO movie is much better than the Lucas film. Which is kind of funny. I think I saw the HBO movie.
DeleteBooks are always better. I'm sure there have been some on the airmen.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of info about the Tuskegee airmen so why make it up? I think you could have a very inspiring and historically accurate movie. There is good material. See Muddy Valley's comment about the HBO movie.
DeleteYes, I agree. I really love the ideas thanks for posting this.
ReplyDelete