MovieChat Forums > The Pacific (2010) Discussion > Why so PC with the Japanese?

Why so PC with the Japanese?

posted 12 years ago by Terrapin2212
63 replies | jump to latest

I never got why despite the fact that it was the Japanese that attacked us at Pearl harbor and brought us into WW2, in a cowardly surprise attack no less, Hollywood is always so sympathetic in their portrayal of them compared to the Nazis, when the Japanese army did similar things and were equally brutal and genocidal. All the Japanese war crimes like the Bataan death march seems overlooked as well as the Japanese war crimes in Asia. I saw the first two episodes of the Pacific and they already tried to humanize the enemy with the doll and they portrayed the American soldiers negatively in my opinion. I don't know why most movies dealing wih the Pacific front aren't as clear cut good vs evil as movies depicting the war in Europe when both fronts should have been depicted similarly. The Japanese were as evil as the Nazis and were a brutal and savage enemy with the kamimazes and suicide charges. Letters from Iwo Jima is another blatant Hollywood attempt at making us sympathize for the enemy.

I did like the general's speech in the beginning about keeping the world from being enslaved but there should have been a larger focus on Pearl Harbor and its affect on the American people and the patriotism it stirred up. It alsso would have been better if the doctor opposed his son going to war because he was an unpatriotic liberal who was against the war despite Pearl Harbor (the way many liberal traitors opposed the Afghanistan war after 9-11) and not because of his history with WW1 just saying. I still have to watch Band of Brothers but I've heard its more patriotic and pro-American than this one and is more clear about the good vs evil fight that WW2 was and it certainly was a fight between good and evil in both the Pacific and the European Western Front (I guess with the Eastern Front in the USSR it was evil vs evil).

[–] babybyrd2000 12 years ago

Because its progressive PC Spielberg and his boy goy Hanks

Spielberg sees the world thru this culture is relative prism

You should see the WWII MUSUEM in the CBD in New Orleans

Great site but PC as hell with half a floor dedicated to racism...mostly ours

I'm like really Stephen....who never fought....you couldn't just give the 350000 dead boys some slack over being a product of their time and using inflammatory language about the enemy

A fanatic ruthless foe

Spielberg is smarmy and too high and mighty...commercial eye for the camera

But just another blame America libtard

[–] R011DaveAAA 11 years ago

Hollywood is always so sympathetic in their portrayal of them compared to the Nazis

You must be watching films made in a differnt Hollywood.

[–] jd-276 11 years ago

The whole premise of this thread is trolling at its finest.

I'm waiting for the obligatory "This series is offensive to veterans" thread to pop up.

[–] Vega_Lyra 11 years ago

Best war movies ever made were the ones made during the actual war. We had a clear objective (win the war and get home) and we knew what had to be done. Destination Tokyo, Bataan, Wake Island, Air Force, etc. were all excellent war time films that took place in the Pacific. They may not have been accurate historically, but they told a very good story and helped keep up morale for the war effort.

Conquer your fear, and I promise you, you will conquer death.

[–] jd-276 11 years ago

Sounds like propaganda.

[–] Vega_Lyra 11 years ago

Nothing wrong about propaganda.

Conquer your fear, and I promise you, you will conquer death.

[–] jd-276 11 years ago

As long as you know it's propaganda.

Some people can't tell the difference.

[–] jd-276 11 years ago

Calling them "Tojo and F#%* Face" and referring to them as "slant-eyed" hardly qualifies as PC.

I also suggest that your analysis shows you need to read more history. I recommend "At Dawn We Slept" by Gordon Prange, Donald Goldstein and Katherine Dillon. It's as good as it gets. You will discover that the mechanics of the situation were not as simple as you would like to believe.

[–] nickm2 11 years ago

I can't help but think that the "Tojo, F/k Face & Slanteyes" comments were just to show how Racist the Marines were...or it was the bravado of the officers & men before they got 'blooded'.

