Representations of Soldiers

There are several similarities in the representations in how media portrays soldiers, particularly with respects to soldiers out of the western tradition/civilizations. The vast majority

of media portray soldiers as good and honorable men who work towards protecting the lives of people in weaker positions. For example, the movies Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor characterize western (American) soldiers as innocent young men who are called up to defeat the ‘Axis of Evil’. Yet even something like the television show Hogan’s Heroes, from the 1960s and 1970s, keeps the enemies of “American ideals” (freedom, liberty, etc.) in a sort of dumbed down stupor while the Americans were cleverly conspiring.

It is quite peculiar that in most of the media forms, America or the other western civilization has soldiers that never seem to lose a battle. Or if they do lose a battle, there is always a retaliation or a glorious come back to win the war. Unfortunately there is a stark difference in this from reality. America and its allies do not always with the battles or the war for that matter, saying otherwise completely ignores portions of history.

In my studies I found very few examples of representations of soldiers in media that does not conform to the ideas I set forth in the previous two paragraphs. A couple instances that I found were the movies: Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, The Thin Red Line, and A Few Good Men. These movies seem to show the soldiers as performing dishonorable activities while in the field of combat, but in the end many of them were punished for their actions. A Few Good Men in particular gives a dynamic look at the actions of soldiers and the idea of a “chain of command” during a time of military worship.

The consequences of the media’s portrayal of soldiers in such a positive light are vast and wide reaching. When seeing constant representations of soldiers as good, honorable and continuously victorious, we become blind to the situations that these men and women go through. No longer will we pay attention to suffering that people go through, instead we will have blind loyalty and give ignorant praises of glory. I do not mean to say that soldiers have never done anything that is just or right; but when we characterize an entire group and their actions as just and right then there is a real, and very present danger that we overlook atrocities commit by these people. One only has to look to Nazi Germany to see that a society can blind itself to reality when there is not an accurate representation of events in the media.