The public-opinion usefulness of three war-related movies: "Empire of the Sun," "The Kite Runner," and "The Water Horse"
2008 May
[This article contains some spoilers.]
It may not appear that way, but MIWS is quite behind in reviewing movies, after taking something of a detour through theory. MIWS or somebody else needs to review the stream of "War on Terror"-related movies and related pre-War on Terror setting movies, such as "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007), systematically. In the past, film has influenced public opinion in relation to wars.
So, MIWS will not pretend that this is a comprehensive review of War on Terror movies, but MIWS would like to talk about how Westerners see themselves in war in the context of three movies: "Empire of the Sun" (1987), "The Kite Runner" (2007), and "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" (2007). Right now, "Kite Runner" and "The Water Horse" are literally side by side on shelves, and a comparison suggests itself. MIWS will use Steven Spielberg's older "Empire of the Sun" (1987) as a reference point for talking about the two current movies. "Water Horse" has had a larger mainstream audience, but both "Water Horse" and "Kite Runner" are relevant to current public opinion.
Of the three movies, only "Kite Runner" appears relevant to the so-called war on terror on its surface. The others are set during World War II. Clearly pacifist, they differ from "Kite Runner" in other ways and reveal "Kite Runner" as a movie that tries to turn petty-bourgeois sentiments about being "caught in the middle of war" (fought by contending forces supposedly alien to war's bystanding victims) into active support for u.$. imperialism, portraying Muslim countries as troubled uncivilized countries in need of imperialist intervention and occupation.
"Empire of the Sun," "Kite Runner" and "The Water Horse" all include the use of child characters to generate sympathy. The whole use of children as propaganda and a means of eliciting emotion, by adults and particularly imperialists, to garner sympathy for various causes other than ending the oppression of children specifically or gender oppression and patriarchy in general is interesting in its own right. The role that this use in these three movies plays is in conveying a sense of classless and nationless universality. The movies focus on and emphasize different things, though, and have different results.
The First World does not have a progressive majority. First Worlders do not have an inherent interest in scientific ideas and theory. Except for some farsighted people who realize that communism and a scientific means of getting there are the only solution to the problems they are seeing, the class struggle within First World oppressor nations takes the form of struggle between exploiters within the logic or their narrow goals and interests, which do not correspond to any scientific theory that exploiters can use consistently and systematically. So, a movie like the Iran film "Children of Heaven" (1997), which seen today may discourage some hostility toward Iran in the West, can use an emotional sympathy with children's predicaments productively. It is not that such movies are categorically bad and lead to a harmful loss of scientific focus among Westerners; there was none to begin with.
Since First World adult "women" have over time become like First World men and oppress wimmin in the world and girls and children in general, gender oppression mainly takes place between adults and children in the First World. Children are oppressed in ways that bourgeois uses of children to influence and mobilize opinion and support for various purposes do not draw attention to. However, the principal contradiction is not between adults and children, but between imperialism and the oppressed nations. This is important because some have used the notion of a principal contradiction involving patriarchy (or denied that there was a principal contradiction) to supporting attacking Islamic and Muslim nations. It would be equally wrong to suggest that these nations should be invaded to save children there.
As it is, countries that opposed imperialism and became socialist countries (before capitalist counterrevolutions and opening up to imperialism) have had a better track record of change eliminating patriarchal relations and structures than imperialist countries. It is also worth noting that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the bourgeois Liberal document and international law that is most obviously relevant to children and has been used by imperialists in criticizing alleged conditions of children in Afghanistan and other Muslim Third World countries, has yet to be ratified by the united $tates.
Films featuring children are relevant to reproducing the oppression of children ideologically. The three films MIWS will talk about represent children and contain various representations of gender. The notion of a family movie, which "The Water Horse" is, is itself ideological. However, for the purpose of this article, MIWS will not focus on gender, except where it is particularly relevant to current public opinion with respect to war.
"The Water Horse"
Opposing First World militarism is of the utmost importance, and so MIWS has no major objection to anything in "Water Horse." Set in Scotland during World War II, "Water Horse" is a story of a boy, Angus, whose father was taken away by the war, who confronts trigger-happy British soldiers chasing after German submarines. Angus' mother is the caretaker of an estate, and he lives at the mansion with his mother. The estate is located near a loch, setting the stage for an accidental conflict between the military and Angus' beloved Crusoe, bearing a resemblance to the water horse of Celtic folklore. The idea of Scottish people chafing at zealous British military patriotism is interesting and a possible interpretation, but for many First Worlders the most pronounced message contained in what is otherwise obviously a fantasy story will be the pacifist one.
