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April 29, 2006
Hollywood star thinks GIs are jerkoffs
According to Contact Music, the star of Brokeback Mountain and Jarhead had this to say about the military.
Movie star JAKE GYLLENHAAL has shocked American Gulf War veterans by joking they did nothing but "masturbate" during their time in the desert in 1991. The cheeky 25-year-old stars in JARHEAD, a movie exposing the US soldiers' lack of combat in the Middle Eastern conflict. He said, "The US soldiers were sent to the desert for 122 days and they sat in the same tent and did nothing, except a little too much masturbating."
Having pretended to be a soldier, Gyllenhaal feels comfortable characterising the service of our GIs as little more than an exercise in short-range target practice.
This from a man who "earns" a living being paid piles of cash to convincingly speak words written by others, speaking them in such a fashion that we believe that he could actually be something more than an effete snob living in the Hollywood bubble.
Unlike stars of Hollywood's long-gone Golden Era, today's acting elite often has no real-world experience beyond high school plays, college theater programs, waiting tables, and acting.
Lee Marvin was a Marine, greviously wounding fighting against the Japanese. Clark Gable left Hollywood at the peak of his stardom and flew bombing missions as an enlisted gunner. Jimmy Stewart piloted a B-17 over Nazi-occupied Europe -- and brought his crew home safely time after time. Sterling Hayden parachuted into Yugoslavia with the OSS and fought with the partisans against the Germans. James Arness became what may have been the tallest GI (6'7") to storm the beaches of Anzio, before he became the tallest sheriff on the longest-running Western on TV. David Niven graduated from Sandhurst -- the British West Point -- serving during the war as a commando, then resuming his career as a suave leading man after VE-Day.
Christopher Lee, known to modern movie-goers as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings, gave the director some advice, based upon something he learned during his time behind enemy lines, fifty years earlier.
According to Mark Steyn:
My favourite moment in the Lord of the Rings movies isn't actually in any of the movies, but in one of those the making of documentaries that appears on the DVD.
It's the scene where Saruman gets stabbed by Grima Wormtongue, and Lee explains to director Peter Jackson that the backstabbing sound isn't quite right, because in his days with British Intelligence during the war he used to sneak up and stab a lot of Germans in the back and it was more of a small gasp they made. Jackson backs away cautiously.
The list goes on and on; men who left behind careers as actors to defend their nation and liberate the world. They knew something of the world, other than the power and privilege of stardom.
Then we come to what passes for stars in today's film industry: metro-sexual eternal teens, smooth of cheek, brow unlined, their life experience and knowledge confined to whatever they learn on the set while memorizing lines or hear in the Hollywood echo chamber.
A few months back, I commented on the disappearance of the Classic American Male, something Kim Du Toit wrote about in his essay, The Pussification of the Western Male. The changing face of manliness was something I noted was most prominent in the movies.
Gable, Cooper, Tracy, Cagney, Bogart, McQueen, Mitchum, Peck; from their first screen appearances, they were men, guys that reminded us of our fathers and their friends.
Today? Keeanu, Pitt, Cruise. Eternal college-age young adults.
Tom Cruise is older now than Bogart was in Casablanca. Steve McQueen was only 31 when he took part in the Great Escape.
Our culture no longer prizes "men." Or is this just another Red State/Blue State divide?
Gyllenhaal isn't fit to shine the boots of the men who fight for this nation, much less denigrate their service.
Having chosen to exercise his First Amendment rights and open his mouth and enlighten us about his ever-so-insightful thoughts, I'll exercise my economic rights and never pay a dime to see anything this guy's in.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 29, 2006 08:31 PM
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Comments
I'm a vet and this just ticks me off. I won't give my hard earned money to any film that contains the image of this twit.
How dare this powdered fem insult the Marine Corps. The first GI he runs across should spit in his face.
Posted by: Red Stater at April 30, 2006 09:12 AM
I suspect that if the Jakester actually ever was deployed to fight in a REAL war, not the pretend one he played in the movies, he would be so busy urinating himself he would not be able to do what he claimed those REAL soldiers were doing.
How dare he insult those that I am so proud of. How dare he hold himself out as someone who knows anything at all. I will never again spend one penny on anything he has worked on.
