The documentary, “Theater of War,” directed by John Walters, takes on the form of the highly disputed sub genre of essay film, which brings together many individual and overarching viewpoints to encourage the audience to form their own opinion about what they are watching. With this genre of film, it is likely that the piece will provoke different thoughts and associations for each individual, based on their past experiences or social conditioning. For me personally, the montages in the film that bring together many different scenes of protest as well as many different scenes of war were the most thought provoking. While watching it, I was amazed at how we allow history to continue to repeat itself generation after generation. It is easy for us to look back and judge the mistakes others have made, but it is much harder to look forward and prevent those mistakes from happening again.
In the essay film, Meryl Streep, who plays Mother Courage, explains why she wanted to act in the play Mother Courage and her Children. It wasn’t because of Kattrin’s bravery and kindness when she bangs on the roof to warn the people of the city of the incoming attack. It was because of the moment when Courage sings the lullaby over Kattrin’s body, a scene that Streep says seems to repeat itself over and over with each war that comes. Her interpretation of the scene almost implies the inevitability of war and the untimely death of a mother’s children. However, Brecht would have wanted Streep and the audience to understand that war and the conditions of the play are not inevitable if collective action is taken.
Brecht, a self proclaimed Marxist, was in the US at the time of the Second Red Scare and was asked to testify along with the Hollywood 10. During that time, the US citizens were scared of communism due to fear of Soviet relations and their influence. In this case, bad relations with the U.S.S.R. conditioned people to fear communism and communists, leading to the unlawful persecution and arrest of many people due to their political beliefs. More closely related to my generation is the 9/11 terrorist attack. After seeing this tragic event and watching two wars being fought in the Middle East over terrorism, my generation has been conditioned to fear people of Middle Eastern ethnicities, leading to the persecution of and prejudice towards those people. History repeated itself, just under different circumstances.
Two different propaganda images, one from the time of the Red Scare and one from the current War on Terror. Will we continue to let history repeat itself? (From Patriot Act C and the Sleuth Journal)
Looking back, we see all the ways we acted on impulse and out of fear during the time of the Red Scare, and one would expect we would try to improve on our mistakes from the past. However, we continue to act out of fear and use racial profiling unjustly, often associating someone of Middle Eastern descent with terrorism. The problem is not that we are incapable of reflecting on our past mistakes; it is that we have yet to learn from them. As Brecht communicated through his play Mother Courage, we require collective action to make a change, and in this case it will take a wholly educated populous to understand the consequences of our rash actions to stop this endless cycle.
(Update Nov. 17 2015)
This is just one example of unjust stereotyping of the Islamic community. (From TheMuslimIssue)
Considering the content of this post, I think it is important for me to address the events of the past week as they pertain to the ideas presented. This past week was tragic, with both Paris and Beirut subjected to terrorist attacks. Paris experienced suicide bombing and execution style killing, while, similarly, Beirut experienced a suicide bombing attack. Over the weekend, my news feed on Facebook was bombarded by a seemingly endless string of posts about the two events, many showing remorse and sympathy for the two, however the occasional post was about fear or hatred of the Muslim community. While we have the right to fear the extremists that committed these cruel and horrible acts, expanding this fear to the entire Muslim population is unfair and unjust. Ironically, through unjust stereotyping of the Muslim community, we are only encouraging support of terrorist groups like Isis. The cycle feeds itself. I worry that this recent attack will bring rise to an anti-Muslim sentiment greater than before, and lead us to act rashly and persecute innocent people as happened in the time of the Red Scare and in Japanese Internment.
Also, for more information on the sub genre of the essay film, this video provides a good basic explanation.
Works Cited
Smith, John. “The Thirty Years’ War: The Movie. Transitions/Comparisons.” University of California, Irvine. Humanities Instructional Building 100, Irvine, CA. 3 November 2015. Lecture.
Theater of War. dir. John Walters. perf. Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Tony Kushner. Lorber Films, 2008. Film.
https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/about/
https://ushistory20thc.wikispaces.com/PATRIOT+Act+(C)
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/14/world/what-happened-in-paris-attacks-timeline/
http://www.euro-islam.info/2013/06/13/britains-wars-fuel-terror-denying-it-only-feeds-islamophobia/
http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare
http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/terrorists-r-us/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/middleeast/beirut-lebanon-attacks-paris.html
A Humanistic Approach 
While the content of the blog itself is pretty well defined, it would benefit the blog to have the images spread about it in a meaningful manner rather then see them lopped onto the end of the post. Looking at the blog’s structure, it might help you to define the “essay film” mentioned and also try to elaborate on the concept of the essay film you mentioned more to support your ideas.
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This post draws some parallels between the Red Scare and the way religious extremists are currently molding the attitudes of the twenty-first century that are unfortunately accurate. You mentioned at the beginning of the post that “it is harder to look forward and prevent those mistakes from happening again”, and I believe that the reason why history tends to repeat itself in this fashion is because we lack the proper perspective at any given time and moment to truly make an educated judgement about a situation. Until the events settle and we can collectively gather ourselves and look at the events that occurred as a whole, it is hard to view the res gestae of a particular event from above, to use Professor John Smith’s terminology. We are trapped in a view from “below”, and individually are left to draw our own conclusions about a situation that is initially confusing to the shell-shocked majority of the populace, much like Simplicius in Grimmelhausen’s text. We continue to make our own mistakes only because we are unaware we are making them, instead of any deliberate propensity towards bigotry toward a given group of individuals. Although we have greater means of communication in the present than even the Cold War era, this initial period of shock and confusion that lingers after a surprising event (the September 11th attacks, for instance) will always exist for at least a brief period of time. We may be able to minimize the sporadic cycles of intolerance that flare and wane throughout history, but I fear that truly abolishing the cycle will be significantly harder to do than what you have implied in this post. We may need closer to an omniscient perspective of events, instead of a merely educated perspective, to truly make an unbiased decision immediately after a potentially disruptive event.
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