The war-is-crazy idea will be agreeable to many people, who may already have pacifist sentiments and aren't actively supporting (and may not be opposing) the war. Visually and emotionally appealing and not too confusing, "Water Horse" is most effective as a pacifist movie for Western children. Western people's opposition to even just the Iraq war is weak. Because of the weakness of the anti-war movement, and despite its low level of development, adults are less likely to be moved by this kind of movie.
MIWS is communist, but it does not expect a Western majority to ever uphold a scientific communist theory of armed struggle. So, movies like "Water Horse" have their place. Anti-militarist family movies are much more preferable than the decadent and militarist garbage of Hollywood. "Water Horse" should also be viewed in contrast with fantasy movies such as "Chronicles of Narnia," which is not pacifist.
Although it is set during World War II, "Water Horse" is timely, because reactionaries, finding the effectiveness of invoking more recent wars lacking, have drawn comparisons to World War II to create and prop up support for the so-called war on terror and for war on so-called Islamic fascism. In the midst of comparisons of Third World rulers and out-of-power forces to Nazis, here comes "Water Horse" throwing a kink into Western-centric myths about the "good war."
Pacifism is an ideology of the middle class and bourgeois utopians. Equating the participants in World War II, imperialist, fascist-imperialist, socialist, and oppressed-nation, reflects a lack of class analysis and Marxist science and in the worst instances has led to tolerating extremely reactionary forces and reversing Western public opinion in the direction of supporting militarism. Currently, there is some confusion even in the international communist movement equating oppressed nations with imperialist nations, and Third World leaders with George Bush, as well as recent attempts to equate Soviet communists with German fascists during World War II, but the pacifist message of "Water Horse" is accompanied by an exclusive focus on English-speaking Western forces. The threat of Nazi submarines in the loch exists only in the Britons' imagination.
Importantly, creating public opinion favorable to the oppressed and producing division among First Worlders for the benefit of the oppressed is not always about bringing truth to First Worlders. Work to change public opinion will not always involve exposure of imperialist crimes and policies, for example. Notions about public-opinion-creation work as a continuous effort to increase the truth content or scientific content of First Worlders' knowledge have to be tossed from the communist movement. The First World is a mass of exploiters with no motive for progressive change as a whole. The communist movement in the First World needs to be thoroughly scientific, to do work effectively, including the creation of public opinion, but that is a different issue than the needs of the oppressed in the area of First World public opinion. So, a movie that is less than Marxist and does not claim to be Marxist can be more useful than a "Marxist" movie with the right ideas and language about imperialist war.
"Water Horse" is likely more useful as an anti-war movie than the anti-fascist fantasy movie "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006). "Labyrinth" is rated R, which means that it will have a different and perhaps more limited audience than "Water Horse." But besides that, the movie's focus is not on opposing war in general and is more useful for historical lessons than as an anti-war movie today. Many viewers will not connect Spanish fascism as depicted in "Pan's Labyrinth" to contemporary wars, and so even if one were to want to use "Pan's Labyrinth" to make a connection between militarism and fascism, or between war and militarism, "Labyrinth"'s usefulness would be limited. The use of fantasy in both "Water Horse" and "Pan's Labyrinth" may elicit a thought process about present-day wars, but "Labyrinth" is more constrained.
In "Water Horse," the man hired as a handyman, who interestingly seems to compete with the British commander as a father figure for Angus, turns out to be an honorably discharged sailor. "He's something of a hero." This Lewis character thus saves some face for the British military. This is regrettable from an anti-militarist standpoint, but MIWS would not expect a movie about any war for Westerners to discredit the Western Allied role completely. To the extent that "Water Horse" is not a firmly anti-militarist movie, it may still promote thinking about war's unintended consequences.
"Empire of the Sun"
Set in Shanghai around the time of the Japanese occupation of the International Settlement, "Empire of the Sun" also contains a pacifist message. Its main character is English. What distinguishes "Empire of the Sun" from "The Water Horse" is its complexity and realism and the situation in which it places its main child character, Jim, as someone just trying to "survive" the war in China. Jim's family lives a life of comfort and partying in Shanghai while fighting takes place around them. During the Japanese advance into the International Settlement, Jim becomes separated from his parents. He ends up in an internment camp. The movie is a string of what seem like dreamlike vignettes of memory, but is realistic and contains suspenseful action and drama. Left in China, Jim comes into contact with various people. Jim's contacts and interactions with others flesh out Jim's character and development by showing Jim's thoughts and struggle to survive. Jim has a contradictory relationship with the Japanese, whom he has admired, but who are responsible for his situation.
