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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > 'Dirty Harry' tells Spike Lee to "SHUT HIS FACE."

'Dirty Harry' tells Spike Lee to "SHUT HIS FACE."
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Atomic Rooster
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Jun 10, 2008, 08:57 PM
 
Atta boy Clint. You da man!11!1

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KeyLimePi
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Jun 10, 2008, 09:17 PM
 
Spike sounds a little desperate for attention these days. I guess he musta spent all that Nike commercial money.
     
art_director
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Jun 10, 2008, 09:20 PM
 
Two days old ... stale 'news.'
     
Eug
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Jun 10, 2008, 10:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by KeyLimePi View Post
Spike sounds a little desperate for attention these days.
Agreed.
     
Mastrap
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Jun 10, 2008, 11:07 PM
 
And playing the racism card here it totally uncalled for.
     
Jawbone54
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Jun 11, 2008, 12:13 AM
 
Remember his "Larry Bird was overrated because he was white" drama?

What was really silly is that there are black marines in the outlining of the mission scene, as well as the landing on Iwo Jima. There are also quite a few photographs at the end of the film showing real-life black soldiers.

My guess is that Spike either didn't watch the movie, or didn't pay close attention when he did.
     
Atomic Rooster  (op)
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Jun 11, 2008, 01:08 AM
 
Originally Posted by art_director View Post
Two days old ... stale 'news.'
Yer two days old or the story? Can't tell which yer gettin' at sonny?
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Anyways, how many black Japanese were there? I like that part.
     
Atomic Rooster  (op)
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Jun 11, 2008, 01:19 AM
 
Originally Posted by KeyLimePi View Post
Spike sounds a little desperate for attention these days. I guess he musta spent all that Nike commercial money.
You mean the company that used child labour?!?! NOoooo...

I also think he's jealous cuz he never wins anything.

Also, all his movies are racist and bigoted towards the white man. Sure doesn't help the black cause any.
     
IceEnclosure
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Jun 11, 2008, 02:17 AM
 
Spike Lee musta found a whole box of racism cards back in the day cause he's always pullin' em. I like his movies sometimes though.
ice
     
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Jun 11, 2008, 02:35 AM
 
I think Spike Lee needs to shut his face.
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Jawbone54
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Jun 11, 2008, 12:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
I think Spike Lee needs to shut his face.
Okay, plantation owner.
     
IceEnclosure
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Jun 11, 2008, 12:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by Jawbone54 View Post
Okay, plantation owner.
haha

Yeah, okay Lincoln
ice
     
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Jun 11, 2008, 12:29 PM
 
It's gotta be the shoes.

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Tiresias
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Jun 11, 2008, 01:07 PM
 
His exact wording was,

"A guy like that should shut his face."

Classic Eastwood.
     
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Jun 11, 2008, 01:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by ort888 View Post
It's gotta be the shoes.
"Increase your vertical leap and race card pulling abilities."
     
Jawbone54
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Jun 11, 2008, 02:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by Tiresias View Post
His exact wording was,

"A guy like that should shut his face."

Classic Eastwood.
Evidently he really is as tough and mean as all of the characters he's portrayed.

Actually, I've heard he's an incredibly gracious and kind person in real life, albeit soft-spoken and quiet.
     
OAW
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Jun 11, 2008, 04:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by Jawbone54 View Post
Remember his "Larry Bird was overrated because he was white" drama?

What was really silly is that there are black marines in the outlining of the mission scene, as well as the landing on Iwo Jima. There are also quite a few photographs at the end of the film showing real-life black soldiers.

My guess is that Spike either didn't watch the movie, or didn't pay close attention when he did.
Well I saw both movies. And I don't recall any black characters. At all. As Spike Lee noted. They were both awesome movies. But it is fair to point out that the portrayal does a disservice to those black servicemen who also endured that hellish landing on the island. At the times blacks were forbidden from a direct combat role due to racism in the military. But they did play a vital support role. They drove the supply vehicles, built the airstrips which was the entire strategic reason for capturing the islands in the first place, dug trenches, and did whatever other labor they were ordered to do. No one, including Spike Lee, is saying they should have been major characters or portrayed as lifting the flag ... as Clint Eastwood incorrectly claimed Spike was saying. But the guy who put up the first flag pole in the movie (not the one that the famous sculpture is based on) was in fact erected by black soldiers. In fact, one of them is still living and talked with Spike Lee. But that's not how it was portrayed in the movie. If one based their view of that battle on the movie one could easily get the impression that blacks weren't even there. Unless you stuck around for the credits and saw a handful of pictures. The point Spike Lee was making was that the contribution of those black servicemen was completely ignored, even though it was vital to the success of the mission. They bled and died like everybody else, yet they were essentially relegated to the "footnote" of the film.

So some may call it "playing the race card" if they want to. I just call it an accurate observation.

