Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Hanks, Hollywood, and History

By Bruce Walker

"Tom Hanks has said that our war on Islamic terrorism has the same flaws as he perceives our Pacific War against Japan had seventy years ago. In both conflicts, some Americans employed crude racial stereotypes of our enemies, feared the strange gods they worshiped, and sought to annihilate them. Hanks' comments reveal, for those of us who still needed evidence, the appalling ignorance of Hollywood and its performers.

The propaganda of virtually all nations involved in the Second World War, America included, was exaggerated and intense. This did not reflect a special bias against the Japanese: Hollywood often portrayed the Nazis as actual devils and invariably presented Germany in general in the worst possible light. The Nazis reciprocated with a constant flow of abuse directed at Churchill and Roosevelt."

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