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explain why the Japa nese felt the need to defend a seemingly insignificant island
so fervently— the fear that the firebombing of Japa nese cities, already devastating
to civilians, would intensify were the Americans to gain Iwo Jima as a launching
pad for air strikes. In not explaining this background, viewers felt that the film
catered to the ste reo type of the Japa nese as lemming- like fanatics.” Manabe also
noted that “viewers raised objections that ‘good’ was being equated with being
America- friendly. As one user stated, ‘Only officers who had been to the U.S. are
depicted as rational and smart, while all other Japa nese officers are evil and bar-
baric, as per the American ste reo type’ (Manabe, 2007). Unaware of the film’s
many inaccuracies, most American viewers and film critics embraced Letters from
Iwo Jima as a laudably liberal- minded revisionist war film fi nally humanizing
an often- demonized people— which it is, to a significant degree. However, as
Ms. Manabe points out, the subtle truth is that, despite its pretenses to the contrary,
Letters remains stubbornly Amerocentric in its cultural orientation and ideologi-
cal predilections.
Lone Survivor (2013)
Synopsis
Lone Survivor is an American war film written and directed by Peter Berg. Based
on the 2007 nonfiction book of the same title by former Navy SEAL Marcus Lut-
trell (co- authored with Patrick Robinson), the film dramatizes a failed U.S. Navy
SEALs counterinsurgency mission in Af ghan i stan that turned into a desperate
strug gle for survival.
Background
On 27 June 2005, in the fourth year of the U.S. war in Af ghan i stan, the U.S. mili-
tary launched Operation Red Wings, an attempt to capture or neutralize Ahmad
Shah (1970–2008), a dangerous Taliban leader. The operation involved first insert-
ing a four- man Navy SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team into Shah’s
home territory, the Korangal Valley, to locate him. Unfortunately the mission
quickly went awry when the SEALs ran into local herdsmen, who alerted the Tali-
ban to their presence. The team was subsequently ambushed and all were killed—
except for USN Petty Officer 2nd Class Marcus Luttrell, who was eventually
rescued, but not before another eight SEALs and eight Army Airborne SOAR troop-
ers died trying to reach the battle site when their he li cop ter was shot down by the
Taliban. Avid to publish his own account of the disastrous mission, he hired a
lawyer and searched for a ghost writer. Luttrell’s lawyer connected him with Ed
Victor, literary agent to the stars, who also represented Patrick Robinson, a
66- year- old British novelist specializing in maritime thrillers, including novels
about Navy SEALs. After Luttrell hired Robinson, the two men met four times at
Robinson’s summer home on Cape Cod to hash out Luttrell’s story. According to
Motoko Rich, “Between visits Mr. Robinson, who never used a taped recorder, typed
chapters on his computer, adding researched material and filling in facts that