Men of Honor should almost certainly have been made by HBO, since every other HBO film treats the subject of how blacks have gotten a raw deal in America. Unfortunately, HBO isn't the only media-purveyor to have discovered the 'safe haven' of films that purport to be anti-racist. I do not mean to suggest that the racial inequities of American history are insignificant, but I will say that it is just as possible to trivialize a subject by talking about it too much as it is to minimize it by refusing to discuss it at all.
Take Lady Diana, for instance. She never did me any personal wrong, but when I heard that she had been killed in that car crash, my first thought was, "Finally! Now I don't have to hear any more boring stories about that woman whose popularity I never understood." And I was a thirty-year-old man with what many people would call a reasonably well developed moral sense. In that one moment, however, Diana was not a real person deserving of my sympathy. She was merely the subject of too many dull conversations that had taken place around me in the course of my life.
I recall quite clearly that I was even more self-involved at the age of eleven. And I fear I don't have much difficulty imagining eleven-year-olds right now who are being driven into sympathizing with neo-Nazi groups because the racist side of the story of racial politics in this country is bound to be more interesting than the fluffy meaninglessness of such seemingly anti-racist (but essentially anti-intellectual) films as Men of Honor.
What's worse is that I'm not just talking about eleven-year-old whites. I'm talking about eleven-year-olds of any color who come away from films like Men of Honor thinking along the following syllogistic lines:
A) The writer of that film really takes me for a sucker.
B) I am not a sucker.
C) I reject that film.
Some eleven-year-olds may be discerning enough to know that what they are rejecting from Men of Honor is lame characterization, ridiculously expository dialogue, and the clumsy staging of scenes. But I fear that perhaps a few of the kids who see this film and are offended by its cheesiness will conclude that being anti-racist is akin to being cheesy. Black kids will think it. Yellow kids will think it. Brown kids will think it. Any kids with brains in their heads are pretty likely to think it.
And that disturbs me, for I do not think there is anything the least bit tame or cheesy or self-indulgent or sad about being anti-racist. I think of a Jewish youth who gave his life on a freedom ride in the 50s, and I wonder how people can make movies like Men of Honor without feeling as if they are desecrating that youth's grave. Apparently the Civil Rights movement did not exist in order to change the world; it existed in order to create a new topic for exploitation by studio executives, who now get to say, "You have to like this latest piece of garbage we churned out because if you don't at least say you like it, people will think you secretly want to belong to the Ku Klux Klan. Ha! Gotcha."
Film
In Men of Honor, Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) joins the Navy and decides that he wants to become a master-chief, the highest rank available to an enlisted man. He discovers, however, that there is racism in the Navy. This racism is the obstacle that he must overcome on his way to achieving his goal.
The way Hollywood tells it, everything of any significance that happens to Brashear occurs on two days in his life. On the first day, he bests his diving instructor, Billy Sunday (Robert DeNiro), in a breath-holding contest, a victory that earns him the grudging respect of many of the white divers. His participation in the contest drives his girlfriend away because, as a black woman, she could never possibly be made to understand that there is such an obstacle as racism to overcome in the U.S. Navy.
But never fear, he chases her cab down and proposes marriage, establishing himself as a family man just minutes after establishing himself as a promising specialist in the Navy.
The second important day in Brashear's life is even more astonishing--the kind of day, in fact, that makes you wonder whether perhaps Hollywood has just possibly taken a few liberties with this "true story." Brashear is sent on a dive in search of a sunken warhead. While he walks the seafloor in search of the nuke, a Russian submarine glides over his head and becomes entangled in the oxygen line that runs from Brashear back to his own boat. The incredibly powerful line is not severed by the submarine, and Brashear goes for a very wild underwater ride before disentangling the line from the sub. When he lands, he is within sight of the warhead he has been seeking.
Taking an underwater ride on a sub and discovering a sought-after warhead would have been enough to fill my day, but Brashear resurfaces only to rescue a couple of other Navy men from a flying stay. He saves their lives, but loses his leg to the stay.
So much for Brashear. The rest of his tale is perfunctory and irritating. He is not nearly as interesting as his wife, who magically appears at all sorts of bizarre times in the film. When Brashear and Sunday are having their breath-holding contest (at a bar that is conveniently equipped with diving gear), she shows up just at the critical moment to cover her mouth and shudder with worry. When Brashear is trying to finish his final test (after having his toolkit sabotaged), she shows up just at the critical moment to cover her mouth and shudder with worry. When Brashear has to demonstrate to a Navy courtroom that he can walk ten steps--using an artificial leg--in the weighty new diving uniform, the courtroom door opens so that Mrs. Brashear can slide into the courtroom and cover her mouth and shudder with worry.
That running gag would have been worth the price of admission if only she had materialized on the boat when Brashear had his accident with the stay.
I'm not opposed to films with good values, but I am absolutely opposed to films that try to get away with substituting good values for good filmmaking. And you should be too.
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