Earlier today, I caught a couple of David Adesnik posts rightly praising the series but also (strangely, to my mind) handing out demerits on the basis that Band of Brothers does not adequately address issues of racial and religious prejudice.
First and foremost, in ten hours of action and dialogue, there isn't a single negative remark made about blacks or homosexuals.As the series is essentially a straightforward dramatization of Ambrose's book, Adesnik concludes that "the demerits given to the filmmakers above belong partly to the author of the book, Stephen Ambrose."
In the first couple of episodes, BoB makes a big deal about the tensions caused by a very specific set of ethnic and religious differences. [...] But after that, everything is just peachy.
So what's going on here? Aren't Hollywood liberals like Spielberg and Hanks supposed to be reminding us of the dark side of American history, of our betrayal of our own democratic ideals? In general, yes. But not when the subject of discussion is The Greatest Generation. Because they are perfect. Because they live in a timeless land that has never heard of partisan politics.
I think this criticism of Ambrose is way off the mark for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, if there's a fault, it's in the source material. Ambrose's book is not a work of fiction - it's based on the personal recollections of a group of men who served together in the 101st Airborne. It's their story, not Ambrose's.
Secondly, and more importantly, Ambrose has not ignored issues of prejudice and segregation in his other work. In 'Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany', Ambrose pulls no punches in detailing the experiences of African-American servicemen:
The world's greatest democracy fought the world's greatest racist with a segregated Army. It was worse than that: the Army and the society conspired to degrade African-Americans in every way possible, summed up in the name Jim Crow. One little incident from the home front illustrates the tyranny black Americans lived under during the Second World War.You can read more of the same here.
In April 1944 Corp. Rupert Timmingham wrote Yank magazine. "Here is a question that each Negro soldier is asking," he began. "What is the Negro soldier fighting for? On whose team are we playing?" He recounted the difficulties he and eight other black soldiers had while traveling through the South -- "where Old Jim Crow rules" -- for a new assignment. "We could not purchase a cup of coffee," Timmingham noted. Finally the lunchroom manager at a Texas railroad depot said the black GIs could go on around back to the kitchen for a sandwich and coffee. As they did, "about two dozen German prisoners of war, with two American guards, came to the station. They entered the lunchroom, sat at the tables, had their meals served, talked, smoked, in fact had quite a swell time. I stood on the outside looking on, and I could not help but ask myself why are they treated better than we are? Why are we pushed around like cattle? If we are fighting for the same thing, if we are to die for our country, then why does the Government allow such things to go on?"