OAW

PS: For your perusing pleasure .....

Were African-Americans at Iwo Jima? - TIME
     
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Jun 11, 2008, 05:35 PM
 
It may be an accurate observation, but he's still being a tad hypocritical since most of Lee's movies are very stereotypical of whites. While Eastwood may have not paid enough homage to black soldiers in 2 of his movies, Lee has a history of portraying whites in extremely stereotypical and often offending roles. I understand he's trying to send a specific message in doing that, but if he's complaining about equality in films he needs to go back and look at his works.
     
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Jun 11, 2008, 07:46 PM
 
Or he can just shut his face. I'm tired of hearing the "woe is me, I'm black" bullshit. Gets old.
     
lavar78
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Jun 11, 2008, 07:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by ::maroma:: View Post
It may be an accurate observation, but he's still being a tad hypocritical since most of Lee's movies are very stereotypical of whites.
His movies are stereotypical of all races. I'm pretty sure that's the point.

"Playing the race card" is such a lame catch phrase. It wasn't even clever when it was new, but now it's just old and tired.

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Jun 11, 2008, 08:05 PM
 
It's no less annoying.
From any side.
     
JohnM15141
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Jun 11, 2008, 08:34 PM
 
Mr. Eastwood said "this story was about the soldiers who raised the flag on Mt. Surabachi." I've looked at the pictures of the flag raising event and even though they are black and white photos, none of the marines pictured look black. I've never seen it mentioned that one of the soldiers raising the flag was a black man. In order to appease Mr. Lee he would have to change history and make one of the soldiers black. Now, if it it turns out that soldiers there raising the flag were black, and that fact was changed I would be irate! But, if I found out, that in the movie, one of the soldiers characters was changed to black to make Mr. Lee happy I would be just as irate!

While I agree with the premise Mr. Lee has put forth, that the story of the black soldiers contribution in WWII has largely been underplayed and hidden from view, and is unfair. However, I think he picked the wrong target to make that fact known and came out looking more like a trouble maker than a voice for fairness.
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abbaZaba
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Jun 11, 2008, 10:06 PM
 
Spike Lee is racist and there is nothing that can be done to change this. He has developed this mentality throughout his life and at this point it is futile to scold him because he's never going to change. It'll fall on deaf ears.
     
Randman
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Jun 11, 2008, 10:15 PM
 
Originally Posted by abbaZaba View Post
Spike Lee is racist and there is nothing that can be done to change this. He has developed this mentality throughout his life and at this point it is futile to scold him because he's never going to change. It'll fall on deaf ears.
This. And his movies, for the most part, aren't very good either.

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Jun 11, 2008, 10:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by Randman View Post
This. And his movies, for the most part, aren't very good either.
I don't know about that. I loved "Bamboozled," but I think he needs to realize that most people who go to see Eastwood's movies aren't going to walk away thinking "gee, I didn't see any black people there!" Rather, they will walk away with respect for ALL who fought in the battle for Iwo Jima.
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Jun 12, 2008, 12:08 AM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Well I saw both movies. And I don't recall any black characters. At all.
Guess what though, there's a whole bunch of Japanese people in Letters From Iwo Jima. Yeah, really. Watch it again, you'll see. Do Japanese people count as non-white? Obviously Clint hates blacks (except for Morgan Freeman) but he actually seems to like Japanese folks. Go figure!

But the guy who put up the first flag pole in the movie (not the one that the famous sculpture is based on) was in fact erected by black soldiers.
The first flag raising is as well documented as the second- it's actually one of the most documented acts in military history. The identities of all the soldiers involved in both flag raisings are known, and documented. From wikipedia:

Lowery's most widely circulated picture of the first flag raising. This picture is usually captioned as: 1st Lt. Harold G. Schrier with Platoon Sergeant Ernest I. Thomas, Jr. (both seated), PFC James Michels (in foreground with carbine), Sergeant Henry O. Hansen (standing, wearing soft cap), Corporal Charles W. Lindberg (standing, extreme right), on Mount Suribachi at the first flag raising. However, PFC Raymond Jacobs disputed these identifications,[3] and asserted that it should be: Pfc James Robeson (lower left corner), Lt. Harold Schrier (sitting behind his legs), Pfc Raymond Jacobs (carrying radio), Sgt. Henry Hansen (cloth cap), unknown (lower hand on pole), Sgt Ernest Thomas (back to camera), Phm2c John Bradley (helmet above Thomas), Pfc James Michels (with carbine), Cpl Charles Lindberg (above Michels).
The faces of most of the men in the photo can clearly be seen. I've never seen anything that says any of the above mentioned people is black. At any rate, claiming the first flag was "erected by black soldiers" is baloney.

There's simply NOTHING about this whole subject to race-bait over, it's just more tired old CRAP from people who love to make everything into a racial issue.

