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Patriotic war movies depress me, unless they’re done satirically. People missed the point with “Starship Troopers.”
Most modern war movies try not to be overly patriotic but tend to do so in subtle ways. American war movies always tend to celebrate the soldiers who fought and that they believed they were on a noble mission, even if they’re not explicitly celebrating the war.
Which is what makes “Saving Private Ryan” an unusual American war movie, probably because it’s the first modern one. It’s about how war makes brutes out of normal people, and how a group of them want to do something decent for a change.
Almost all the war movies, both American and international, which followed SPR tend to say “war is hell, but these soldiers are awesome!” Which is just a difficult message, really. Their militarism is honestly depressing.
You can see how scenes which are meant to convey horror become almost fetishized. The original Call of Duty games are based entirely off of movie depictions of war, and that tells you a lot about how the priority is to make war look awesome, not anything more authentic. So there are clear inspirations from SPR, from Band of Brothers, from Enemy at the Gates, basically rendering you into these movie scenes.
It’s not just companies which do this either. If you look at modding communities, people are constantly trying to digitally recreate what they’ve seen in movies, so really companies are just catering to a market that’s already there.
So that Omaha beach landing scene in SPR is one of the most overdone opening levels in any WW2 game. It’s a testament to how enduringly memorable that scene was in our cultural memory, but it’s depressing that the way it’s mostly remembered is in entirely the wrong direction.
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Okay, so I have an essay due Monday. I did some work on Thursday, I have just lost my Friday. I predict that my Saturday is likely to be lost, and my Sunday could go either way.
I have worked miracles in the past, but this is a little longer than usual.
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Rican on the Run: Culture or Rudeness? -
Note: This is not an indictment of Austrian culture, but rather a comment on my own narrow experience in a small corner of Salzburg. Even then, it is my perspective.
After a fairly successful 42km bike ride around the city of Salzburg, my partner and I prepared to attend a birthday/house…
I don’t know if it’s cultural, but I also have many experiences of men in Germany asking me weird questions without much thought about personal boundaries. I even had one guy (my partner’s friend) asking me whether my partner and I are using protection. That was definitely rude and disturbing. I guess he and his wife (sitting next to him) wanted to know when we want to have babies like they are. I was shocked.
I should have asked them how their sex life is after having that many babies… but I didn’t. I’m not rude and I don’t care about other people’s businesses.
I’m not sure if it’s cultural (I’m inclined to think both of these particular cases are just people being rude and not an overall trend), but I have a couple of points to add:
Generally speaking in my experience, Europeans (especially Germans but not only) are more direct than, say, Americans. Americans tend to prioritize getting along, so when you first meet someone they’ll more often stick to safe topics of conversation.
Europeans tend to ask you personal questions to find out if you’re worth getting to know. So they’ll ask early on about politics or religion just to see where they stand with you.
Asians (especially Chinese and related) tend to be a little direct when it comes to criticizing appearance, supposedly to help you. They’ll comment on how you gained weight, broke out in pimples, and start right off with their own brand of helpful suggestions.
The last point meaning that sometimes people really think they’re helping you with things you feel offended about. Sometimes it’s worth pointing it out to them that you feel offended, sometimes it’s not. I’ve met some people who just want to see if you’ll stand up for yourself, or if they think you can take a mean joke. Mostly it’s just people.
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whenever i travel anywhere i always like to bring my friends back fancy soaps and body lotions so they think of me when they shower and rub their bodies.
This is an amazing idea.
I have often felt like this
(Source: calvinhobbesdaily)
“A Slip of the Keyboard by Sir Terry Pratchett is a collection of non-fiction essays due out on the 24th October” (x)
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The disadvantage of living at home (well, another one) is not being able to seriously strategically skip classes you don’t need to go to. To my family, skipping any classes is an automatic recipe to failure and disgrace.
“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.” — Stanley Kubrick (via nezua)
(Source: quotes-shape-us, via autumnsoliloquy)
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So, uh, my grandfather just can’t help himself with finding bread to eat. He’s not supposed to and knows he’s not supposed to, but I can’t stop him.
Which means I really should be chaperoning him but I can’t do this all the time.