The new movie Civil War is a love letter to journalism, maybe a little too much of a love letter, but a thrill ride of what the best of war journalism could look like.
And it is also a very good dystopian movie. We see bits of America between New York City and DC on a circuitous route through Maryland and West Virginia and Virginia.
The movie begins with a speech by the President with cuts to scenes of strife showing every word he says is a lie. [A US President who lies continuously and refuses to leave office, is that believable?]
My Sons Knew Who Would Die
Then there is the calm of the opening of every good horror movie. Four journalists between 20 and 80 years old roll out of NYC in a big SUV with PRESS painted on the side. Things are relatively calm, then they are following a fire fight between a half-dozen rebels and several soldiers. The rebels are a mix of races, but there is one black man pinned down. As soon as I saw the fight in an abandoned building I thought, 'The Black guy is going to die!'
And he did. The rebels civilian clothes and body armor eventually kill the loyalist soldiers, but first the Black rebel dies.
My adopted sons showed me this when we watched movies and video series together. Whether it was a war movie, one of the Star Wars franchise, a modern Western or other action movie, if there was a mix-race-and-gender group of six to a dozen combatants and there was a Black guy (not a woman) in the group, the Black guy was dead before the end of the movie or episode.
Before writing this I checked with a soldier and a professor I know, who are Black.They confirmed that low life expectancy and dark pigmentation correlate.
Returning to the movie, the final scene is the final assault on the White House by alliance of California and Texas. The squad leader of the running battle through the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a Black woman. She not only lives but puts the kill rounds in the chest of whimpering President.
I like dystopian movies. It was fun to see Kirsten Dunst, a woman of many disasters, move from her Spider love to life as a mid-career combat photojournalist. Another spoiler, her web does not save her.