"Empire of the Sun" seems confused by its own subtlety. Jim is enamored with the Japanese military because of its fame, technology, and rituals. He eventually befriends a Japanese youth. That war spoils and corrupts childhood is a theme throughout the movie and is part of the movie's pacifist message. However, the line between Jim's childish view of the Japanese and the movie's attempt to humanize all participants in the war (but mainly the Japanese it seems and the morally "complicated" amerikan trader characters who accompany Jim after he separates from his parents) is blurred at times.
"Empire of the Sun" is not about the Chinese people and their resistance to imperialism. It depicts some English people's relationship with the Japanese. In the current period of imperialist cooperation and ongoing reconciliation between the West and Japan, a movie representing Japanese as the equals of Westerners would have resonance.
Some of the most memorable lines in "Empire of the Sun" have to do with the division Westerners saw between the war in China and war in the rest of the world, particularly before Western declarations of war on Japan. "China isn't our war," Jim says. While "Empire of the Sun" supposedly just filters things through Jim's eyes, relating them from his point of view, "Empire of the Sun" itself perpetuates a Western-centric view of Japan in China suitable for Western-Japanese reconciliation. Bizarrely, reviewers of "Empire of the Sun" to this day still seem to confuse the Japanese advance into the International Settlement with the Battle of Shanghai. It is even almost as if Japanese history in China did not begin until December 1941 with an "invasion" of Shanghai. So, there are people who know that some Westerners were inconvenienced in China and put in camps by the Japanese, but do not know about the Nanjing Massacre, for instance. Failing to adequately criticize romantic views of the International Settlement and in fact taking the narrow viewpoint of people living there, "Empire of the Sun" ends up practically being nostalgic for the good old days when English and Japanese plundered China together. The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, to the extent that it is not invisible in the movie, is subsumed within the larger "universal" tragedy of World War II, potentially watering down the film's pacifism while serving contemporary imperialist needs.
One good thing that MIWS can say about "Empire of the Sun," which offers a partial picture of conditions in Shanghai for the Chinese and a glimpse of the Chinese resistance, is that it is a reminder of what class struggle by the masses look like. So-called revolutionaries in the First World fantasize that the First World working class is like urban workers in Shanghai rising up against imperialism. There is nothing particularly instructive about "Empire of the Sun," though, for those who are studying history and communist theory in depth.
"Empire of the Sun" is critical of the different privileged non-Chinese groups in the Shanghai International Settlement, portraying them as decadent, sheltered and callous (Jim shows more interest in the Chinese poverty surrounding him than the adults do), but naive and out of touch with the gravity of, if not unaware of, the conflict around them. Jim attends the British Cathedral School ("a school for taipans") and met Song Qingling (pro-communist leader of the united front against Japan) when he was a baby. With Japanese friends, the viewer gets the impression that Jim's family could have sided with Japanese in the war between China and Japan had the circumstances been right, and perhaps already had. Shanghai is already occupied (the Battle of Shanghai having taken place four years earlier), but the Japanese occupation of the International Settlement, which came shortly after Western declarations of war on Japan, appears to take the family by surprise. "Empire of the Sun" gives some insight into how relationships between exploiters, and between colonizers and colonized, might form and initially appear to begin as interpersonal relationships between friends and acquaintances. The International Settlement was populated by groups from different imperialist nations. The history of British and amerikan colonialism in China is barely touched on except on the level of some individual amerikans' and Britons' daily lives. (There is one line about how Britons have been in Shanghai longer than Japanese.) Consequently, the Japanese advance appears as an intrusion into family life, rather than interconnected with the social dynamic of which the Graham family is a part. The Graham family's apparent unawareness of, of disinterest in, events taking place around them, except to the extent that they intersect with their family and business interests, thus confers an innocence on the entire family and the status of being a casualty of someone else's war.
