I note the strip started before Maggie Thatcher was elected, though I can see how the Thatcherite memes were around in politics before the election. I don't remember clearly enough. But I wouldn't be surprised at David Cameron having wet dreams about Judge Anderson, and I'm sure some elements of the comic's development were driven by the Eighties.
I preferred The Ballad of Halo Jones.
]]>I note the strip started before Maggie Thatcher was elected,..."
Though perhaps not before the time that John Wayne funded and stared in “The Green Berets”?
“The Green Berets is a 1968 American war film featuring John Wayne, George Takei, David Janssen, Jim Hutton and Aldo Ray, nominally based on the eponymous 1965 book by Robin Moore, though the screenplay has little relation to the book.
Thematically, The Green Berets is strongly anti-communist and pro-Saigon. It was produced in 1968, at the height of American involvement in the Vietnam War, the same year as the Tet offensive against the largest cities in South Vietnam. John Wayne was prompted by the anti-war atmosphere and social discontent in the U.S. to make this film in countering that. He requested and obtained full military co-operation and matériel from President Johnson. To please the Pentagon who were attempting to prosecute Robin Moore for revealing classified information, Wayne bought Moore out for $35,000 and 5 percent of undefined profits of the film.[2] "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Berets_%28film%29
Just look at those Square Jawed and Ever So Heroic Anti Commie Publicity photos ...Pure Judge Dread... the Archetypical Hero of the American political right wing nuts? Certainly the precursor to the Judge even as Clint Eastwoods “Man with No Name " was taking shape in the then latest incarnation of the Western. And yet...I have friends who consider themselves to be socialists who just Love Judge Dread and the Clint Eastwood Movies. Mind you they are Men! And Thus ever so Macho and Square Jawed!!And Thus Judge Dread. Life in the Past is so much simpler in the future ..After all the " Colt Peacemaker " of the Western Movies does become the "The Lawgiver" in Judge Dread ..".. judge Dredd is the 1995 feature film adaptation of the comic book character, who first appeared in comic strips in the British science fiction anthology "2000 AD". Sylvester Stallone stars as Dredd, a "Street Judge" who is authorized in a future world to pass "judgment" upon criminals with his special firearm known as "The Lawgiver" so thats all right then. Shoot first and ask - morally ambiguous - questions later eh?
]]>Thing is, John Wayne is sometimes more subtle an actor than he is given credit for, but I don't rate him as a producer/director. And The Green Berets sits very firmly in the pattern of the post-WW2 war movie. The movies made during the war were much more the soldiers and sailors, and post-war the emphasis shifted to the officers. The Green Berets has a cast-list packed with officers. But in other ways it is a wartime movie: it just ignores the ordinary soldiers, the conscripts, and follows the heroic officers having fun while so many nameless others die around them.
It's not that the Americans couldn't make an honest war movie, but directors such as Lewis Milestone were the exception.
]]>Sure it's 35 years worth of comics from a multiplicity of authors so you can find pretty much any variation of tone and theme in there somewhere but honestly if your left wing friends like Dredd it's probably more because they have a sense of fucking humour rather than being male.
Oh and last year's Dredd starring Karl Urban is a far better adaptation than the Stallone flop. He doesn't take the helmet off.
]]>Have a search for "The rise of the warrior cop" - Schneier, and others, have some interesting thoughts on the militarization of police forces.
]]>Well now...that’s,er, very .. generous?.. of you.
Actually I'm 64 years 6 months and a bit old Antonia.
I'm old enough to be named after an uncle who was killed in Operation Market Garden in World War 2, whilst my Grandfather volunteered to join the Durham Light Infantry at the commencement of World War 1 and fought with the Durham Light Infantry until the end of the War To End all wars. Oh, and another of my uncles survived having three ships sunk under him.
So I will admit to being a bit ambivalent towards war movies but I do watch them and did see " The Green Berets " when it first came out and I personaly found it utterly repulsive, which was a fairly commonplace opinion at the time although I gather that it did do pretty well at the box-office.
]]>Which reminds me, I'm told that the new "Lone Ranger" contains many tributes to Leone & also sends ths "manifest destiny/american dream" right up into orbit in shreds. Which is why, it is thought, it will continue to bomb in the USA & do well outside. I will almost certainly go to see it.
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