Black Hawk-Down: Adaptation and the Military-Entertainment Complex

Johan Höglund,Martin Willander

doi:10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1793365

Abstract

This article investigates the non-fiction book Black Hawk Down (1999) by Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down the movie (2001) directed by Ridley Scott, and the computer game Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (2003). The article suggests that while the movie and the game must be studied as adaptations of the first text, the tools developed by adaptation studies, and that are typically used to study the transfer of narratives from one media form to another, do not suffice to fully describe the ways in which these narratives change between iterations. To provide a more complete account of these adaptations, the article therefore also considers the shifting political climate of the 9/11 era, the expectations from different audiences and industries, and, in particular, the role that what James Der Derian has termed the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (MIME-Net) plays in the production of narrative. The article thus investigates how a specific political climate and MIME-Net help to produce certain adaptations. Based on this investigation, the article argues that MIME-Net plays a very important role in the adaptation of the Black Hawk Down story by directing attention away from historical specificity and nuance, towards the spectacle of war. Thus, in Black Hawk Down the movie and in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, authenticity is understood as residing in the spectacular rendering of carnage rather than in historical facts. The article concludes that scholarly investigations of the adaptation of military narratives should combine traditional adaptation studies tools with theory and method that highlight the role that politics and complexes such as MIME-Net play within the culture industry.

Highlights

The field of cultural studies has developed several useful approaches that can help to explain the ways in which culture in its many forms mediates and shapes the global landscape
The article seeks to widen the discussion by considering what may be termed the internal limitations and possibilities of each media form, and the relationship of these forms with the political context, and the location of the texts relative to a vast network of agents that fund and promote particular narratives. The article achieves this by combining tools from adaptation studies with theory and methods developed by James Der Derian and Mackenzie Wark
The texts that we study in this way are the documentary narrative Black Hawk Down (1999) by Mark Bowden, the Hollywood film adaptation Black Hawk Down (2001) by Ridley Scott, and the computer game adaptation Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (2003)

Summary

Introduction

The field of cultural studies has developed several useful approaches that can help to explain the ways in which culture in its many forms mediates and shapes the global landscape. The game conforms to a number of other post-9/11 war games where, as King and Leonard argue, military games set in the Middle East tend to construct “scenes where there are virtually no civilians present”, which in turn “engender spaces where you are able only to kill soldiers” (King and Leonard 2001: 100) In this way, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down renders Somalia as a space where war is the only form of human exchange and interaction possible. The differences between the game and the previous texts is primarily a consequence of the use of a different medium, one that allows the player to interact with the fictional world in new ways Another important difference is that the game was produced in a post-9/11 political climate in collaboration with two US soldiers, with the purpose of showing the military’s good work in Somalia. The military action in which the gamer participates is intrinsically linked to this effort at extending US global influence and control over Middle Eastern oil through a military campaign

Conclusions

Findings

James Der Derian’s 2001 book Virtuous War