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Essay / Pearl Harbor Analysis: Differentiating Fact from Fiction
With its heartbreaking romance mixed with thrilling action, film critics have hailed Pearl Harbor as the summer blockbuster of the year and the second coming of Titanic. Pearl Harbor, a film about the 1941 surprise air attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet, is considered a film that is less of a history lesson and more of a love story. However, despite booming box office sales and rave reviews, some argue that the film distorts reality and is not a model World War II film. This is a question that is debatable. Indeed, many are dismayed to see the attack that caused the United States' entry into World War II serving as the backdrop for a Hollywood-style love triangle. Some even wonder why the film - which spans from the war in Europe to James Doolittle's raid on Tokyo in 1942 - is called "Pearl Harbor." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay World War II veterans are dying by the thousands every month. For the four to five million veterans still alive, this may be the last time they see Hollywood attempt to tell their story, and that may partly explain why the film is subject to a high level of scrutiny. 'exactness. Although no one has claimed colossal misrepresentations at Pearl Harbor, critics of the film, primarily historians, claim that the film's battle scenes contain numerous inaccuracies. The scene where Japanese torpedo bombers attack American airfields draws even more criticism because a war zone like that has never been recorded in history. The most obvious conflict between Hollywood and history comes in actor Jon Voight's finest moment, when he plays Franklin D. Roosevelt struggling to get out of his wheelchair to show his cabinet that the impossible can happen. Historians say they have never heard of any such incident up close. The film also suggests that Japan had a chance of winning the war and that if the empire had exploited its advantage, it could have invaded the United States from California to Chicago. Once again, foreign and local historians argue that the Japanese had no such ambition. Some criticisms from the Japanese-American community reveal complaints about failing to fully reflect the Japanese side and ignoring the long, painful debates and calculations that preceded the decision to attack the U.S. fleet. Although the film generates many complaints from the outside, -mark the depictions mentioned above, there are some very poignant moments where it can bring veterans closer to home. In a tragic scene following the Japanese attack on the Pacific Fleet, Evelyn, the main nurse played by Kate Beckinsale, marks soldiers with lipstick at the hospital to indicate who should be treated and who cannot be helped, what nurses were forced to do during the war. war. Another scene in which one sailor tells another that he can't swim as the USS Oklahoma capsizes is based on a real event. Another issue that brings the film to the attention of some Asian Americans is the anti-Asian sentiment stoked as a result of the film. After sitting in a movie theater for nearly three hours watching Americans get bombed by Japanese warplanes, what kind of reaction will moviegoers have to the first Asian Americans they.