[–] jd-276 11 years ago

Yeah but on a question of the series being politically correct, it seems inconsistent with that.

[–] nickm2 11 years ago

Could be film-makers are politically sensitive, while showing how insensitive the 'unenlightened' masses are; who knows? This can be drawn out in several directions.

[–] jd-276 11 years ago

I agree; it's difficult to draw too many conclusions from it.

I'm just raising the possibility that it's not PC and simply avoids issues of war crimes committed by the Japanese. This would probably be because the two main characters - Leckie and Sledge - did not claim to witness them.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] npanou 11 years ago

You realise the US had practically opened itself up to attack when it cut of 90% of Japan's oil. Economic sanctions are pretty much considered acts of war nowadays. And a military strike is never cowardly- its pre-emptive, its intelligent- it's a style of attack that the entire US military is built around. Come out off nowhere, hit them hard, clean up the stragglers. Shock and awe.
And i think it's funny that you are attempting a historical observation using the words 'evil'.

[–] nickm2 11 years ago

Considering why the oil was cut off & the fact that the fuel oil shortaged combined fleet waltzed past the Dutch East Indies to raid Hawaii, I am not sure what your point is.

[–] npanou 11 years ago

The Japanese were attempting to send a message to the United States to back off. They underestimated Americas revenge cultural mentality and assumed the isolationist mentality was present at the executive level, which it wasn't. Roosevelt was itchign to get into the war and the US public was not interested in backing down. The threat backfired- failed to sufficiently disable the Pacific Fleet.
As for the Dutch east indies- you'd know that less than a month after Pearl the Japanese launched their campaign there. To suggest that the Japanese ignore the economic strangulation of the US and just head straight there is foolish. While this may contradict their earlier assumptions- its possible they were concerned the US would enter the war at any minute, better to disable any potential counter-offensive in the DEI and the rest of the Pacific theatre via a prempitive strike than wait fr a fully equipped fleet to strike you in a freshly acquired, crucial strategic point. Any military strategist would do the same thing.
Allot of people tend to dismiss this kind of argument as some sort of sympathetic skewing of the Japanese situation. It's not- they were aggressive territorial expansionists. THe attack on pearl was not a pointless, cruel strike on an innocent nation. IT was a rational (if miscalculated) strategic response to an economic sanction that would have completely immobilized the entire Japanese empire within months. Yes, they were fighting a brutal war of annihilation in China- but that is irrelevant. Nobody is suggesting the Japanese campaign wasn't immoral- but beyond China it wasn't particularly different to the colonial efforts of the British French and Us- just on a larger scale. The rational is IDENTICAL. Remember Desert Storm? Only a naive individual would deny that was a direct response to the price shock crises produced by the invasion of Kuwait.
Your military strategy of continuing to ignore the US and push straight into the DEI fails to prepare for the long term. From the Japanese perspective, war with the US was inevitable at that point- they could go in with shock and awe to seize the advantage early (just as the US has done in every war since) or they can keep the ball in the US's court and wait to be hit. It's not 'wrong' or 'cowardly', it's called seizing the initiative. While debates still wage today as to whether, had the carriers been sunk and the oil silos bombed, the US would have reacted completely differently, or simply been substantially set back 8 months or a year- had the attack been properly coordinated and the intelligence been correct, it would truly have been an outstanding operation- one to be admired not dismissed as a low blow.

The victor always characterises a pre-emptive strike as intelligent and necessary- the loser characterises it as a sock on the chin. It's the same with everything. Did the US drop leaflets to warn the civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima of the attack (like they did with conventional bombing runs on civie populations)? No, because they need the surprise, shock and maximum civilian casualties for the moral effect of the bomb to be fully capitalized on. Peopel need to stop beign hypocrites and grow some balls. All's fair in war.

[–] R011DaveAAA 11 years ago

The Japanese were attempting to send a message to the United States to back off.