Some of the apparent problems with "Empire of the Sun" have been explained as the movie's taking the point of view of the child character. So, if the whole of Shanghai appears to be invaded on one day in December 1941, if the fighting in Shanghai appears to take place in a matter of days, not months (as in the Battle of Shanghai) or years, if amerikans with tons of food and Hershey's candy bars falling from the sky appear to liberate China -- well, that's just how Jim remembers or sees it, or that's how he wanted it to be. The blurred boundary between fantasy, reality, memory, and perception -- that's the point. But, it's important to understand that if viewers don't "get" a movie, that is entirely the fault of the people who made the movie, who should have a more scientific approach to determining the kind of a movie that the public can understand. Individual amerikans can hardly be blamed for not understanding the subtleties of a movie that they are likely to take as being pro-u.$. military or an all-purpose "universal" individualist story of survival and encourage amid violence and confusion.
It reflects the outlook of the moribund bourgeoisie to boil everything down to a matter of individual survival, "making a living," or self-interest. In contrast to the realistic "Empire of the Sun" story of an impoverished individual colonizer caught up in war and going with the flow, MIWS much prefers the fantasy story of "Water Horse," which has viewers rooting for the creature's struggle with the British military. "Water Horse" ends up in pacifism, but Angus has to have a struggle with the British captain, his mother, and his sister. "Water Horse" has an individualist aspect -- one can imagine a story where it is just Angus trying to find a good role model or father figure, without the fantasy element, and in any case Angus' struggle involving the military ends when his self-centered wishes are resolved (Angus has a special relationship with the creature) -- but the individualism is put into the service of pacifism. Angus acts in a way that could affect an outcome. "Water Horse" has a simple message. "Empire of the Sun" is incomprehensible to most young and also adult viewers without background knowledge, and serves oppressor interests at worst. The pacifist message of "Empire of the Sun" is lost in the movie's own distortions, which may be intended for effect but take away from the film's usefulness. In terms of individualism, despite the movie's attempt to complicate things with the unsavory amerikan characters who apparently teach Jim to survive by hustling, the individualism of "Empire of the Sun" practically glorifies a rugged everyone-for-themselves and does not encourage any particular action. Characters reconcile themselves to their situations (some just doing more than others to help others around them, such as the doctor character) until they are saved or perish.
MIWS would also prefer, over "Empire of the Sun," the John Rabe story in Bill Guttentag's and Dan Sturman's "Nanking" (2007) of a Nazi Party member who used his influence to lead the creation of the safety zone in Nanjing, which helped save thousands of people during the Nanjing Massacre. While trying to save a larger group of Chinese and civilians, Rabe ended up helping Chinese soldiers. (MIWS's objection is that "Nanking" equates the Soviet treatment of John Rabe with the Nazi treatment.) "Nanking" is an individualist story of virtuous heroism and has its own, various limitations, but it does not portray individuals merely as tragic subjects of forces alien to them. By contrast, the Graham family in "Empire of the Sun" tries to flee from Shanghai for what viewers will presume is a good reason, namely protecting Jim, and the rest of the movie focuses on Jim and his misfortune. In "Empire of the Sun," people are just individuals who are victims of circumstances: Jim, his parents, and his Japanese friend who meets a tragic fate. (Japanese dissenters opposing imperialism do not appear in the film, with the resulting message that people just get caught up in fighting on different sides in war for individual reasons.) They aren't members of groups involved in social struggle or even participating as individuals in evolving social processes that may affect the practice of war, but individuals who have to reconcile themselves to fate, or are either accepting or rejecting Western or u.$. beneficence. Of course, many British businesspeople and diplomats had reasons to leave Shanghai, and MIWS is not suggesting in an idealist way that the British in Shanghai ought to have stayed and sided against Japan. Yet, "Empire of the Sun"'s implicit explanation of its characters' actions remain at the individual level, and within that, excludes making an effort to oppose war.
On a social level, pacifism as any kind of strategy is futile. War in general cannot be ended before revolution ending imperialism. Pacifism is useful as an ideology discouraging First World mobilization for war. But, some of what is problematic about "Empire of the Sun" is built into the point of the view that the movie takes, which will make it difficult for viewers to see how to implement pacifism. Pacifism rings empty when someone is in the thick of a war. Unarmed and without a friendly and close relationship with the masses, what can one do but leave, will be the reaction of many. "Empire of the Sun"'s perspective dulls its pacifism. Pacifist movies whose characters take part in combat or movies that otherwise do not allow a way out of confrontation do not have quite the same problem, though they may not show how to prevent or stop wars.
