GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Time to Remake 49th Parallel

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When a reader (who has become a friend) praised 49th Parallel, a World War II propaganda film he had seen on cable, I added it to my Netflix queue.  Now that I’ve watched it, I agree with my friend’s assessment.  Not only does it hold up quite well, but it begs to be remade.

This film tells the story of six members of a German U-Boat crew stranded in northern Canada after the Canadian Air Force has destroyed their submarine.  As they try to make their way to the still neutral United States, they face resistance from a great variety of Canadians, even from a German religious community where they thought they might find welcome.

The filmmakers don’t soft pedal their portrayal of the Nazis, showing them to be the inhuman barbarians that they were, particularly the leader of the band, Eric Portman‘s Lieutenant Hirth.  The screenwriters didn’t mince words either.  Upon learning that the guests he was entertaining were Nazis, Leslie Howard‘s Philip Armstrong Scott, an effete writer trying to escape the war by studying Indians in the Canadian wilderness, quips,  “I’m entertaining gangsters.

Later, he adds, “So, that’s who are you are, Nazis, well that explains everything, your arrogance, your stupidity, your bad manners.”  And after he stares down a Nazi who has stolen his gun, suffering only one bullet wound before his fellow Canadians capture his rival, Howard wonders, “One armed superman against one unarmed decadent democrat; I wonder how Dr. Goebbels will explain that.”

It’s high time we remake this film, but not about Nazis trying to cross Canada, but with Al Qaeda trying to make it across the US.  We’ll have our band of terrorists slip across the Mexican border into the Southwest, end up in Los Angeles where they try to fly to New York to meet up with a cell there for an attack on the Big Apple.

But, an attentive TSA agent prevents them for boarding the plane, so they have to make their way by land across the country.  Maybe an ACLU attorney who sees the TSA agent doing his duty and she accuses him of racial profiling.  She offers to help the supposedly innocent foreigners, but they refuse her assistance because of her gender.

We could have a few liberals trying to explain away the terrorists’ belligerence, only to find themselves taken hostage, but saved by a gay man (or woman) with an illegally concealed handgun.  (Hey, I’m imagining this story, so there’s going to a be a noble homo in it.)

Or, maybe it’s a gay man fluent in Arabic.  He’s unemployed, having been kicked out of the Army because of an e-mail he had sent to his boyfriend.  This guy overhears their conversation, learns the details of their plot, but needs to make himself believed.  This way, we could make a point near and dear to Hollywood hearts (one of the few such points in the national interest) while still making an anti-terrorist film.

As I watched the film, it struck me Hollywood doesn’t make anti-Al Qaeda movies, the way it churned out anti-Nazi films at the time 49th Parallel was produced.

I highly recommend this flick. Add it to your Netflix queue or rent it from you local video store.  And let’s see if we can get people in this town to remake the film, adapting it to the current geopoltical situation and current cultural norms.

Comments

  2. As I watched the film, it struck me Hollywood doesn’t make anti-Al Qaeda movies,

    Hell, even the Bugs Bunny cartoons were anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese Empire.

    Here’s your writing opportunity, Dan. Maybe it could be your masters thingy?

  3. The anti japanese bugs bunny cartoons were incredibly racist portrayals of not just a government, but an entire ethnic group of people. And they were being targeted at children. How, as a tactic, is that in any way different to Hamas using mickey mouse to indoctrinate children? Are you trying to say that they’ve got a point?

  4. I was glad that Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan was able to portray the evil of the Nazi regime without resorting to cartoon. The movie (like many others — Judgment at Nuremberg comes to mind) was effective not in describing inhumanity but by maintaining that the horror was entirely within the realm of human possibility.

    I have not seen Munich, but I’ve read that Spielberg was far more sympathetic to the terrorists in the story. It’s one I’ve always meant to see and now I’ll be adding 49th Parallel to the list.

  5. Moral truth… something in short supply, in today’s Hollywood.

    There’s a certain amount of moral clarity around, but it’s all the wrong kind: preening, twisted, in the service of Left falsehoods and malice.

  7. No, that would be saying that they had the same strategic objectives. tactically, they are using exactly the same methods of projecting their message, and they are targeting the same constituency.

  8. Franz Capra and Leni Rifenshtall, for example, were both propagandists. They both produced grossly distorted representations of organizations and ethnic groups in order to engender a sense of jingoistic nationalism. The values underpinning that nationalism, however, were manifestly different. Same tactics, different strategic objectives.

  9. Buggs Bunny cartoons were aimed at families, and were shown prior to movies. They didn’t pretend to be ‘just for kids’. They also promoted buying Warbonds, rationing, coupons, etc.

    Also they, like the comic book media of the time, aimed at the enemy soldiers Captain America didn’t blow up little German kids, or Japanese civilians.

    Scottland, I have to assume you’re being sarcastic, as no one would be that intentionally dense.

  10. The strategic objectives are a big part of defining what is good and evil. It’s evil for Hamas to indoctrinate children because their endgame is genocide against the Israeli people. It’s not evil to propagandize in a similar manner if the endgame is defeat of a brutal, genocidal totalitarian regime.