That Newsweek article you linked to even gets it wrong about the second flag raising, repeating the long debunked notion that the second flag raising was 'staged'. It wasn't. It was just a second raising to put up a larger flag. The soldiers involved weren't there to pose for the photographers, they were there to put up the flag as ordered. Most were killed in combat shortly thereafter. Repeating the bull that it was 'staged' is just shoddy (albeit, typical these days) journalism.

The dumbest thing about trying to make this into a race issue, is that if anyone were out to just glorify whites and deny minorities any credit, they'd actually play up the FIRST flag raising, not the second. In case any of the race-card coalition wants to open their friggen eyes for two seconds, they might notice that Ira Hayes is Native American. And he's actually probably the best known of the flag raisers. Wait, does Native American not count as non-white enough with the race-card coalition?

The second flag raising captured people's attention because it's simply a far more dynamic photograph- it's what papers around the world ran with, not the photos of the first. So that's what the statue is of, that's who is remembered for raising the flag, that's what most any retelling of the flag raising story focuses on, because it IS the friggen story.

Of course, people who have a "Spike Lee" view of history, (IE some alternate-universe crap where literally everything is a racist plot) don't even know the basic story of the events, let alone why a retelling of them would focus on certain elements.

This seems to be what we've come to. It's not enough that people do acknowledge that blacks played a huge contribution during World War II, and yes, were long given zero credit for it. Nope, that's not enough. Let's go back and have Spike Lee types history-revise and rewrite EVERYTHING to give blacks credit, even things as hyper-documented as the flag raising at Iwo Jima. Swing that racism pendulum 180 degrees in the other direction! That'll sure help race relations a lot.

In fact, one of them is still living and talked with Spike Lee.
Something tells me whatever this person told Spike Lee, went something like this:
"I was at Iwo Jima and..."
"I knew it!! It was black people that raised that flag!"
"Wait, I just said I was there, not that I..."
"@&&# damn that cracker Eastwood!"
     
JoshuaZ
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Jun 12, 2008, 01:30 AM
 
Last time I check, the Japanese army didn't employ many black people. So I don't see how "Letters from Iwa Gima" could have worked some black guys into it.

I think Spike is just looking for attention. Eastwood always comes off as an honorable guy, Spike always comes off as someoen looking for a fight.

(Because of this thread I downloaded the first 'Dirty Harry' movie last night. First viewing. Awesome!)
     
besson3c
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Jun 12, 2008, 02:14 AM
 
I think that we are far too concerned on assigning labels to people and establishing judgment, and in general far less interested in listening to the concerns of both sides. It's no wonder that race is still as big an issue in this country as it is, looking at the emotion in this thread alone is testament to this. I believe that throwing in only your emotional responses just adds to the problem.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't have our opinions, but I think it is best to dispense with our gut feelings and emotional responses and keep reactions more matter-of-fact and purely factual, like a few in this thread have attempted to do.

Just joining in the party and providing you all with my official assessment...
     
osiris
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Jun 12, 2008, 09:10 AM
 
This is probably just publicity for a new co-Directorial effort with Clint & Spike.
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Eug
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Jun 12, 2008, 09:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I think that we are far too concerned on assigning labels to people and establishing judgment, and in general far less interested in listening to the concerns of both sides.
At the risk of labelling someone... People might be more willing to listen to what Lee had to say... if he wasn't such a whining prick about it all the time.
     
besson3c
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Jun 12, 2008, 10:07 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
At the risk of labelling someone... People might be more willing to listen to what Lee had to say... if he wasn't such a whining prick about it all the time.
Perhaps, but his delivery and personality doesn't necessarily change his underlying message.
     
TheWOAT
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Jun 12, 2008, 11:46 AM
 
From what Ive heard from people who have met and dealt with Eastwood, all of them say he is a prick. Spike Lee is probably in the wrong, but Hollywood has always been as easy target. As Ice Cube says "F-ck Hollywood!!!" (Pre-Corny-Family-Movie Actor)
     
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Jun 12, 2008, 11:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by TheWOAT View Post
(Pre-Corny-Family-Movie Actor)
Most disturbing transition of all time. Really, Cube, really?
     
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Jun 12, 2008, 12:12 PM
 
If he would have been killed in 1994, he would have be called the greatest West Coast rapper of all time... now... no one cares anymore.

Listening his album from 1991, funny to hear his less than favorable lyrics on jews.. hey, it worked for Mel Gibson.
     
OAW
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Jun 12, 2008, 04:30 PM
 
Clearly there are those in this thread who can't see the forest for the trees. On top of that they seem to enjoy arguing with themselves. As I pointed out in my earlier post .... no one, including Spike Lee, ever said that the Iwo Jima movie should show black soldiers raising the flag. So all the "revisionist history" claims are simply BS. The only criticism made was that the entire movie showed not a single black soldier. In any capacity. Doing anything. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find any movie about Iwo Jima that showed black soldiers. Perhaps one exists .... but all I know is that I've never come across one.

