"When you watch Dunkirk, remember that it’s a whitewashed" Topic

… version which ignores the bravery of black and Muslim soldiers.

"In my mother's family scrapbook, there is a tiny box camera snapshot of a very young Robert staring at the Luftwaffe-smashed "mole" leading out to sea from the port of Boulogne – sixteen years after British troops evacuated under fire in May 1940 as their comrades stood on the beaches of neighbouring Dunkirk. In the photograph, the right-hand side of the Boulogne jetty remains, in dilapidated, post-war France, just as it was when British soldiers scrambled aboard the last ships to Britain, the concrete, right-hand side of the mole collapsed into the sea, just a few old hawsers showing where it stood.

I remember that when our car ferry docked from Dover, passengers still had to "walk the plank" across a bridge of duckboards suspended above the water with ropes on each side to cling onto above another bombed-out part of the jetty. A day later, my father drove our Austin up to Dunkirk to see the famous beaches. It was a grey, cold day and the sand was grey and there was some unrecognisable, rusting junk along the promenade and several of the old beach hotels were still under repair. That was it. History had passed this way and the Brits had returned to other beaches 250 miles further west four years later and Hitler killed himself and we dropped atoms bombs on Japan and, by the time I reached Dunkirk, we'd lost soldiers in Korea and the poor old French were just starting their doomed war to hold onto Algeria…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Let me see if I understand, since there were no black or Muslim soldiers shown then the history must have been distorted (whitewashed)? With the hundreds of extras standing in lines or on-board the ships or in the planes I assume that you slow passed through the DVD to make sure that there were no black or Muslim. The major characters were a few soldiers, three civilians and two British pilots and yes they were all white.

Since this was an English movie about Dunkirk in 1940 I assume that the primary characters would be English and white. If it was set in Africa or the Mediterranean or Asia during WW2 then contingents of non white troops should be present.

You notice Mr. Fisk does not cite a single non-white Commonwealth or Empire soldier in France or taking part in the evacuation. Not one. It is perfectly true that a movie about some other parts of British participation in WWII might properly have included such. So might a French-perspective movie about the fall of France. So evidently the complaint is that this was not a movie about something else?

Oh. And the only troops shown actually fighting to hold the perimeter are French. Should the British regiments not shown also file some sort of grievance?

It's a movie…if it was d documentary…but even if I was there, I would have a distorted view of the action.

How do you know none of the soldiers depicted was Muslim?

The whole movie was about a flight, a trawler and a Frenchman pretending he was a Englishman. So out of a dozen who's stories were spelled out what percentage should be something else?

If I am not mistaken there were not any Commonwealth units in France in 1940 other than a few Canadian battalions.

This reminds me of that time in college (during the late 90's) that a professor claimed that Hollywood westerns are white-washed and that "most cowboys were black."

That seemed a bit absurd to me so I headed off to the library and looked it up. Naturally there were no firm census records but several estimates of ethnic origins of cowboys existed. One estimate was that 1 in 4 were other than white, another was that possibly 15% were black and 15% Hispanic, still leaving somewhere between 60-75% gringos. So much for most.

Another take on the same theme:

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I did not see any Baptists represented in the movie either !!!

Regards
Russ Dunaway

I didn't see any Wiccans either!

or jedi !!!

"Why are British soldiers shown murdering Germans ? This is pro-Brexit propaganda."
"The film is titled Dunkirk, but it completely fails to highlight the cultural and historical aspects of the city, its citizens and it's complex socio-economical structure !"
"The city of Calais has long been tied to Britain, why was the film not set there as it would be far more historically relevant ?"
"Dunkirk is often described as a miracle, at least one soldier is said to have claimed that he saw Jesus who promised him he and his friends would win this fight. This is clearly an atheist-inspired production that tries to mask clear divine intervention as being purely man-made !"
"We never get the picture from the German side, people in places like Munich and Hamburg were deeply touched by this event, but we are never shown the ramifications."
"Many Germans were opposed to going to war with the British, this is never even discussed in the film."
"This is a whitewash of the war-criminal Churchill who very aggressively orchestrated a war with Germany to destroy because it would unify Europe and put Britain in the corner."
"The film completely fails the Bechdel test, ignoring women, trans-women and the entire LGTB community."
"The environmental issues of war are not discussed in this film, we see damage being done to valuable natural areas, the radical destruction of micro-biomes and this is never addressed."
"Wartime correspondence with those at home is a rich literary tradition that unveils the true soul of warfare and no attention is paid to it."
"Civilians in and around Dunkirk were submitted to devastating forces that caused serious mental issues, many struggled with their entire lives, yet the film nary ever mentions it if at all."
"There was a strong debate in South America concerning the war in Europe, to many outsiders the war was hardly black and white and they could see more than just the simplistic dichotomy of good vs evil, where both sides assumed they were the good guys. This film misses the opportunity to introduce an outsider's view of a conflict that would bring new light and understanding."
"It's a crime that the critical importance of Dunkirk in WWI was completely ignored in the backstory of this film, the effort made to supply soldiers in the trenches through the port were critical in the effort to defeat the Germans in 1918, without this there would be "Dunkirk Retreat" in the first place, please be more inclusive of history rather than focus on minor details ?"
"This is film is manufactured to promote the deistic fallacy that there are no "atheists in a foxhole", in fact many atheist soldiers never converted to religion even after everything they saw, this whole film is a strawman argument for deistic beliefs."
"People had cats in 1940, as they fled they couldn't take their animals with them and had to abandon them. The human-centric view of this battle is utterly animal unfriendly and should have focussed more on the plight of the animals !!!"
"I find it offensive that this battle is so blatantly and arbitrarily set in WWII, why not a more socio-political relevant conflict like Syria or the struggle of the Rohindra, who are being oppressed or even murdered by the buddhist majority in Burma. By setting Dunkirk in Europe during some obscure long-forgotten conflict you nurture the idea that only bad things happened to Europe and that the rest of the world is a peaceful paradise without conflict. This is just bad eurocentrism !!!"
"Why do we get a live action adaptation ? Hasn't Miyasaki and the Japanese anime community proven that they can portray drama just as well, if not better than Hollywood, please, if you consider a sequel, try to make it anime !"

Patrick thank you for that. You are my new hero!

Well since there were black soldiers amongst the French troops in the film, Mr Fisk like many other critics either didn't see the film or didn't watch closely. There were some commonwealth troops from what was then India, but if I remember correctly they totalled about 3000 out of the 300,000 "British" troops rescued. The film had its faults, but criticising it for the lack of black or clearly Muslim characters is just plain stupid.

You nailed it, Patrick!

Good job Patrick!

Lol Patrick

Way to go, Patrick!

Patrick +1

Was not there another thread about the movie Dunkirk here on TMP ?