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War as entertainment

"Over There," the new fictional war drama set in present-day Iraq, debuts tonight on cable's FX channel.

From two early reviews :

James Poniewozik in Time:

"... 'Over There' is raw and brave. But it is not yet good, in the plain old sense of So Over There is raw and brave. But it is not yet good, in the plain old sense of creating three-dimensional characters, as FX's 'The Shield,' 'Nip/Tuck' and 'Rescue Me' have. To a man and woman, the soldiers are types -- the hard-bitten sarge, the college kid, the greenhorn, the choirboy -- whom the pilot introduces with the inexcusably hackneyed device of having them explain their colorful nicknames.

"In between battles, the scripts -- many penned by co-creator Chris Gerolmo (screenwriter of 'Mississippi Burning')-- saddle them with canned Socratic dialogue about race relations and what it means to fight an enemy who's willing to die. The subplots about the families on base are even more trite. On this show, when a dad abandons his wife and kids, he actually says he's going out to get cigarettes.

"The show may seem exploitative, but there's a fine line between exploitation and relevance: both involve depicting horrible things that command people's attention. As a first TV draft of history, Over There is far smarter and more unflinching than a sweeps war movie--or for that matter, much network news. But it wants to be more, and should be."

Alessandra Stanley in The New York Times:

"School shootings, presidential scandals and even abuse of Iraqi prisoners are now routinely sifted into 'Law & Order' subplots; viewers have become just as inured to the fictionalization of real life on so-called reality television. But even in our hyperaccelerated media culture, 'Over There' is fast work.

"And that is both troubling and comforting. 'Over There' ... is a slick, compelling and very violent distillation of the latest news reports and old war movies and television shows. That alone could make it seem like a show business atrocity, a commercial abuse of a raw and unresolved national calamity.

"Except that exploitation is not necessarily a bad thing. 'Over There' dramatizes wartime slaughter and suffering that all too often go unnoticed. For all the lives lost and billions spent, the Iraq conflict has raged on with surprisingly little impact on most Americans. Gas is not rationed, neighbors do not plant victory gardens, and there are no gold stars in the windows of grieving mothers."

Posted by Allen Johnson on July 27, 2005 1:38 PM | Permalink

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War as entertainment

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