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw
Or he can just shut his face. I'm tired of hearing the "woe is me, I'm black" bullshit. Gets old.
1. Spike never said that.
2. The man can probably buy and sell you (and just about anyone else in this thread) 10 times over. Seems a tad bit foolish to think he's going around crying "woe is me" n'est-ce pas?

Originally Posted by JohnM15141
I've never seen it mentioned that one of the soldiers raising the flag was a black man. In order to appease Mr. Lee he would have to change history and make one of the soldiers black.
Again. As I mentioned in my first post ... no one, including Spike Lee, ever said that. I'll be charitable and chalk that one up to just missing what I said instead of reading comprehension issues.

Originally Posted by abbaZaba
Spike Lee is racist and there is nothing that can be done to change this. He has developed this mentality throughout his life and at this point it is futile to scold him because he's never going to change. It'll fall on deaf ears.
Yeah ..... whatever.

Originally Posted by CRASHHARDDRIVE
Guess what though, there's a whole bunch of Japanese people in Letters From Iwo Jima. Yeah, really. Watch it again, you'll see. Do Japanese people count as non-white? Obviously Clint hates blacks (except for Morgan Freeman) but he actually seems to like Japanese folks. Go figure!
Again ... not seeing the forest for the trees. And a pretty weak attempt at sarcasm. Clearly, Letters from Iwo Jima focused on the Japanese experience. And no one would expect a black soldier to have a major role in that film. But that film did show the Japanese in combat with US troops. And guess what? None of them were black either in that film either. To even try to go there shows just how far one must reach to try to sweep this valid criticism under the rug. I'll just let Spike's words speak for themselves. Feel free to continue twisting them if you'd like.

Clint Eastwood is a great film maker and I respect his work, and he did two films about Iwo Jima back to back, and there was not one black soldier in both of those films.

.....

Add the running times of both films, that's about four hours. ... Many veterans, African-Americans who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood for not even having one, but Clint Eastwood is a great director and that was his vision. His vision of Iwo Jima: Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that you know. I have a different version.

...

If Clint wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima, and I'd like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist."
And lest we think that this entire brouhaha exists only because of Spike Lee being a "troublemaker" or something ..... check out this article that came out on Oct. 21, 2006 when the film opened. It was written by Dan Glaister, the LA correspondent for The Guardian.

Where have all the black soldiers gone? | World news | The Guardian

A few relevant quotes .....

On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima.
"There were bodies bobbing up all around, all these dead men," said the former US marine, now 83 and living in San Diego. "Then we were crawling on our bellies and moving up the beach. I jumped in a foxhole and there was a young white marine holding his family pictures. He had been hit by shrapnel, he was bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth. It frightened me. The only thing I could do was lie there and repeat the Lord's prayer, over and over and over."

Sadly, Sgt McPhatter's experience is not mirrored in Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's big-budget, Oscar-tipped film of the battle for the Japanese island that opened on Friday in the US. While the film's battle scenes show scores of young soldiers in combat, none of them are African-American. Yet almost 900 African-American troops took part in the battle of Iwo Jima, including Sgt McPhatter.
Mr McPhatter, who went on to serve in Vietnam and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the US navy, even had a part in the raising of the flag. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he says. That, too, is absent from the film.

"Of all the movies that have been made of Iwo Jima, you never see a black face," said Mr McPhatter. "This is the last straw. I feel like I've been denied, I've been insulted, I've been mistreated. But what can you do? We still have a strong underlying force in my country of rabid racism."
Melton McLaurin, author of the forthcoming The Marines of Montford Point and an accompanying documentary to be released in February, says that there were hundreds of black soldiers on Iwo Jima from the first day of the 35-day battle. Although most of the black marine units were assigned ammunition and supply roles, the chaos of the landing soon undermined the battle plan.

"When they first hit the beach the resistance was so fierce that they weren't shifting ammunition, they were firing their rifles," said Dr McLaurin.

The failure to transfer the active role played by African-Americans at Iwo Jima to the big screen does not surprise him. "One of the marines I interviewed said that the people who were filming newsreel footage on Iwo Jima deliberately turned their cameras away when black folks came by. Blacks are not surprised at all when they see movies set where black troops were engaged and never show on the screen. I would like to say that it was from ignorance but anybody can do research and come up with books about African-Americans in world war two. I think it has to do with box office and what producers of movies think Americans really want to see."
The omission was first remarked upon in a review by Fox News columnist Roger Friedman, who noted that the history of black involvement at Iwo Jima was recorded in several books, including Christopher Moore's recent Fighting for America: Black Soldiers - the Unsung Heroes of World War II. "They weren't in the background at all," said Moore. "The people carrying the ammunition were 90% black, so that's an opportunity to show black soldiers. These are our films and very often they become our history, historical documents."
Oh .... Here's a really good one!!

Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of We Were There: Voices of African-American Veterans (2004), wrote to Eastwood and the film's producers pleading with them to include the experience of black soldiers. HarperCollins, the book's publishers, sent the director a copy, but never heard back.

"It would take only a couple of extras and everyone would be happy," she said. "No one's asking for them to be the stars of the movies, but at least show that they were there. This is the way a new generation will think about Iwo Jima. Once again it will be that African-American people did not serve, that we were absent. It's a lie."
And one last observation. I find it quite interesting that when this guy (Dan Glaister) says it ....



... there's no big controversy. No personal attacks ("A guy like that should shut his face! ") No "he's playing the race card" or other idiotic comments in forums such as this.

But when this guy (Spike Lee) ....



... says the exact same thing .... all hell breaks loose!

I mean .... I'm just saying.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Jun 12, 2008 at 04:40 PM. )
     
Chongo
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Jun 12, 2008, 04:35 PM
 
What about "Saving Pvt. Ryan"?
45/47
     
OAW
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Jun 12, 2008, 04:44 PM
 
And just to put the cherry on top.

Speed of Life: "Not Everything was John Wayne, Baby": Black Marines on Iwo Jima

Some relevant pics .....

fig17.jpg (image)

Black Marines pose with one of the Army DUKW amphibious trucks used to bring cargo ashore and carry away the wounded for medical treatment to ships offshore. National Archives Photo 127-GW-334-114329g

fig19.jpg (image)

"PFCs Willie J. Kanady, Eugene F. Hill, and Joe Alexander of the 34th Depot Company relax during a lull in the action on Iwo Jima, where danger persisted even after the island was declared secure. Before they left Iwo, the company would become engaged when the Japanese mounted a banzai charge against Marines and soldiers." Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 113835

OAW
     
exca1ibur
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Jun 12, 2008, 05:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by Chongo View Post
What about "Saving Pvt. Ryan"?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/24/ar...in&oref=slogin

761st Tank Battalion

Member of U.S. Army's 320th Anti-Aircraft Balloon Battalion returns to Omaha Beach - Roanoke.com

More irony...
The Steven Spielberg Directory
"Q: Why were no black soldiers depicted in the film?

A: The U.S. Army was segregated during World War II. Although black units did see combat during the war, no black combat units landed on D-Day."
The African-Americans of D-Day
"Some 2,000 black troops hit Omaha and Utah beaches in Normandy on June 6, 1944, though you've probably never heard of them."
( Last edited by exca1ibur; Jun 12, 2008 at 05:31 PM. )
     
CRASH HARDDRIVE
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Jun 12, 2008, 06:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Clearly there are those in this thread who can't see the forest for the trees. On top of that they seem to enjoy arguing with themselves. As I pointed out in my earlier post .... no one, including Spike Lee, ever said that the Iwo Jima movie should show black soldiers raising the flag. So all the "revisionist history" claims are simply BS.
YOU made the claim that black soldiers put up the first flag, and said someone told Spike Lee that. Now you're history-revising what you claimed just a post ago.

Again ... not seeing the forest for the trees. And a pretty weak attempt at sarcasm. Clearly, Letters from Iwo Jima focused on the Japanese experience. And no one would expect a black soldier to have a major role in that film. But that film did show the Japanese in combat with US troops. And guess what? None of them were black either in that film either.
Talk about pot kettle black, and unable to see the forest for the trees. The point, obviously far too subtle for you even when your're knocked over the head with it, is that if there were ANY SHRED of racist intent in Clint Eastwood's film making, he wouldn't have bothered making a film featureing an all-Japanese cast, and showing the enemy as human.

And again, go read some history- real history, not "conspiracy race card history." Both films focus on the opening wave of US ground invasion of Iwo Jima. Black soldiers, specifically Marines, were not mixed in white units. The movie focuses on the 800 or so Marines that made an initial charge off the beach and into Japanese lines- there were no black units in this group. There were also different landing forces spread out on beach heads all over the island. To whine that you don't see black soldiers with the units that would have been where both films take place- during the opening invasion, is akin to whining that you don't see a bunch of British soldiers on Utah and Omaha beach during D-Day in Europe! But see, you'd actually have to crack a book and understand some real history to even know the basic real world logistics of your silly "observation".


I mean .... I'm just saying.
All you did was quote nonsense that no one is even disputing. No one said there were no black troops at Iwo Jima. To put things in perspective for you, there were 30,000 US Marines that landed at Iwo Jima. Want to process that number again? 30,000. Yes, 900 were black. Great. But clearly, to anyone without a race-based conspiracy outlook on everything, it's obvious that a focus on certain parts of the invasion (as Eastwood did) is not going to include any high percentage of black troops, if ANY.

