The first claim of Michael Bay’s new movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is that it is a true story. This is clearly stated within the film and elsewhere. Press releases have detailed how closely the filmmaker has worked with those contract soldiers that the film glorifies. Adapted from the book 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi, the movie attempts to show just that: “the ground truth” of what happened during the Benghazi attacks that killed ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others.
The second claim made by Bay and others involved is that the movie is in no way political. Which is amusing. Claiming a movie that has the word Benghazi in the title is “not political” is like saying “Voldemort” and not expecting Death Eaters to appear in full-on apparatchik mode to do the crucio on your better judgment.
Because this fucker is heavy political.
Basically there are three types of characters in the movie. The good, bad, and the idiots. That any of the good guys die cannot be their fault. The good guys are too knowledgeable and badass to get killed in combat. It is strictly due to the failure of the idiots, in this case the CIA bureaucratic apparatus (not to mention the bungling Libyans) as to why “the shit got real” in the first place. And by CIA read chain of command, and by chain of command read Hilary and yes, by extension the POTUS; please recall Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon wherein Obama wants to employ “diplomacy” with the Decepticons; what a fool he turned out to be.
In 13 Hours the good guys are white, ex-military, family men, intelligent, brave, kind, loyal and really good at killing Islamic terrorists. They are as muscular as they are jocular; all manner of cute bro-speak is exchanged during heavy gunfire. There is at no point where they are in the dark, or face moral dilemmas. They have been cruelly cast by fate and “dot gov” tomfoolery into the gears of war. Which comes off as a bit odd. The movie plays it as if these regular family dudes, these basic well-meaning American bros spontaneously stumbled into combat because government; thank god they know how to shoot guns. But do not be fooled: they are military contractors and mercenaries for hire; they signed on to work for the CIA.
Even if Bay actually was some kind of apolitical Buddhist his movie cannot possibly be read as anything less than agitprop by the informed audience. It is an election year after all and the Iowa caucus is fast approaching. One woman leaving the theater, when asked how she liked the movie, said she thought it was, “really good,” pause, “but so maddening!” We can only guess whom she’s mad at. Others in the audience clapped and cheered when terrorist attackers were cut in half by machine guns.
But then I’m probably giving Michael Bay’s general audience too much credit.
Because, ideology aside, the movie is, uh, perfectly adequate Hollywood action. Which let me be clear, does not make it any less dumb. Still, and here’s the confession from your cold, objective critic. I was, somehow, entertained. The characters were likeable! There was a lot of tactical jargon! The action quickly advanced! There were so many guns!
Embarrassing? Okay. But propaganda is made to be liked. So the movie becomes that much more insidious. Its message is that the American White Male has been neglected and betrayed by the indifferent and incompetent federal program; and this under the guise that it is representing real persons. But however much I was entertained, never was I convinced that the characters onscreen were real; I will even go so far to say that even the real contractors involved in the actual Benghazi attack are themselves playing fictional roles assigned by and complicit in the grand narrative fiction of American Imperial power abroad.
How’s that for agitprop?
Forest is a carpenter/writer living in Minneapolis. He writes a weekly horoscope for Revolver. Those can be found here. Follow him on Twitter @interrogativs
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