Merged: The Movies Thread

[BringBackJoeT]

Originally Posted by Angry

What light did it put him in? I refuse to watch it because I figured that they painted him as some war hero.

I did not know the man personally but I have seen his type before. He was probably a dick who thought that he was harder than he really was. He probably got capped for it.

If that is the light that they shed in that documentary then I might watch it.

Acting like a soldier and doing something heroic is acceptable. Acting like a hero while only being a soldier might get others killed or you shot...

I'm a very big fan of Jon Krakauer, so I dutifully read the biography he wrote of Pat Tillman when it was published ("Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman"). The portrait he presented of Tillman, the accuracy of which has generally been accepted, was that of a very introspective, complicated guy who was difficult to pigeon hole into virtually any stereotype. Tillman did not enlist in order to enjoy the publicity that was attached to his decision to leave the NFL, and there was nothing he did during his service that indicated that he possessed an inflated view of his soldiering capacity. Unfortunately, he almost instantly became a political figure the moment he enlisted, and even more so when he died. However, the sum total of his political positions, to the extent it is considered relevant, essentially placed him in a sort of limbo; i.e., he was not a dogmatic, party-embracing dude, but instead a guy who embraced "political" positions that crossed party aisles. But this didn't matter when he died because of the political capital that some saw the opportunity to extract. When that effort didn't pay the sought-after dividends, there was a separate political backlash. Altogether, it consumed an otherwise tragic story of a US soldier's death.

I'd suggest you pick up Krakauer's book, because I think your inclination to view Tillman as nothing more than a "dick" whose character you see as a cliche doesn't match with his real story.

[mredskins]

Originally Posted by BringBackJoeT

I'm a very big fan of Jon Krakauer, so I dutifully read the biography he wrote of Pat Tillman when it was published ("Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman"). The portrait he presented of Tillman, the accuracy of which has generally been accepted, was that of a very introspective, complicated guy who was difficult to pigeon hole into virtually any stereotype. Tillman did not enlist in order to enjoy the publicity that was attached to his decision to leave the NFL, and there was nothing he did during his service that indicated that he possessed an inflated view of his soldiering capacity. Unfortunately, he almost instantly became a political figure the moment he enlisted, and even more so when he died. However, the sum total of his political positions, to the extent it is considered relevant, essentially placed him in a sort of limbo; i.e., he was not a dogmatic, party-embracing dude, but instead a guy who embraced "political" positions that crossed party aisles. But this didn't matter when he died because of the political capital that some saw the opportunity to extract. When that effort didn't pay the sought-after dividends, there was a separate political backlash. Altogether, it consumed an otherwise tragic story of a US soldier's death.

I'd suggest you pick up Krakauer's book, because I think your inclination to view Tillman as nothing more than a "dick" whose character you see as a cliche doesn't match with his real story.

Dude that review or explanation of Tillman or anyone for that matter made zero sense. WTF do you smoke?

[BringBackJoeT]

Originally Posted by mredskins

Dude that review or explanation of Tillman or anyone for that matter made zero sense. WTF do you smoke?

Fine. I'll simplify. The post I responded to said that Tillman was probably a dick whose eagnerness for glory on a battlefield placed him into a stereotype and possibly cost him his life. So I said that I read a book about Tillman, and that the author's position was that Tillman was not a dick, and that his interests, philosophies, and positions made it very difficult to put him into a stereotype, and that he didn't enlist for the potential for glory. I then said that others tried to paint of picture of Tillman to serve their own purposes, but the picture they painted was not accurate, and overshadowed an otherwise very tragic story. I closed with a recommendation that the book be read.

Given that we're talking about movies here, I should probably also recommend that the documentary be watched. However, I haven't seen the documentary, so I can't give it a recommendation. What I can say is that one person's comment about why he would not watch the documentary is, I believe, not supported by the facts about Tillman's life.

[KLHJ2]

Originally Posted by BringBackJoeT

I'm a very big fan of Jon Krakauer, so I dutifully read the biography he wrote of Pat Tillman when it was published ("Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman"). The portrait he presented of Tillman, the accuracy of which has generally been accepted, was that of a very introspective, complicated guy who was difficult to pigeon hole into virtually any stereotype. Tillman did not enlist in order to enjoy the publicity that was attached to his decision to leave the NFL, and there was nothing he did during his service that indicated that he possessed an inflated view of his soldiering capacity. Unfortunately, he almost instantly became a political figure the moment he enlisted, and even more so when he died. However, the sum total of his political positions, to the extent it is considered relevant, essentially placed him in a sort of limbo; i.e., he was not a dogmatic, party-embracing dude, but instead a guy who embraced "political" positions that crossed party aisles. But this didn't matter when he died because of the political capital that some saw the opportunity to extract. When that effort didn't pay the sought-after dividends, there was a separate political backlash. Altogether, it consumed an otherwise tragic story of a US soldier's death.

I'd suggest you pick up Krakauer's book, because I think your inclination to view Tillman as nothing more than a "dick" whose character you see as a cliche doesn't match with his real story.

Interesting, I might have to check that out. I might just have prematurely stero-typed him. Then again there is no true way of knowing. You can use photoshop to edit a picture and a biography to edit an "ethos". The only way to see through the edited portraits is to have experienced the subjects prior to.