Get over it, there's no conspiracy, no racism, and Spike Lee is an ass for not knowing jack about the actual subject and yelling racism over nothing.
     
boy8cookie
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Jun 12, 2008, 07:11 PM
 


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Jun 12, 2008, 07:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Clearly there are those in this thread who can't see the forest for the trees. On top of that they seem to enjoy arguing with themselves. As I pointed out in my earlier post .... no one, including Spike Lee, ever said that the Iwo Jima movie should show black soldiers raising the flag. So all the "revisionist history" claims are simply BS. The only criticism made was that the entire movie showed not a single black soldier. In any capacity. Doing anything. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find any movie about Iwo Jima that showed black soldiers. Perhaps one exists .... but all I know is that I've never come across one.



1. Spike never said that.
2. The man can probably buy and sell you (and just about anyone else in this thread) 10 times over. Seems a tad bit foolish to think he's going around crying "woe is me" n'est-ce pas?



Again. As I mentioned in my first post ... no one, including Spike Lee, ever said that. I'll be charitable and chalk that one up to just missing what I said instead of reading comprehension issues.



Yeah ..... whatever.



Again ... not seeing the forest for the trees. And a pretty weak attempt at sarcasm. Clearly, Letters from Iwo Jima focused on the Japanese experience. And no one would expect a black soldier to have a major role in that film. But that film did show the Japanese in combat with US troops. And guess what? None of them were black either in that film either. To even try to go there shows just how far one must reach to try to sweep this valid criticism under the rug. I'll just let Spike's words speak for themselves. Feel free to continue twisting them if you'd like.



And lest we think that this entire brouhaha exists only because of Spike Lee being a "troublemaker" or something ..... check out this article that came out on Oct. 21, 2006 when the film opened. It was written by Dan Glaister, the LA correspondent for The Guardian.

Where have all the black soldiers gone? | World news | The Guardian

A few relevant quotes .....









Oh .... Here's a really good one!!



And one last observation. I find it quite interesting that when this guy (Dan Glaister) says it ....



... there's no big controversy. No personal attacks ("A guy like that should shut his face! ") No "he's playing the race card" or other idiotic comments in forums such as this.

But when this guy (Spike Lee) ....



... says the exact same thing .... all hell breaks loose!

I mean .... I'm just saying.

OAW
     
OAW
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Jun 13, 2008, 05:09 PM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
YOU made the claim that black soldiers put up the first flag, and said someone told Spike Lee that. Now you're history-revising what you claimed just a post ago.
I misspoke on that one statement out of my entire first post. I'll grant you that. I had read about the involvement of black soldiers in the raising of the first flag and got that mixed up with the soldiers interviewed by Spike Lee. I was incorrect on that point, and I have no problem acknowledging it. However, if you had even bothered to read my second post you would have seen the quote from the African-American soldier who was, in fact, involved.

Mr McPhatter, who went on to serve in Vietnam and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the US navy, even had a part in the raising of the flag. "The man who put the first flag up on Iwo Jima got a piece of pipe from me to put the flag up on," he says. That, too, is absent from the film.
Let's continue shall we?

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE
Talk about pot kettle black, and unable to see the forest for the trees. The point, obviously far too subtle for you even when your're knocked over the head with it, is that if there were ANY SHRED of racist intent in Clint Eastwood's film making, he wouldn't have bothered making a film featureing an all-Japanese cast, and showing the enemy as human.

.....

Get over it, there's no conspiracy, no racism, and Spike Lee is an ass for not knowing jack about the actual subject and yelling racism over nothing.
Hmmm. And just where, exactly, did Spike Lee "yell racism"? Where, specifically, did he refer to Clint Eastwood as a racist? The only ones I see in here talking about "racism" are you and a few other misinformed individuals. I'll post Spike Lee's criticism again for you. If you can show me in this quote, or in any other one you can find regarding this topic, where Spike Lee called Clint Eastwood a racist or anything of the sort then you might have some semblance of a point. In the meantime .....

Originally Posted by Spike Lee
Clint Eastwood is a great film maker and I respect his work, and he did two films about Iwo Jima back to back, and there was not one black soldier in both of those films.

.....

Add the running times of both films, that's about four hours. ... Many veterans, African-Americans who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood for not even having one, but Clint Eastwood is a great director and that was his vision. His vision of Iwo Jima: Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that you know. I have a different version.

...

If Clint wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima, and I'd like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist."
Moving on ....

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE
And again, go read some history- real history, not "conspiracy race card history." Both films focus on the opening wave of US ground invasion of Iwo Jima. Black soldiers, specifically Marines, were not mixed in white units. The movie focuses on the 800 or so Marines that made an initial charge off the beach and into Japanese lines- there were no black units in this group.
Again. In my previous post there were at least 3 history books referenced.

