User blog:Brian Kurtz/28 Stereotypes Later

Now I find the film 28 Days Later to be decidedly favorable. Not a repeat-viewing spectacle mind you, but satisfying nonetheless. That being said, there is one element to the movie that I find kind of souring. For some reason, wayyyyy too many films these days have a gratuitous anti-military slant to them. Don't get me wrong; I'm not one of these flag-waving, jingoist super-ultra-pro-military nutjobs, but I respect the commitment, dedication and sacrifice required of anyone who chooses the military as their career vocation. On the other hand, I also recognize that there are some pretty terrible people out there who do some pretty terrible things. With that in mind, I was a bit disheartened to see the soldiers from 28 Days Later being presented in a pretty despicable light; in particular, the scenes where they attempted to rape Selena and Hannah. Maybe I'm off, but I thought that a soldier was supposed to be of impeccable moral fiber with an indomitable will. Despite the inherent chaos presented as the backdrop of this movie, I have difficulty accepting the notion that twenty-eight days in isolation turns a man into a rapist. We've got a dozen soldiers here, and with the exception of one, they all seem more than willing to violate the two female characters without any reserve, restraint or regret. This makes no sense to me, and is a trait that I see all too often in movies. These guys can handle bullets and bombs flying at them, hell, even zombies... but throw some cooter into the mix and they instantly turn into amoral assholes? Maybe Danny Boyle was trying to construct some sort of ironic parallel between the behavior of the soldiers and the behavior of the infected, but ya know... it falls flat on me this time around. It just seems like such an easy fallback for a director to paint soldiers in a negative light in order to make a point. Boyle's certainly not the first director to fall victim to this stereotype and lord knows, he probably won't be the last. --Brian Kurtz 21:43, February 19, 2010 (UTC)