In fact, they were attempting to attrit the USA fleet sufficiently to even up the numbers so that the decisive battle that occurred when the US tried to retake the Philippines would be a Japanese victory.

As for the Dutch east indies- you'd know that less than a month after Pearl the Japanese launched their campaign there.

And they attacked Malaya hours before Pearl Harbor.

Yes, they were fighting a brutal war of annihilation in China- but that is irrelevant.

In fact, that was the entire point. Wars of conquest, particularly ones more brutal than any the US or Britain had engaged in, were illegal after 1919. Even if they were not, the Japanese conquest of China was not in America's or Britain’s long term interests. As today, economic sanctions were a measured response to illegal aggression.

It's not 'wrong' or 'cowardly', it's called seizing the initiative.

An attack with no declaration of war or ultimatum or equivalent was and is illegal under the laws of war. The Japanese were pretending to negotiate with the United States right up to December 7th. Indeed, their message to end those negotiations, which was neither a declaration of war nor an ultimatum, was not sent until moments before the attack was under way.

Did the US drop leaflets to warn the civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima of the attack

Yes.

[–] DD-931 11 years ago

"Yes, they were fighting a brutal war of annihilation in China- but that is irrelevant."

What an absurd statement, when the ENTIRE POINT of the embargo was in reaction to, as you yourself called it, Japan's "brutal war of annihilation in China". The embargo was the United States' message to Japan to "back off" there. Dave is correct: Japan wasn't sending a message, she was starting the war in such a way as to ensure the United States could no longer interfere with her plans to dominate not just China but all of Asia. It wasn't about the survival of a nation, but the survival of an Empire.

Ironically enough, if Japan had only attacked the Dutch East Indies and not Pearl Harbor, there is some legitimate question as to whether the American will to fight a Pacific War would have been anything like the will to fight generated by the sneak attack on December 7th. Such an attack would have required AMERICA to start a war with Japan, rather than the way it actually went down. Don't think "Remember Java!" would have had the same ring to it that "Remember Pearl Harbor!" had.

[–] joekinplaya 11 years ago

They aren't portraying humanity in Japanese soldiers and portraying cruelty in US soldiers... They are portraying what happens to people who fight in wars. Whether you fight for Nazis, Japan, Allies doesn't matter.

First of all, how can you lump the regular Nazis as evil and cruel? 99% of Germany did not know about the genocide. When they found out, they had to clean up the mess. Now I dunno if those people did it because they were forced to (as it was martial law) or because they felt bad; but they certainly LOOKED and felt bad about it. Even the soldiers in Nazis did not know until the horrors of genocide had been revealed publicly. That's why everyone knows about the holocaust whereas in BOB, they had no idea what they were seeing when they stumbled upon the small concentration camp and couldn't believe their eyes.

As for the Japanese soldiers, I detest every single Japanese soldier WHO RAPED OR TORTURED civilians. But that's not just the Japanese. I hate American soldiers who do the same and Korean soldiers who do the same (I am Korean-American). This doesn't make every Japanese people who fought for their country bad guys.

Do you remember BOB in the 2nd episode; the guy that talks to Malarky who was born in Eugene? He doesn't seem like a bad person at all nor did he even look like he hated jewish people. Also, not every German civilian and soldier hated Jewish people until they started rounding everyone up. There were huge resentment about the Jewish that slowly grew (this started because Christian/Catholic Germans refused to be bankers as they thought money corrupts while Jewish people did operate the banks. Shifts in wealth obviously causes resentment.) Somewhere Hitler convinced Germany to follow him so he can bring Germany its glory back. Now, if a president promised your country great things, then usually you follow them. Germany was in bad state after WWI with treaties holding them down. Hitler actually gave Germany prosperity for a short while and it would have been unpatriotic to not follow him at the time. OFC no one at this time knew of the genocide.

