American Ascendancy in Black Hawk Down, Lord of War

I think that the film Black Hawk Down relates most closely to Said’s “American Ascendancy” out of the movies that we have watched so far. The events in this movie seem similar to the ones Said discusses, especially when he talks about American involvement in Iraq and Haiti. In this case, however, the involvement is [...]

Black Hawk Down and War as a Spectacle

Reading Guy Debord’s “Separation perfected,” I was particularly intrigued when he states that “all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.”  Thinking about what he said, I realized that it certainly seems true – especially in our media frenzied world.  But Debord’s claim sheds some light into the motivation behind creating Black [...]

Black Hawk Down and Blood Diamond

I watched both films back to back and the film that I found most problematic was Black Hawk Down.  This film is created to put the viewer in video game mode as done so by the music, camera angles and color scheme on screen.  The beginning of the film is a shot across fields of [...]

Imbalance in Black Hawk Down

Reflecting on Black Hawk Down, I am struck by the severe imbalance in the film. Granted, the movie was made in Hollywood for an American audience, and it is very much supposed to be about the American soldiers who went into the “hot zone” in Somalia for this mission. But, even with that in mind, [...]

Somalians as Zombies

I just finished watching Black Hawk Down and discussing it with Rich, and one of the things we both observed was the anonymity of the Somalian militia and civilians killed in action as compared to the personalization of the American, nearly uniformly white soldiers.  (It is worth noting however that Ridley Scott did a good [...]