Is anyone watching? War, cinema and bearing witness

Abstract

War-on-terror-themed fictional films, particularly those focused on the war in Iraq, have largely failed at the box office and have been subjected to stinging criticism by right-wing political commentators and film reviewers. Critics on the political right have been upset by a perceived lack of patriotism in the films, often arguing that they are dangerous incitements to new acts of violence. However, unlike many earlier war films, including those made about the conflict in Vietnam, directors of films about the war on terror are quite self-consciously making political films that question United States (US) policy and practice, that focus on the effects of war on US service personnel and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and that, significantly, attempt to rehabilitate Arabs, Muslims and Islam from decades of Hollywood demonization. Moreover, the films are being made and released into a media environment in which quality news reporting has declined even as the intensity of feeling about ‘otherness’ has sha...