Amazon.com: The Marines of Montford Point: America's First Black Marines: Melton A. McLaurin: Books

Amazon.com: Fighting for America: Black Soldiers-the Unsung Heroes of World War II: Christopher Moore: Books

Amazon.com: We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans, from World War II to the War in Iraq: Yvonne Latty, Ron Tarver: Books

Believe me, there are plenty others. If the best you can do is dismiss them, without even reading them I'm sure, as not "real history" but "conspiracy race card history" then that speaks volumes. Especially since they contain the direct testimonials of the men who served.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE
There were also different landing forces spread out on beach heads all over the island. To whine that you don't see black soldiers with the units that would have been where both films take place- during the opening invasion, is akin to whining that you don't see a bunch of British soldiers on Utah and Omaha beach during D-Day in Europe! But see, you'd actually have to crack a book and understand some real history to even know the basic real world logistics of your silly "observation".

All you did was quote nonsense that no one is even disputing. No one said there were no black troops at Iwo Jima. To put things in perspective for you, there were 30,000 US Marines that landed at Iwo Jima. Want to process that number again? 30,000. Yes, 900 were black. Great. But clearly, to anyone without a race-based conspiracy outlook on everything, it's obvious that a focus on certain parts of the invasion (as Eastwood did) is not going to include any high percentage of black troops, if ANY.
As was stated earlier ....

Melton McLaurin, author of the forthcoming The Marines of Montford Point and an accompanying documentary to be released in February, says that there were hundreds of black soldiers on Iwo Jima from the first day of the 35-day battle. Although most of the black marine units were assigned ammunition and supply roles, the chaos of the landing soon undermined the battle plan.

"When they first hit the beach the resistance was so fierce that they weren't shifting ammunition, they were firing their rifles," said Dr McLaurin.
I'm well aware that the African-American soldiers were in segregated units. Had you actually read my post you would have seen that I already said that. But had you read further you would have seen ...

"They weren't in the background at all," said Moore. "The people carrying the ammunition were 90% black, so that's an opportunity to show black soldiers. These are our films and very often they become our history, historical documents."
So did you see any black soldiers carrying ammunition for the first wave of white soldiers who landed on Iwo Jima? I mean if 90% of the ammunition units were black, one would have to try pretty hard to not see any African-American soldiers during any assault on the island .... including the one showcased in the film, n'est-ce pas?

And since you speak so much of "real history", you should be aware that the raising of the second flag took place on the 5th day of the assault on Iwo Jima. So how about a direct quote from Private Roland Durden, who landed on the beach on the 3rd day .... well within the timeframe covered by the movie.

Roland Durden, another black marine, landed on the beach on the third day. "When we hit the shore we were loaded with ammunition and the Japanese hit us with mortar." Private Durden was soon assigned to burial detail, "burying the dead day in, day out. It seemed like endless days. They treated us like workmen rather than marines."
Now I recall seeing plenty of scenes of the wounded and the dead being carried off. Never saw anyone black doing that though in the film. Did you? And don't you think that's a bit odd since the burial details, like the ammunition units, were often over-represented by African-Americans since it was considered "menial labor"?

And while we are on the topic of "real history", how about this from Bernard C. Nalty, a well-renowned WWII historian.

Black combat support units also took part in the assault on Iwo Jima, where, as at Peleliu, their presence confounded the policy of segregation. Because of the random intermingling of white and black units, an African-American Marine, carrying a box of supplies, dived into a shell hole occupied by white Marines, one of whom gave him a cigarette before he scrambled out with his load and ran forward. Here, too, black stewards and members of the depot and ammunition companies came to the aid of the wounded. A white Marine, Robert F. Graf, who lay in a tent awaiting evacuation for further medical treatment, remembered that: "Two black Marines . . . ever so gently . . . placed me on a stretcher and carried me outside to a waiting DUKW."

At Iwo Jima, the 8th Marine Ammunition Company and the 33d, 34th, and 36th Marine Depot Companies served as part of the shore party of the V Amphibious Corps. Elements of the ammunition company and the 36th Depot Company landed on D-Day, 19 February 1945, and within three days all the units were ashore, braving Japanese fire as they struggled in the volcanic sand to unload and stockpile ammunition and other supplies, and move the car go inland. Eleven black enlisted Marines and one of the white officers were wounded, two of the enlisted men fatally.
The Right to Fight: African-American Marines in World War II (Peleliu and Iwo Jima)

So right there you have your "real historian" documenting the presence of black ammunition units on the initial assault of Iwo Jima ... the one you say is showcased in the film. Regardless, the film covered the first 5 days of the assault .... and yet not a single black soldier is to be found. 90% of the ammunition units who would be be re-supplying every single white combat unit on the island. Burial details. Trench diggers. Porters or the wounded and supplies. And yes, even direct combat.