The central child characters of "Empire of the Sun" and "The Water Horse" appear alone and powerless. Jim's story in "Empire of the Sun" is a story of survival. It's a "universal" story that could help First Worlders get through their neurotic parasitic daily lives, nothing too serious. Politically, the movie ends up being pro-amerikan. Depicting war and its ruthlessness, and even children hurt by war, will not necessarily get people to oppose war. Certainly, this is the case with "Kite Runner." In fact, "Empire of the Sun" discourages opposition to war by portraying it as unstoppable by individuals, which is correct in a certain scientific sense, but not useful for changing public opinion. "Empire of the Sun" portrays war as a tragic thing that just lands on people, who can do nothing but just get by until, maybe, the u.$. military comes to the rescue. In contrast, "Water Horse," despite being a children's movie low in historical and political content, is a potentially more useful kind of movie than "Empire of the Sun" in affecting public opinion relative to war.
"The Kite Runner"
The problems in "Empire of the Sun" make the merits of "The Water Horse" stand out. They also cause the problems with "The Kite Runner" to stand out. If "Empire of the Sun" humanizes the Japanese for a pacifist purpose, then the demonization of the Taliban in "Kite Runner" as nothing less than evil and death incarnate stands out that much more.
The title "The Kite Runner" refers to main character Amir's relationship with his friend, Hassan. They fly kites together. Hassan handles the kite spool and retrieves cut kites in kite competitions. Amir's father is a wealthy Pashtun man. He owns an expensive amerikan car. Hassan is the son of Amir's family's servant, a Hazara man. Amir likes writing. Hassan has difficulty reading. Hassan trusts Amir very much. The movie revolves around an event where Amir sees Hassan being sexually assaulted by a Pashtun boy, but does not intervene. Amir as an adult has left Afghanistan and lives in the united $tates with his father. Amir and his father left for Pakistan as the Soviets were taking Kabul. In the united $tates, Amir's rising career as a writer is interrupted by a call to rescue Hassan's son; Hassan was killed by the Taliban.
War on Terror movies have tried to present a "complicated" picture of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while remaining patriotic to the united $tates. Set in both Taliban and pre-Taliban Afghanistan, "Kite Runner" contains some subtleties, allusions to u.$. activity in Afghanistan, and references to u.$. cultural and economic influence. But, while not a movie focusing on combat, "Kite Runner" is completely lacking in any pretense of sympathy with supporters of the Taliban movement or its troops. This contrasts with films that portray tragedy and suffering on both sides of a conflict or humyn or class solidarity between combatants on both sides. No attempt is made to humanize the Taliban or its supporters as Western movies have humanized Nazis.
Against ultra-chauvinists attacking Chinese and Soviet people, even amerikan veterans of World War II have something to say occasionally. However, in general, there is no international or working-class solidarity between soldiers globally. After some temporal distance from World War II, amerikans are able to produce and appreciate movies about Christmas truces, the horrors of war, and so forth, but less so where Third World opponents are involved. Amerikans can tolerate movies sympathizing with "civilized" Germans and Japanese, but not Third World people in conflicts with the united $tates.
Equating First World troops with Third World troops would be wrong generally. The principal contradiction is between imperialism and the oppressed nations. But, "Kite Runner" does not even pretend to compare Taliban troops to u.$. troops. U.$. troops do not appear in the movie for there to be a comparison, and the movie doesn't explicitly address the u.$. use of proxies. Some may argue that "Kite Runner" is not a war movie or only barely a war movie, but MIWS would wonder about the extent to which this is based on not understanding the nature of the u.$. involvement in Afghanistan or the belief that the Taliban were "terrorists" without a legitimate armed force. If "Kite Runner" is not a war movie and just some kind of drama with historical and political flavor, it is only because the movie skips over how the Taliban came to power. (For that matter, the movie leaves out parts in Khaled Hosseini's book telling how Assef joined the Taliban and explaining why the Taliban had support among Afghans. Viewers are left to form their own opinions about Assef, who comes off as an opportunist predator. Comparisons that Hosseini makes between the Taliban and the "Northern Alliance" (without mentioning the united $tates) that might inconveniently discredit the present occupation regime in Afghanistan are also missing.)
The united $tates is there in the background. For example, there is an implicit reference to u.$. involvement in statements about amerikans by people identified as "communists." But, the armed people depicted in "Kite Runner" are only troops of the then socialist-in-name-only USSR, Taliban "beard patrol" and soldiers, and Pakistani soldiers. The Russians and the Taliban are both portrayed as sexual attackers.
