posted
...when we already have one called "Jerry Bruckheimer"
This scares me. Damn liberal Hollywood!
quote:ABC to Launch Controversial Wartime 'Reality' Show By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. war on terrorism will soon come to prime-time television as a new ABC "reality" show called "Profiles From the Front Line," with the help of the Pentagon and Hollywood action king Jerry Bruckheimer, the Disney-owned network said on Wednesday.
The program, which will focus on the stories of ordinary men and women in uniform, is being produced with the "unparalleled support and cooperation of the Defense Department," the network said in announcing the show slated for summer airing.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "signed off" on the project without reservation, said Bertram van Munster, who will serve as an executive producer of the series with Bruckheimer.
But some critics immediately questioned whether the 13-part weekly series blurred the line between entertainment and news and whether it would become a U.S. military "infomercial."
While ABC said the program will "transport viewers to actual battlefields around the globe," van Munster told Reuters it remains to be seen just how close to combat the hour-long show will get. "I'm discussing all these issues with the Pentagon," Van Munster said.
The program promises to take the genre of non-scripted TV to a new level, combining the talents of one of Hollywood's biggest producers with a pioneer of the "reality" genre. Bruckheimer produced such military movie hits as "Top Gun," "Pearl Harbor" and "Black Hawk Down." Van Munster was a producer and cameraman for eight years on the Fox series "Cops."
HOLLYWOOD AT WAR
Announcement of the show comes amid a new spirit of partnership between Hollywood and Washington after the Sept. 11 attacks by suicide hijackers and the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan.
Studio and network executives have met with White House officials and formed a special panel to plan ways of improving America's image abroad and help the government craft its message about its war on terrorism.
Bruckheimer, however, said he was not part of that movement and said development of "Profiles From the Front Line" predates the so-called Hollywood 9/11 committee.
Nevertheless, the program will be "patriotic in nature," van Munster acknowledged. "The men and women who are fighting in this conflict, they deserve their moment," he said.
"While we're sitting in the comfort of our home, we want to see how these guys are taking care of business."
Some critics said they were troubled by the prospect of an entertainment program crossing into a realm long reserved for coverage by network news divisions.
TV news analyst Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the Tyndall Report, said if the Pentagon exercises control over the program, "then to me it becomes an infomercial for the Pentagon's recruiting, and it should come out of the U.S. Army's budget, not out of ABC's pocket."
Robert Thompson of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television, said a military conflict "needs to be covered by journalists, not by entertainers."
"You have a bunch of journalists who should be covering this kind of material who are being denied access to it," he said. "Then you've got this entertainment operation who as part of the new alliance between Hollywood and the government are presumably being given access because the nature of their portrayal of the front line has already been ... approved by those granting the access."
ABC executives said the program makes no attempt to pass as news and that the network would have the final say over what makes it onto the airwaves, except for footage deemed a security breach by military officials.
In addition, Bruckheimer did not rule out showing viewers something the military might view as a blemish. "We're all human, we all make mistakes," he said. "We're not going to shy away form something if it's dramatic and interesting."
Said van Munster, "I'm not in the business of making infomercials. ... What I'm known for is in-your face, good, tough documentary cinema verite work."
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Because we all know how invaluable journalists are on the battlefields, in between the Abrahms and the Sniper Platoon, with thier cameras rolling, to get the best possible shot. (Unfortunately, not at them)
Look how good a job 'inyourface' reporters did in Tehran. Or in Belgium.
Geraldo is the legitimate husband of my children. Bravo.
Especially when those children are at war, and nosy reporters who 'want to tell the story' get them killed. Look what they did to that one CIA operative.
Registered: Oct 1999
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But saying the same thing over and over and trying to include it in our everyday life just want to make people vomit.
-------------------- "George Washington said, 'I cannot tell a lie.' Richard Nixon said, 'I cannot tell the truth.' Bill Clinton said, 'I cannot tell the difference.'"
-- comedian TOM SMOTHERS, from his latest stage act with brother DICK SMOTHERS.
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Plus they can't show the reality, people swearing, people getting killed. Body parts of your own soldiers coming back down the trench with a note stapled to them, saying "go away".
And "patriotic by nature", I'm sorry that sounds like those WWII propaganda-movies where the high-pitched voices told you how we were going to win and what your part was in it.
Or none of the above. Couldn't they have gotten Paul Verhoeven? :-)
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
I don't think the above happens as much as it did even thirty years ago.
Besides, isn't that show on USA ... "Combat Missions" doing this already? I gotta say, that mission where the Delta Force screwed the pooch on the hostage rescue/two truck scenario ... I mean, c'mon.
posted
But isn't that show just military people engaging in simulations? As opposed to actual battle situations, as this new show proposes...
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Um.. they make cameras pretty small nowadays. Handheld, and so on. Tape, edit, playback.
Or maybe they'll mount the cameras on tanks... "World's Wildest Tank Battles!"
Gun-camera view as an Abrams frags a Tupolev!
Come to think of it, don't some operations groups already carry videocameras as a matter of course? Seems I saw footage of that once, can't recall where.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Just the angles, pans, movements, etc. they use seem to imply either that they've actually got a camera crew or that members of the team are making sure to get other guys on their team on video in the middle of a fire-fight.
posted
Thirty years ago, we did have "Profiles of the Front Line". It was called the nightly news and featured men and women fighting in Vietnam. This particular program ran from about 1965 to 1975.
Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:Or maybe they'll mount the cameras on tanks... "World's Wildest Tank Battles!"
It's already been done. Watch any of the police pursuit specials they air on FOX, Discovery, and TLC and you'll always see the San Diego Tank Incident at the end.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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