    But, there I go again, defeating leftist moral equivalence with plain-spoken common sense.

  11. Dangit, post caught in the filter.

    Yes, it was part of WW I propoganda to dehumanize the enemy. WW II, the enemy dehumanizing themselves made it easier.

    buggs Bunny never advocated blowing up German Civil-i-a-n-s though, neither did Captain America.

  12. The strategic objectives are a big part of defining what is good and evil. It’s evil for Hamas to indoctrinate children because their endgame is genocide against the Israeli people. It’s not evil to propagandize in a similar manner if the endgame is defeat of a brutal, genocidal regime.

    But, there I go again, defeating leftist moral equivalence with plain-spoken common sense.

  13. Thank you, V the K, for, agreeing with me? I just said that I separated out the tactics from the strategic objectives. At the least, you seem to be making the point that the tactic works.

  14. Propagandizing children is the tactic. You are inscribing that with a degree of moral neutrality. I would challenge that position personally, but there you go.

  15. I’m new to this site, but you have some fascinating articles. I used to work in Hollywood, and I think your movie idea is fantastic. I think you should write the screenplay and see if you can get it into the hands of David Mamet who is a conservative and writes for the show “The Unit”.
    I’m serious.

  18. Ah, the Taliban, the finest minds of the 14th century. The anti-intellectualism of the Khmer Rouge, the antisemitism of the Nazi’s, the enforced beard wearing from the world of folk music, and the segregation and humiliation of women from the world of golf. (sadly, not my words, but true today as they ever were)

    I’ll be cheering for Mamet, mate! Hes a legend! I’m also looking forward to Chris Morris’s forthcoming Suicide Bomber sitcom. S’gonna be a gunpowder barrel of laughs!

    Why does it have to be a ‘with us or with the terrorists’ binary? Can’t it be ‘against terrorists, evenhanded in critiquing institutional responses to terrorism, and always, ALWAYS, looking for the funny’?

  19. #18 – “Why does it have to be a ‘with us or with the terrorists’ binary?”

    Because, Scotchman, that’s how it is in the world. For example, please reference “Somali pirates” and “Al-Qaeda.” Did you really think that engaging in a dialogue with someone or some entity that wants to kill you to attain everlasting glory is actually practical? Or did you forget about what your mother said about birds of a feather flocking together?

    If you really think that you can dissuade a homicidal maniac from killing you without superior firepower as backup, then you are living in a fantasy utopia of your own medication.

    “Can’t it be ‘against terrorists, evenhanded in critiquing institutional responses to terrorism, and always, ALWAYS, looking for the funny’?”

    Sure – especially when it’s the terrorists who are being made to look like the fools they are and meet a horrifying, painful death at the end. That is something I would find EXTREMELY funny and gratifying!

    And that’s another problem with you utopians – you seem to think that there is an “evenhanded critique” when it comes to terrorism. Tell ya what – go visit Pakistan or Somalia, and let us know how that dialogue turns out. We promise we won’t send out Navy SEALS to interfere.

    Checkmate.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  20. So, Scotty, are you doing the usual Socialist weasel maneuver of weaseling out of your “How, as a tactic, is that in any way different to Hamas using mickey mouse to indoctrinate children?” moral equivalence rhetoric by now weaselishly conceding that it is different than Hamas after all, like a weasel?

  21. No, I specifically said that tactics and objectives were different. You said that objectives help define what is good and what is evil. I would agree. That leaves us with the tactic, political indoctrination, which you point to as morally neutral.That is something that I disagree with.
    I dont like Capra’s portrayals of the Japanese, neither do I like ‘triumph of the will’. What their objectives are in their actions is not the issue. I dont like their tactic of sensationally condemning or elevating an ethnic group of people in the name of political and social cohesion. But you would say that Capra’s propaganda is morally justified. I think that that is very open to debate.

    And what’s with attacking the weasel? Surely, it is as noble as other ground dwelling creatures, like ferrets. Leave the weasel out of this!

  22. ‘Because, Scotchman, that’s how it is in the world’

    Once again, i refer to the Khobar towers incident in 1996 as to how it quite clearly isn’t that clearcut. AND the union with the Iranian Northern Alliance going into afghanistan against the Pakistan backed Taleban. If the American government is allowed to team up with proxies of hostile states to take down proxies of friendly states, and allows friendly states not to prosecute foreign terrorists due to political pressure,how does that not complicate the binary?

    As for evenhanded criticism with terrorism, As I said, i was referring to institutional responses, not terrorist acts. For example, when the Bush administration cut counterterror funding by half a billion dollars in its first budget, I think that deserves some evenhanded critiquing! As does where counterterror dollars are being spent now, and the nature of the synthesis of Coercive, proactive, persuasive, defensive and long term counterterror initiatives. They are not all complementary, and some undermine others. That is what I think any inquisitive, impartial person could understand as a critique of counterterror.