I have an idea what my favorite Marine would say about him: "That man deserves a secret handshake."
Posted by: Thin Ice at April 30, 2006 07:55 PM
Just an FYI that the comment is about a character Gyllenhaal played in a movie. A character based on the real-life memoir of an actual Gulf War vet. The quote is taken out of context and altered. The actual quote:
Jake Gyllenhaal on Boredom as an Enemy: “I think a soldier’s mind is as great of an enemy in the field as bombs or bullets. I think that’s probably what I feel like the movie is about. That when you use these techniques and you teach someone and you harness a pure time or an instinct in them, and then they’re not allowed to express that, I think the mind is confused by that. And yeah, the boredom then, when the boredom sets in, when you realize we’ve been here for 122 days and we’ve been sitting in the same tent and I’ve done a little too much masturbating, because it’s like you know, I mean it’s true. Sad, but true.
The interview, which also details how Gyllenhall gained new respect for the military from reading the book and making the movie, can be found here.
Posted by: SJ at April 30, 2006 10:12 PM
SJ --
I appreciate the comment but I'm not impressed with a fuller account of Gyllenhaal's comments. He is a remarkably inarticulate man when operating without a script.
“I started off without a doubt, I started off with a judgment - as probably anybody does who hasn’t had any experience in anything but has a point of view of it. I think I always connected the military with the administration and after being involved with a lot of guys, and I only speak for the marines really because that’s who we played… Right now to give you an example, if anyone’s like, ‘Oh I can’t really see you playing in the Army.’ I’m like, ‘No, I wasn’t in the Army.’ It really makes me upset and before I would have been like, ‘Yeah, whatever. Yeah,’ and now it really gets to me. I’m automatically like, “I play a Marine and there’s a difference.’
To me that’s where I came from and where I went to was like, I realized that, I guess I just thought there was a kind of innocence or like a non-choice. And it’s very clear that there really isn’t and there is a choice in it, and that it’s a pretty extraordinary place. The things that I learnt just from the peripheral of it, just being near the people who have been involved in the military of any kind like, just what I learned from that and how it made me realize things about myself. I can’t imagine what really happens when you’re in it. So just a profound respect in the end, and I think it’s a shock to my mother who has her own judgments and I think rightfully so, as everybody should and does, you know?”
Was all that clear? As best as I can make out, he didn't like or respect the military because they were tainted by the Bush Administration. Now, he respects them, because . . . well, because he was in a movie.
The points in between are -- to be charitable -- incoherent.
As to the book upon which the film was based, it has been the subject of vociferous criticism by Marines who served with the author and have characterized him as a malcontent, most unrepresentative of the Corps and its experience in the Gulf.
Posted by: Mike Lief at April 30, 2006 11:23 PM
I never said he was articulate. I said that the initial quote was taken out of context and misrepresented to make it appear as if Gyllenhaal said that about ALL of the soldiers in the Gulf War. The title of your post says "Hollywood stars thinks GIs are jerkoffs." It's neither clever nor accurate.
You can dismiss his comments and his opinions as uninformed or naive. But what I was trying to say is that in doing PR for the movie, he took great pains to talk about his respect for the soldiers. What he said was describing the experience of one person, someone who actually did serve in the war. You can criticize or disagree, but the man was a real soldier who really served and who wrote his experiences.
As for the views Gyllenhaal held before the movie - he admitted to having a biased, preconceived notion. And in doing the movie, he learned something about the military and about his own prejudices. I would think that would be something to applaud.
I think he probably still disagrees with the Bush administration. But he can do so now with a greater understanding of what soldiers go through while fighting a war they don't understand.
He also said, in the snippet you quoted: " I can’t imagine what really happens when you’re in it." So he knows that he doesn't fully understand - he's not pretending to.
Posted by: SJ at May 1, 2006 12:53 AM
This country has yet to see the many actors, politicians, and business leaders who will bring combat experience back to the real world and speak, once again, without irony or artifice, of patriotism, bravery, and sacrifice.
When that day comes, the likes of Gyllenhall and all the pansy actors and congressholes that now fill the air with fluff will fall to their knees and ... well, do whatever it is they already do when they're down on their knees.
Posted by: LT at May 1, 2006 10:30 AM