The First World has not left behind patriarchy and wages wars that are not rooted in broad masses of the oppressed. Crimes such as the rapes in "Kite Runner" can be found on Western sides of conflicts. The same crimes were committed by u.$.-backed forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and are committed by u.$. troops around the world in various conflicts. Amerikans reactions' to "Kite Runner" will therefore be based on prejudice resulting from ignorance of their own troops' crimes or an unwillingness to carefully compare reports internationally. Afghanistan has a population of 30 million people.(1) It is not a question of whether the sexual assaults depicted in "Kite Runner" could have happened, but of what reports make it into the Western public's consciousness. Even if "Kite Runner" claimed to be nonfiction (which it does not, despite some confusion about that) and there was no dispute about that, there would be an issue of selective or disproportionate dissemination of facts in media and entertainment. The Hazara people are a minority in Afghanistan, but reports of rapes of Pashtuns (the group identified with the Taliban) after the u.$. invaded Afghanistan have appeared in the mainstream Western media. MIWS is not making any claim about whose attacks are more numerous. Rather, imperialism uses selective exposure and selective outrage to satisfy its needs. Portraying Hazaras as sexual victims of Pashtun Talibs has fulfilled a specific need in the past. But imperialism also benefits, today, from an image of Afghanistan as a "barbaric" country of antagonistic tribes raping each other, a country in need of continuing intervention by imperialist powers in 2008. (It has been pointed out that the overthrow of the Taliban government has led to a resurgence of the child sexual slavery and prostitution practices that "Kite Runner" attributes to the Taliban, but the function of continuing reports of violence, sexual oppression, and a dismal gender situation, years into the Western occupation of Afghanistan is mainly to support continued occupation and continuing the war. The whole focus on gender in the war against "Islamic extremism" etc. is entirely the product of the imperialist propaganda and "diplomacy" machine.)
Similarly, amerikans are unwilling to systematically compare intra-cultural gender violence in other countries with violence and deaths in their own country due to domestic violence, gender-related eating disorders, gender-related suicides, etc. Selectively raising stories about violence in other countries that are difficult for Westerners to verify individually, and should not be raised in general when imperialists are disseminating the exact same kinds of stories, simply perpetuates chauvinism. What reports Westerners hear about and remember is a matter of who is successful in the struggle for public opinion. Without systematic investigation and study, prejudice takes over. "Kite Runner" does not challenge Westerners' habit of believing whatever their nations' media reports about individual instances of violence and repression. "Kite Runner" depicts the stoning of a couple accused of adultery in front of an enthusiastic crowd of men. The movie is confluent with media stories focusing on gender and lifestyle-related violence in Muslim countries. Accurate or not, their function is to set public opinion in favor of war and occupation.
"Kite Runner" resonates with media reports of alleged systematic practices of the Taliban, such as sexual slavery. This is combined with an individualist story involving the triangle of characters Amir, Assef, and Hassan. Judging by its popularity, "Kite Runner" is sure to be a vehicle for influencing public opinion on the Afghanistan war in particular using gender. It also contributes to imperialist ideas about gender, Islam, and the Third World, in general. In "Kite Runner," generalized conditions of Third World wimmin and children are treated as mainly a matter of good/evil morality and hypocrisy, not structurally based oppression, or blamed on some religious leaders or the cultures of certain nations, and divorced from the broader economic, political and social situation in the world. "Kite Runner" distracts from revolutionary solutions to gender violence and oppression and, in specific ways, legitimizes war against Afghanistan.
"Kite Runner" depicts violence, but offers no real solution. In the process, in spite of the movie's depiction of USSR forces, Afghanistan is represented as another "barbaric" Third World country with domestically irresolvable conflicts requiring foreign intervention. What "Kite Runner" does show related to violence has the potential to divide the oppressed while rallying First Worlders for war. Afghanistan is an oppressed country. "Kite Runner" does not offer a way of resolving issues about sexual violence between groups that does not encourage more oppressed infighting in Afghanistan to the benefit of u.$. imperialism. The Soviet Union does not exist today, and the united $tates virtually appears absent in "Kite Runner." Simultaneously, Pashtuns are portrayed as being anti-Hazara in general, and this portrayal is blended with the story of the villainous sociopath Pashtun/Talib character Assef. As "Kite Runner" itself occasionally shows, anti-Hazara attitudes are not just some Taliban thing, but "Kite Runner" seems to carry the potential for inflaming oppressed contradictions, not just in Afghanistan, but anywhere where class consciousness and national unity may be developing and contending with ideas about sub-class and subnational groups. More importantly in the First World context, "Kite Runner" contributes to the impression of an Afghanistan unable to take care of itself and needing help from "advanced" countries. This is partly due to the movie's complete lack of attention to the West's historical role in creating and exacerbating divisions in Afghanistan and impeding social movements.