Also, Japanese people were not evil back then either; just the regime that ran the country was I guess. There are SO many stories that my grandparents told me that when Japan occupied Korea, it was very dark times where the average family ate chicken feed as any rice was taken by force from the Japanese. They literally tried to erase and delete our culture by replacing it with Japanese culture (like the removal of Sharon fruit trees for Sakura Cherry trees) and the criminalizing of speaking Korean and writing. However, even despite all that, they still talked about the Japanese civilians who MOVED to Korea when it was occupied. Some of these Japanese families who lived in Korea were pretty nice as far as I knew. My grandmother's mother was actually friends with a Japanese family who had a daughter the same age as my great grand mother. Ironically, my great grand mother's friend's grand daughter married my great grand mother's grand son. My uncle and aunt currently live in Japan.
---
Again, not all Japanese people were evil. I mean Americans are right to feel angered about Pearl Harbor but c'mon. The countries that got "hurt" by Japan were REALLY hurt. Pearl Harbor doesn't come close to massive rape and occupying your country and stealing your culture. But even after all that, I can't call Japanese people evil or cruel.

THERE IS NO GOOD/BAD GUYS IN WAR. THERE ARE JUST THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] WhiskeyFudge 10 years ago

The American soldiers in the Pacific Theater didn't encounter Japanese atrocities every 5 minutes.

As I recall there's 2 incidents in the series; when Leckie's company sees GIs tied to trees and mutilated, and the Japanese soldier who blows himself and 2 marines up at Alligator Creek. For a 10 episode series, where 90% of the plot takes place outside the combat zone, I think that's about as reasonable as you can expect.

Anyway, I don't really get why you expect a series based for a large part on autobiographies to deal with a wide swath of events, the writers didn't take part in. The Pacific is not a documentary. It's like blaming Band Of Brothers for not focusing more on Operation Anvil, the invasion in southern France or the German attack on Poland.

WhiskeyFudge

[–] phillipsdan83 10 years ago

The three Marines THE PACIFIC was about weren't POWs, nor were they there to see Nanking or similar atrocities in China. The Japanese soldiers are for the most part played as die hard, death before dishonor fighters capable of great sadism. Out of every movie set in the Pacific Theater I ever saw, only Malick's THE THIN RED LINE shows PC Japanese...and even HE showed a few die hards.

[–] yusomad 9 years ago

Very late to this party, but I might as well weigh in as I recently re-watched the Pacific. I urge the OP to reconsider his thinking and simple mindedness if he hasn't in the intervening time. You remind me of the marine Sgt. Basilone chewed out at boot camp. Is that all they are you to you? "Japs?" You refuse to see them as anything more than smiling buck toothed cartoon characters that some overpaid Madison Ave. *beep* dreamed up? That is not the reality. I can tell you that my Japanese girlfriend's grandfather woke up howling from his nightmares most nights.

My own grandfather was at Tarawa and served in some capacity in the occupation. His letters home that I have read exhibit more respect and grace toward the enemy than you are exhibiting. If a marine who was there can acknowledge the humanity of the enemy he no doubt killed with this own hands, then you should try as well.

The full reality of war is always in some way at odds with your own sense of pride or patriotism.

At any rate, I don't think The Pacific did much to humanize the enemy truth be told. It portrayed him more or less accurately in his manner of fighting but did so completely anonymously. Certainly no scenes like in Band of Brothers where the proud German general addresses his men, or the German colonel has a heart to heart with Maj. Winters. And yet you say the Germans are always portrayed poorly and the Japanese get a pass? There are plenty of films that give a human face to the Germans.. Das Boot, Cross of Iron... And yet Letters from Iwo is just PC propaganda?

Do you really believe that Japanese soldiers didn't behave as they did in Letters from Iwo? Like people? Instead of having actual conversations with each other, expressing fear/anger/any range of emotions they just sat in their caves clutching their rifles and saying "I will kirr yankee scum. Bring velly gleat honor to most noble emperor!!" Give me a break.