Starship Troopers & left infantilism (Re: Carmen Electra with the troops

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Tue Jan 22 11:30:25 PST 2002


The point is not that Starship Troopers is a terrible movie (which I think it was) but that he should have called it something else and had his own vision, rather than ripping off Heinlein and refusing to engage with the substance of his ideas.

Heinlein is an odd thinker- not deep intellectual but having a rather amazingly compelling common sense force of ideas, a Gramsci of the libertarian set for many years. I still fall back on quotes from his personal doppleganger, Lazarus Long, such as "Never assume malevolence when stupidty is a sufficient explanation" or along the same lines, "Stupidity is the only capital crime in nature. Sentence is immediate."

See http://www.adams.net/~lancelot/heinlein.htm for a small sample of other more outrageous quotes.

Also found on same web site this critique of the movie compared to the book at http://www.adams.net/~lancelot/sht.htm

Heinlein is interesting because he played with social ideas, as opposed to technology for its own sake, more than any of the other "golden age" sci-fi writers, often pursuing a political argument in a story setting, ranging from his neo-fascism of Starship Troopers to his McCarthyite Puppetmasters to his oddly egalitarian/stone-racist Freedom's Farmhold to his hippie Stranger in a Strange Land to his libertarian Time Enough for Love.

A lot of his ideas are revolting but at a deep level, not at the cartoon roadrunner level that folks like Verhoven want to play.

-- Nathan Newman ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vikash Yadav" <vikash1 at ssc.upenn.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 1:32 PM Subject: RE: Starship Troopers & left infantilism (Re: Carmen Electra with the troops

Nathan,

I agree that much of Starship Troopers was gory, silly and infantile (it is a Hollywood movie after all), but I am not prepared to dismiss this film so quickly. In my opinion there are some elements of the film that deserve re-examination, a couple of examples:

1. The Buenos Aires Death Odometer - When the "bugs" retaliate and wipe out the home of the film's heroes, we see the death toll estimate projected as an odometer reading. It is obvious that the death figures being projected must be inaccurate but the scenes of carnage and destruction are key to justifying an immediate reprisal. Is this scene so alien to the ways in which images of atrocities and inflated death toll estimates are used to justify militarism in contemporary politics?

2. The Un-interactive Internet - Every time the movie asks us "Would you like to know more," we are transported to a preformatted segment of propaganda. I think the director is trying to make a commentary on the absence of choice and interactivity on the Internet. Maybe that is not profound, but it is an interesting statement compared to the popular rhetoric about the world wide web.

The film is filled with images that interrogate and contradict the rhetoric of militarism/fascism. For example, even though the commanders reassure their troops that they will make it out alive if they remember their training, it is obvious that once the battle begins their training has ill prepared them for what is coming next. Later the grunts realize they were being used as bait to test the defenses of the enemy. The ways in which the main characters come to accept and internalize a complete devaluation of human life is fascinating.

I know that one of Verhoeven's aims in the film was to indict the audience, by encouraging us to cheer for the heroes even though we are seeing them transformed into fascists. I think this is a bold effort and far more interesting than the usual military propaganda we are presented through films like Saving Private Ryan.

I think the film deserves a second look.

Vikash Yadav Philadelphia, PA



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