There is a not-so-subtle story in "Kite Runner" about an attraction to the united $tates (and leaving Afghanistan behind). Like the movie "The Namesake" (2006), set in India and the united $tates, "Kite Runner" may cause migrants in the united $tates to think about what they are doing in the united $tates -- and not doing in their home countries. (Migration in general is related to national oppression, but there is also a process of colonization in which Third World bourgeois accept imperialism.) The main character, Amir, wears Western clothes and enjoys Western movies. Hassan, Amir's victimized Hazara friend, also likes the movies. Amir's birthday gift to Hassan is a slingshot, a weapon that he uses to defend himself from a bully who is Pashtun -- "It's made in America." As an adult, Amir comes to terms with a separation from Afghan culture. Amir's needing to make up for running away from problems is a theme that occupies the whole movie. Ostensibly, Amir's abandoning his friend Hassan parallels his leaving Afghanistan (to the Taliban -- Assef). (What Amir's coming back to Afghanistan for Hassan's son, Sohrab, is supposed to symbolize is less obvious. Amir still ends up in the united $tates at the end of the day.) But many amerikans' reactions will be pure chauvinism, not contemplative. Even if "Kite Runner" were not reactionary, amerikan viewers are too ignorant to respond to "Kite Runner" other than at the level of Amir's father's "f**k Russia" and the enthusiasm of the bar-goers in the united $tates. It will be f- the "Taliban" followed by "U.S.A.! U.S.A!" (In Khaled Hosseini's book, Amir's father becomes a Ronald Reagan fan after watching Reagan denounce the USSR as an "evil empire.")
As rhetoric is heating up over shifting military resources to and "finishing" the job in Afghanistan, "Kite Runner" is quite timely. With scattered references to "communists" fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, ignorant amerikans may even find, as with the Iran movie "Persepolis" (2007), reinforcement for their false lackey, phony-communist line of neither-imperialism-nor-Islam.(2) "Kite Runner" purports to be universal story about traumatized and stifled childhood, but contains enough emphasis on cultural references and contrasts to be appealing to the kind of element in amerikan society that would enjoy eating kabob with French fries and a beer while thinking of themselves as some kind of cosmopolitan progressive, and shaved politically correct liberal men who would fantasize about saving veiled Muslim wimmin from adultery punishments and add formerly Islamic countries to their "business trip" and "spring break" sex-tourism destinations. Promoted as a means to cross-cultural understanding and cultural bridging, "Kite Runner" serves to facilitate business, economic and political relationships between Westerners and Afghans, but is thoroughly compatible with imperialist aims with respect to Afghanistan.
In contrast to amerikans' movies about themselves and interracial coexistence and cooperation, "Kite Runner" and movies like it depicting "ethnic" or "tribal" "tension" within Third World countries convey a need for "nation-building" with amerikan "assistance," the united $tates supposedly having solved its ethnic problems and become a multiracial nation. Amir's interpersonal relationship with Hassan becomes a Martin Luther King Jr. story of racism interfering with what would be a harmonious childhood, justifying imposition of "democracy" by the more "advanced" and "democratic" united $tates, the "melting pot" supposedly with more experience overcoming ethnic and racial problems. (There is a relationship between Amir and Hassan, revealed in the middle of the movie, suggestive of how Hazara and Pashtun conflicts are to be resolved. However, the Martin Luther King Jr. approach in the united $tates is based on imperialist super-profits, whereas the Third World is oppressed and exploited by the First World. Imperialism and neo-colonialism cannot unite the oppressed. "National unity" as pursued by imperialism in the Third World is different than national unity against exploitation and oppression.) First Worlders use ideas about ethnicity and race to justify imperialist repression and domination. The position of everyone from Democrats to phony "communists" is that highly economically productive amerikans can bring advanced ideas, about race, gender, and class, to the "backward" Third World. The First World has advanced ideas to offer, while Third World nations and especially Islamic nations supposedly have nothing. In "Kite Runner," standing in the way of ethnic harmony is Assef with (as amerikans will interpret them) Hitlerite ideas about blood purity, reinforcing the notion of Islamic "fascism" among First Worlders with Western-centric conceptions. Other characters complete the picture. A former Afghan general living in the united $tates, the father of Soraya, whom Amir marries in the united $tates, harbors anti-Hazara ideas and symbolizes an old, impotent Afghan establishment. So, the lackeys of the united $tates in Afghanistan can't solve their countries' "tribal tension" problems, necessitating Uncle $am's direct intervention.
