“(AP) Television viewers are showing their first signs of war fatigue, according to a poll released Friday.
The number of people who say it tires them out to watch war coverage was 42 percent from Tuesday to Thursday this week. Less than a third of poll respondents said that on Sunday and Monday, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Pew’s surveys also found a steady increase in viewers who found the coverage “frightening to watch.” Fifty-eight percent of respondents agreed with that statement in the most recent poll, versus 51 percent earlier in the week….
“The issue is how will (viewers) cope?” said Pew’s director, Andrew Kohut. “Will they stop watching? Will it lead to less support for the war?”
The war’s television appeal has faded since the first bombs fell, but it’s still a potent draw. Roughly 7 million people watched Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC on Wednesday, compared to the 2 million who watch those networks on a typical day, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Broadcast networks aren’t giving the war the same intense attention, but break in for special reports and often put on one-hour prime-time specials.
“CNN’s mission is not going to change,” spokeswoman Christa Robinson said. “We’re obviously committed to covering this story completely.”
The constant television airing of the war has already led to questions about whether TV is distorting the event’s reality, or causing unrealistic expectations. The Bush administration expressed frustration Friday with some press reports questioning why the military operation isn’t already over.
MSNBC is trying to take frequent steps back in its coverage so viewers get a sense of the big picture instead of bits and pieces provided by individual reporters, said Erik Sorenson, the network’s president.
MSNBC also hopes to leaven the constant stories from the front by interviewing families of soldiers in the United States and collecting pictures of those fighting.
Ultimately, though, it’s not on the top of his agenda to worry about the anxieties of his viewers.
“It’s really not my job to be a therapist or psychologist,” Sorenson said. “It’s my job to provide the news.” ” article here
And, regarding a recent spate of new releases dealing with war/politics of war/terrorism:
While some may regard this trend as an example of Hollywood liberals flying the peace flag, the Iraq films are made by directors from the political center to left. And though their makers are trying to sway public opinion, polls suggest they are following it: According to the latest ABC/Washington Post poll, 68 per cent of adults nationwide disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq and 59 per cent do not believe the war was worth fighting.
There’s nothing unusual about movies critical of war. What appears to be unprecedented is that the current flood of films protest a war in progress. They are borne on a tide of what Basinger calls “the displaced Iraq films” – Flags of Our Fathers, Across the Universe and Talk to Me – World War II- and Vietnam-era films questioning the establishment and the war itself. And they represent a U-turn in thinking from Hollywood wisdom, circa 2002, that “no one will buy a ticket to a war movie that they can see on CNN.”
“I think perhaps, in part, the rise of the documentary and feature films is a response to the reduction in volume and quality of the news coverage on TV,” says Ferguson, the political-science scholar and software developer who directed No End in Sight.
….
“These movies certainly are more willing to be critical of the military and misconduct of individual soldiers. Certainly no such feature was made like these during or after the Vietnam War.”
….
De Palma’s Redacted, made on HD video and employing images from digital cameras, video recorders, and Internet uploads, has a you-are-there urgency. Likewise, Elah, in which Jones investigates his son’s conduct in Iraq by downloading footage captured on his cell phone, reflects what Haggis calls “the first Internet war.”
“The difference between the Vietnam anti-war movies and these films,” observes Lawrence Suid, a military historian from Greenbelt, Md., and the author of Stars and Stripes on Screen, “is that the Iraq films don’t blame the soldiers, but the people who got us embroiled in the war.”
For the makers of these films, making an impact upon American hearts and minds is as important as making an impact on the box office. “I like packaging tough questions inside pop entertainment,” says Haggis, who also wrote and directed the Oscar-winning Crash and won an Oscar for his Million Dollar Baby screenplay.
Similarly, for Julie Taymor, director of Across the Universe, the objective was to entertain as well as edify. Taymor’s rock opera set to Beatles music has Kafkaesque scenes of draft boards and army hospitals. G.I.s hoist the Statue of Liberty like a cannon, chanting She’s So Heavy.
By phone from Paris where her celebrated stage work, The Lion King, is in previews, Taymor calls Universe “an indirect direct commentary on Iraq. The response from college students has been amazing,” she says. “Many of them feel that anti-war activism of the 1960s is a reproach to the comparative apathy of their generation.” Pre-empting those “who get upset when movie people talk about the war,” she says, “You’d rather them talk about botox?”
….
From a business point of view, Len Klady, box office analyst for moviecitynews.com, worries that the Iraq films “run the risk of creating battle fatigue.” While The Kingdom, with Foxx and Jennifer Garner, has made about US$20 million, thus far the other films are not burning up the box office. (Elah has taken in less than $4 million, Universe about $6 million, both in limited release.)
“The big question with the Iraq films,” says Klady, “is whether these American-centric stories will play overseas. The jingoism of a The Kingdom, a Rambo-unctious action flick, could seriously limit its foreign box office.”
Full article, worth a read, here
.
I’ve been reading up about ‘war fatigue’ or ‘war coverage fatigue’/ filmic reflections post-war (esp film noir) and tonight I’m off to watch ‘A mighty heart’ (about the murder of journalist daniel pearl in karachi, pakistan), in the wake of two suicide bombings in my home city, karachi. I dont think I can comprehend ‘war coverage fatigue’ properly…. I’ll keep reading about it and try and understand it, esp from a ‘box office’ perspective. I know this post isnt particularly coherent or even well-written, but its just something thats been on my mind lately - I have no academic articles to put up etc. Just been thinking about the new releases + movies such as the upcoming Elizabeth – The Golden Age and the first of the Phillip Pullman trilogy ‘The Golden Compass’ (another battle between worlds…), Across the Universe, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Redacted etc. All relatively mainstream movies… not even thinking abt documentaries at the moment. Why are we fatigued? Because its the same message (relatively) over and over? Its not exactly the same picture/story/perspective/location/people/event/narrative… As I said, this post isnt particularly coherent. I woke up this morning and read about the 2 suicide bombings (immediately being linked to Al-Qaeda) and 132 people killed….
.
