Welcome to the Genre of War

Yesterday, I was able to hear Nicholas Parisi give a talk on Rod Serling. He's an expert on everything Rod Serling and recently wrote a book which compiles everything Serling ever wrote from The Twilight Zone to Planet of the Apes. Parisi tracked down everything, including the first short story published by Serling.

Serling served in World War II, in the Philippines, as a paratrooper. The experience later influenced many of the works he wrote, including his first short story. The semi-autobiographical story centered around having supplies airdropped to his unit's location after 10 days of fighting without any food. One of the unit's members, and a character based off a real friend of Serling's, jokingly narrates the descent. The unit's relief quickly turns to horror as the supplies are dropped right on top of them, with enough force to decapitate the Serling's friend.

Guernica by Pablo Picasso - how he depicted the Spanish Civil War

I wish I could read the original story, but hearing the synopsis got me thinking. I've seen wars portrayed across many genres. From the real life inspired tragedies such as "War and Peace", "Battle of the Bulge (1965), and Glory (1989) to the mysteries such as Stalag 17 (1953) and The Night of the Generals (1967). There are the dramatic autobiographical stories such as "Band of Brothers" and Patton (1970). There are even comedies like "Hogan's Heroes" and "M*A*S*H" (the 1970 movie and TV show).

My dad is a bit of a war movie buff, so I've seen quite a number of war movies. He's particularly fond of the more action heroic World War II movies of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, such as The Dirty Dozen (1967), Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Kelly's Heroes (1970). These were movies that I watched a lot as a kid. The good guys always worked as a team to take down the evil Nazis and the Nazis were definitely the bad guys, there was no question.

Just like how monsters in horror aren't just monsters, war in fantasy, science fiction, and even horror isn't just about the war. It's often part of a larger commentary on human society, our technology, our ethics, and our ideologies.

In Harry Potter the wizarding war is about the evils of magical Nazis, while the original War of the Worlds shows how easily a civilization can fall to an enemy with advanced technology (basically it was written to show imperialist countries how easy it is to defeat someone with better technology and exploit their fears of invasion).

The wars depicted in the world of Narnia are often allegorical to fighting on the side of God and defeating evil. The war against the Fire Lord in "Avatar the Last Airbender" is about restoring balance to the world and finding a creative way to defeat your enemies without killing them (I love Aang's solution to this so no spoilers if you haven't seen the show - skip the movie).

Independence Day (1996) shows the tenacity of the human/American spirit in the face of an enemy that's hell bent on wiping us out as well as the horrors of weapons of mass destruction. And Star Wars is a classic good versus evil story.

Why does war one of those catastrophic events that can cross genres so easily?

My guess is because of how ingrained it is in our history as a species.We have historical accounts of war which we study, sometimes in our literary classes such as Homer's "The Iliad",  or to learn strategy such as the works of Sun Tzu "On The Art Of War". Some of these historical events have become historical fiction in the form of the movies like Gladiator (2000) and 300 (2006) - the later of which also includes a number of fantasy elements.

War is apart of our common human history. There hasn't been a civilization that we learn about in school, which hasn't been affected by war and violence in some way. The history of my country  starts with a war for independence.

There's a lot more on this subject that I can write on. I haven't even touched on the many video games that make the player question the ethics of their actions or contemplate how their actions might end up killing or saving millions of people. Heck, I didn't even mention my favorite fandom, the Transformers franchise (ignoring the Bay movies) which is all about the destruction of war on an alien species driven to Earth where they continue to fight.

The reason I chose to write this post is because I noticed that the subject of war easily crosses genres. Some writers use it as a commentary, while others are writing from a place of experience as a need to understand and come to terms with what they went through - like Mr. Serling.

War is horrible. There's no denying that.

And I honestly don't have a good, philosophical, or thoughtful note to end this post on. So I'll repeat the one statement I feel is most true:

War is horrible.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next time!