"The Marine"

[erpowers]

How do members of DU feel about John Cena soon to be released film "The Marine". I do not have a problem with militatry movies; I actually like them. However, I do have a bit of a problem with people who act in military movies, but did not join the military. I looked up information on John Cena and I did not see anything about him being in the military. I feel the same way about John Wayne (who dodged WWII) making the movie about the Marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima and Steve McQueen who made a military movie (he played a Marine) after he had gone AWOL from the Marines. I do not know I just have a problem with that some time. I understand we need actors to act in movies, but to a degree I think military movies are a bit different, especially when an actor plays the role of a hero.

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. I think that's really kind of absurd.

They are ACTORS; they're SUPPOSED to play roles on stage or screen that are not those that they have in life. Having a problem with someone who wasn't in the military playing a soldier is as completely ridiculous as having a problem with someone who never went to medical school playing a physician, or someone who never stood for elected office playing a president or prime minister. Nothing different about military movies at all.

[erpowers]

2. Understand Your Point

I understand your point; however, I tend to think it it different in that soldiers actually risk their lives the other groups do not.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. And?

Isn't that like getting upset over people who play historical figures because the historical figures are actually dead?

:shrug:

Anyway, I never heard of "The Marine."

So I looked up the plot synopsis- A marine injured and taken hostage in Iraq returns home. But action beings again when he finds his wife is kidnapped by diamond theives.

Sounds to me like it's a script that Steven Seagal never got around to filming.

[Spider Jerusalem]

8. That's just silly.

Oil-rig workers risk their lives every day, too--would you say that if a film were made in which the action took place on an oil platform in the North Sea (there was actually a BBC television series with this premise) that the actors should be ex-roughnecks?

Or that Steve Buscemi is the only actor who should play a NYC fireman, because he actually was one?

Really, that's kind of nonsensical.

[tjwmason]

3. Another vote for absurd, I'm afraid.

Not least because it means that there won't be any more war-films. The current military nature is to a very small force (compared with time past) and a professional one (rather than military service for 2 years or something like that)...thus there won't be (m)any actors around with military experience.

Each job and role in society has its risks and its unique values - I've found it a bit odd to see clergy played by non-religious actors, for example - and it does not diminish respect and gratitude to the military to suggest that actors are just as capable of acting as military as they are at acting as office-workers.

Finally, who do we get to play soldiers in a film about (for example) the English Civil Wars - there aren't many veterans of either the New Model Army or the Cavaliers sitting around...modern military experience isn't exactly the same thing?

[Joe Fields]

5. It's make believe. That's what actors do.

Yul Brenner was never a king. I didn't hold that against him.

[LynneSin]

6. I have a problem when they're trying to glorify the war

I mean, I loved movies like "Three Kings" and "Jarhead". Neither of them had stars that ever served in the war and neither of them did much to glorify war either.

[alphafemale]

7. It's stranger when FReepers treat actors who played soldiers

better than they treat actual veterans.