True Short Stories P4: Rambo is a Good Man
When I was deployed to Afghanistan, I spent a few hours a day just talking to an Afghan Company Commander and his NCOs. We talked about every topic. It would take about an hour of discussing casual topics before we could discuss the business of patrols, troop discipline, supply levels, etc. Things that younger Afghan troops loved talking about were movies. Rambo was a big deal. Rambo 3 took place in Afghanistan and everyone loved that movie. The way young soldiers would talk about Rambo, it was debatable whether or not the young soldiers knew if it was a movie based on historical events or a complete fiction. The white man that came to Afghanistan to fight the other white men (Russians) was a big deal.
“You do realize there were two other movies?”
— “Rambo is a good man.”
“The guy also played Rocky.”
— “Rambo is a good man.”
Rambo was a hero character that soldiers would try to model themselves after by wrapping ammo belts around their bodies and other non-tactical macho stuff.
I had another talk about movies that did not go so well. There was an Afghan SNCO that told me he thought all black people were gangsters. I wasn’t sure what he meant but he made sure that I understood. Every movie that he had ever seen, black people were doing drugs, shooting people, breaking the law, etc. Some of the other soldiers in the room were in agreement. Every blockbuster movie that they had seen showed black people in this light. True, there were some black heroes in movies but not in general and not in the blockbuster movies that ended up as pirated copies in third world countries. This conversation was one of the most uncomfortable and frustrating discussions of my life. It stuck with me.
Hollywood has a power to influence minds all around the world. The movie industry probably needs to be more responsible with that power.
Fast forward ten years later…
My wife and I went to see Black Panther. This movie has resonated with a lot of people. Some people have been confused because there have been plenty of black heroes in movies: Blade, any movie with Denzel Washington, etc. I think the movie has done well not because of the Black Panther. I think it has done well because the hero isn’t the Black Panther. The hero is Wakanda. It is a positive self image. It is good because it is, as opposed to it was allowed to be. I hope this movie is being pirated and seen all over the third world and I hope that Afghan SNCO sees the movie. I mean that in the best possible way.