(This has not been primarily a book-movie comparison, and MIWS does not deal thoroughly with Khaled Hosseini's book here, but MIWS would encourage examining the book since many viewers of the movie will have also read the book. In chapter 22 of the book, Assef as an adult proudly tells Amir about killing Hazaras. Amir responds in a way that suggests that only the West has a concept of ethnic cleansing.)
In a variety of ways, then, "Kite Runner" draws from Westerners' cultural prejudices to create support for Western invention in Afghanistan and is unoffensive to Western sensibilities. "Kite Runner" is completely useless in opposing war against Afghanistan. In the present era of neo-colonialism and imperialist transactions carried out through compradors, cultural awareness is not key in any struggle. "Cultural awareness" is fully compatible with imperialist requirements, often remaining at the level of lifestyle, traditions, and customs; "cultural understanding" does not mean sharing the aspirations and values or even the experiences necessarily of the oppressed. "Kite Runner" represents culture as lifestyle, or at least that is how Westerners will interpret whether one is able to fly kites, drive Mustangs, have sex with more the one persyn at the same time, etc. The Taliban movement is represented as being anti-culture.
The movie "The Water Horse" also does not depart from bourgeois ideology and appears to be childish fantasy story, but contains a needed anti-militarist message that does not purport to be leftist or revolutionary. "The Water Horse" works without pretending to be feminist or sympathetic with communists or leftists. There is nothing that phony-Marxism and phony-socialism offer for the anti-war movement in the First World that an openly Liberal pacifist or anti-militarist movement could not offer. Movies opposing militarism from a Liberal perspective or invasions of sovereign countries are better for changing public opinion in the First World than "anti-capitalist" movies, and movies that purport to criticize both u.$. foreign policy and Muslim targets of the "War on Terror" while stirring up anti-Islam and anti-Third World sentiments.
Out of "Empire of the Sun," "The Kite Runner," and "The Water Horse," MIWS considers "The Water Horse" superior. Each movie is ostensibly a "universal" movie about abandonment and childhood tragedy. (And each has been described that way: "universal.") There is a resolution in each. But, the same themes are packaging for markedly different ideas. "Water Horse" uses fantasy and a "children's" perspective to evoke the lunacy of militarism. The pacifism of "Empire of the Sun" is blunted by the movie's restricted focus on one Westerner's relationship with the Japanese, a focus that serves a particular divergent purpose. "Kite Runner" is not a pacifist movie, but rather encourages support for war against Third World nations to solve problems perceived to require Western assistance.
In closing, MIWS would argue that movies have a potential to influence First Worlders' perception of their role in wars and of the Third World people whom they purport to help and save. War-related movies warrant critical attention. First World nations are nations of exploiters with a militarist tendency. Effective films discouraging support for war will focus on militarism or manipulate public opinion on specific wars, but will not necessarily contain revolutionary theory.
Unchallenged movies may play a significant role in public opinion. Based on a bestselling book advertised as the first novel in English by an Afghan, "Kite Runner," is the must-see movie based on the must-read book for those who want to "learn" something about the Middle East and Afghanistan in particular and are too lazy to study nonfiction material. What they will learn is reactionary. Like Persepolis, The Kite Runner is required reading in many amerikan schools and promoted by everyone from the amerikan State Department, to the u.$. military, to reactionaries masquerading as communists. What these all have in common is an imperialist unity and a desire to unite exploiters and divide the oppressed, not unite the oppressed and divide the exploiters.
Notes
1. Central Intelligence Agency, "Afghanistan," The World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html
2. Some in the "international communist movement" hold that they can oppose both imperialism and "Islam" and have openly supported allying with the u.$. military against governments in Islamic countries. These people with no scientific foundation say different things at different times as suits their needs. What remains constant is confusing the proletariat about who the main enemy is and encouraging capitulation to and collaboration with u.$. imperialism.