Topic > Pearl Harbor Analysis: Sorting Fact From Fiction

With its heartbreaking love story intertwined with heart-stopping 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 seen as 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 debatable question. Indeed, many are dismayed to see the attack that precipitated the United States' entry into World War II serve as the backdrop to a Hollywood-style love triangle. Some even wonder why the film — which ranges from the war in Europe to James Doolittle's raid on Tokyo in 1942 — is even called "Pearl Harbor." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay World War II veterans die by the thousands every month. For the four or five million veterans still alive, this may be the last time they witness Hollywood's attempt to tell their story, and that may partly explain why the film is held to a high standard of accuracy. . While no one has called out colossal misrepresentations at Pearl Harbor, critics of the film, especially historians, say the film's battle scenes contain many inaccuracies. The scene where Japanese torpedo bombers attack American airfields is especially criticized because such a war zone has never been remembered in history. The most obvious conflict between Hollywood and history occurs in actor Jon Voight's finest moment, as Franklin D. Roosevelt struggles to get out of his wheelchair to show his cabinet that the impossible can happen. Historians say they have never read of any remotely close incident. The film also suggests that Japan had a chance of winning the war and that, if the empire pressed its advantage, it could invade the United States from California to Chicago. Again, foreign and local historians argue that the Japanese had no such ambition. Some criticism from the Japanese-American community reveals complaints that it did not fully reflect the Japanese side and that it ignored the long and painful debates and calculations that preceded the decision to attack the U.S. fleet. While the film generates a lot of complaints from outside the camp -Mark mentioned above, there are some very touching moments where it could bring war veterans closer to home. In a tragic scene following the Japanese attack on the Pacific Fleet, Evelyn, the lead nurse played by Kate Beckinsale, marks the soldiers with lipstick at the hospital to indicate who should be treated and who cannot be helped, something the nurses they were forced to do during the Japanese attack on the Pacific Fleet. war. Another scene in which one sailor tells another 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 that is stirred up as a result of the film. After sitting in a movie theater for nearly three hours watching Americans being bombed by Japanese warplanes, what kind of reaction will moviegoers have to the first Asian-Americans they see when they leave the theater? Viewers will understand that the men who bombed Pearl Harbor are dead or are.