But Eastwood chose not to even toss in a handful of black extras performing these roles .... which were shown in the film .... even after the omission was pointed out to him during filming. But that shouldn't be a surprise to you at all since you are such a student of "real history". As such I'm sure you are well aware of the dearth of black representation in WWII films throughout the history of Hollywood. I believe exca1ibur posted a few links about Saving Private Ryan as yet another example. Just another "tree" in the overall "forest". It's a pattern. And quite an obvious one at that to all but the most obtuse of individuals. The criticism of which is well-founded and justified.

The bottom line? If someone sat down and viewed all the WWII movies in the vaults of the Hollywood studios, they would get the distinct impression that African-Americans did not serve in the military during that war to any significant degree at all. At best they would see a representation on film that was far less than their actual participation and the significance of their service. Sadly, Flags of Our Fathers continues that long-standing Hollywood tradition.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Jun 13, 2008 at 05:17 PM. )
     
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Jun 13, 2008, 07:56 PM
 
Plus at almost 75 Clint could smack Spikes ass any time he wanted. Spike needs to do more TV commercials. It was Denzel Washington in Malcolm x that made the movie (and every movie he is in.) Spike should have been on his knees over Denzel taking the part. Spike is way over rated, and gets away with too much simply because of the debate that started this thread. If he were white he would be a nobody.
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ShortcutToMoncton
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Jun 14, 2008, 10:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by JoshuaZ View Post
(Because of this thread I downloaded the first 'Dirty Harry' movie last night. First viewing. Awesome!)
It's my favourite. This horrifies fans of the genre (like my brother and sister), but I find the true "spaghetti westerns" to be too over-the-top. That one has a great balance IMO.

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Jun 14, 2008, 12:57 PM
 
Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton View Post
This horrifies fans of the genre (like my brother and sister), but I find the true "spaghetti westerns" to be too over-the-top.



i watched "a fistful of dollars" last night with my eldest son (first time for him) - had a great time.
I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. You see, my mule don't like people laughin'. Gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize like I know you're going to, I might be able to convince him that you didn't mean nothin' by it...
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Jun 14, 2008, 04:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post

So some may call it "playing the race card" if they want to. I just call it an accurate observation.

OAW

PS: For your perusing pleasure .....

Were African-Americans at Iwo Jima? - TIME
This past Memorial Day PBS ran the documentary by Ken Burns on WW2. And from what they showed, these men were doing more than just digging trenches. When the fighting became so intense and the U.S. were taking heavy casualties these brave men volunteered to get into all that death and chaos. Who would volunteer for something like that!?!.... F**K

Their white counterparts who were fighting for their very lives wanted out and off the Island but these brave black soldiers wanted in!! I've never read, seen, heard, anything like that in my life.

Absolutely amazing and unbelievably courageous.

Can you believe their commanders hesitated for a second about allowing these brave men into the fight and to do the right thing. I couldn't believe how f*cking ignorant and racist those white assholes were and until you see an example like that. It shows you just how f*cking horrible the Anglos of that time were.
( Last edited by Ratm; Jun 14, 2008 at 08:42 PM. )
     
Ratm
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Jun 14, 2008, 04:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by glideslope View Post
Plus at almost 75 Clint could smack Spikes ass any time he wanted. Spike needs to do more TV commercials. It was Denzel Washington in Malcolm x that made the movie (and every movie he is in.) Spike should have been on his knees over Denzel taking the part. Spike is way over rated, and gets away with too much simply because of the debate that started this thread. If he were white he would be a nobody.
I'm sure Spike thanks you for seeing his movie. Money right into his pocket it went. Clint is so ****ing old if he tires to push out a big one in the morning right after his first cup he'd probably have a stroke. Clit is a cranky old man and we need to ignore his old ass from now on.
     
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Jun 14, 2008, 04:53 PM
 
There are plenty of good reasons for blacks to bemoan the way White America has treated them. Honestly though, Clint Eastwood isn't one of them.
     
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Jun 14, 2008, 11:28 PM
 
Wow, what you said was totally uncalled for!

I like you. And whats more I think your post was witty and funny. I thoroughly enjoyed it. .

Originally Posted by Ratm View Post
I'm sure Spike thanks you for seeing his movie. Money right into his pocket it went. Clint is so ****ing old if he tires to push out a big one in the morning right after his first cup he'd probably have a stroke. Clit is a cranky old man and we need to ignore his old ass from now on.
( Last edited by JohnM15141; Jun 15, 2008 at 07:25 AM. )
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Ratm
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Jun 15, 2008, 01:41 AM
 
Originally Posted by JohnM15141 View Post
I like you. And whats more I think your post was witty and funny. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Oh-no! My post lacks...intelligence!?! calm down buddy.

Did you read the similar comment from the person I quoted? So my reply is in good company. So you're ok with him saying Clint should get violent? But I'm not trying to derail so take good care and good night.

Your original post.... FAIL
     
 
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