Title: Men of Honor |
Release Date: 2000 |
Nationality and Language: |
Running time: 128 min |
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Distributor and Production Company: 20th Century Fox |
Director; Writer: George Tillman, Jr, wr Scott Marshall Smith |
Producer: Bill Badalato |
Cast: |
Technical: Scope |
Relevance to DOASKDOTELL site: military segregation |
Review: Movie Review of Men of Honor Starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Robert De Niro, directed by George Timman, 20th Century Fox
This biography of Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding), the first
African-American diver in the U.S. Navy diving corps, looks interesting on
the wide screen (rather than a cable channel). The story spans the years
1943, when Carl gives up a day of school out of family honor to help his
sharecropper dad in
But the point of the story, of course, is a black person
making it in a relatively recently integrated military, in 1952, when he
attends the diving school in
In fact, when Brashear reports to the school, only a
stammering redhead from
The “integration” of open gays into the military would be so much more difficult because, in the minds of some people, allowing gays to board in the same barracks would almost be like co-ed bunking. The forced intimacy of military service may be quite extreme, as with hot bunking and cold-weather poncho sharing. So it seems sensible to respect the “right” of a soldier not to have to bunk with someone who make regard him as sexually attractive (or unattractive) and have this unseen but visceral reaction affect the bonding within the unit.
Yet, men in the early 50’s often saw “integration” as an unacceptable assault on their “privacy.” George Wallace had said, “segregation forever,” and to a modern mind, this seems stupid, or nothing more than economic and social turf protection. Younger men in future generations, at least better educated ones, may look at these same arguments with respect to gays as equally silly. Yet, today, given the incredible psychological challenges of a fighting force that often draws from disadvantaged segments of society, the “sexual privacy” argument still sounds serious.
Even so, what everyone roots for is for someone to overcome the prejudices of others and become a hero. It’s going to be much more subtle with and difficult with the gay issue—both in real life and film—than it was with the race issue. But it will happen.
The script of the movie does not do as much with the “honor” concept as it might have, other than to say that prejudice itself would undermine honor. Again, in the gay issue it gets much richer.
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Related reviews: Coming Out Under Fire, Soldier’s Girl |
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