I finally got around to watching the movie Overlord. I won’t spoil the whole movie, but it’s a sci-fi film set in WWII that starts with the 101st Airborne dropping into France. Our protagonist is a black dude. I wondered if the movie would explain why there was a black soldier in the 101st Airborne. It does not. He’s not alone. Their sergeant is a black dude as well (played by Black Hand Jack from Black Dynamite) and there’s another black guy that survives the initial drop (Grey Worm from Game of Thrones).
History lesson for the uninformed: the United States armed forces were fully segregated before 1948, when by executive order they were prohibited from segregating units. It would take until the late 1960s before all (overt) discriminatory practices were fully weeded out. There were some mixed units, out of necessity, after D-Day, but always under white commanders. And the black soldiers were volunteers to fill the white ranks.
There’s a term for when Hollywood takes something that shouldn’t be white and casts it with white people; whitewashing. While that is a problem, there’s an even worse problem, in my opinion, and that’s pretending racism didn’t exist for the sake of casting a more diverse movie. The problem is you want to make a World War II movie about Americans fighting aliens or monsters or whatever, but WWII American soldiers were sooooo white. Eh, just put a black one in, and a Latino one, and a Chinese one, and a lady, and one in a wheel chair. (Bonus Fact: Mexican-Americans served in mixed units with “white” soldiers. The definition of “white” has always been fluid)
For those who know better this is an irritant, but for those who don’t know better they watch this and go “Oh, racism wasn’t a problem when we fought a war. We were all in it together. I guess things are just worse now, for some reason.”
You may say “Well, then that’s their problem for learning about history from movies. It’s not Hollywood’s job to teach history.”
Except this IS where people learn about these things. I worked with a really smart gentleman who disagreed with me that a point about segregation and racism should have been made in Captain America: The First Avenger. Instead Cap just picks a diverse group of soldiers to go off with him and everyone is cool with it, including Uncle Sam. After going back and forth he finally stopped and went “Wait, hold on, black and white solders didn’t fight together in World War 2?” He had NO idea. Not only had the education system failed him, but so had popular media. If Captain America: The First Avenger had just included a little bit where a white soldier won’t fight with the black dude Cap rescues he might have gone “Wait… that’s weird. What’s that all about?” And then did a little research to learn the truth about our history. The movie could have gone a step further and had Cap say “No! This man comes with me. He has every right to fight for his country, just like the rest of you.” Music swells. Cap is no racist, but everyone else is. Point made.
Even in a fantasy/sci-fi flick set during a real world historical event there are nuggets of truth to be learned. Wonder Woman does a nice job of this during the scene where The Chief (I love that they kept the racist name given to him by white people) explains to her that her boyfriend’s people are actually pretty fucking terrible despite seeming quite heroic defending Europe from those wicked Huns. Granted; the scene is making a broader point about how nothing is good vs evil. Nothing is black and white. Hinting to Diana that there is no god of war controlling things. People are just awful, even if they seem like they’re doing good. However it still lets the audience know that “The Chief” is a man who is considered second class in his own homeland. (Bonus Fact: Native Americans were not granted automatic United States citizen ship until after Native American WWI veterans demanded it post-war)
You want to have a black dude in your World War II zombie movie? Fine. How about after the white soldiers land a black member of the French resistance is there?
“OOOOH, but we want it to be an American guy! Not one of those black French. They aren’t as cool.” (don’t tell Kylian Mbappé that)
Funny enough our black dude speaks perfect English. Why? Because he is American. His father fought for France during The Great War because the fucking Americans wouldn’t take him initially. He was given medals for bravery by the French and he was respected and treated like a man. He came back to the United States thinking this would mean something, but instead he was treated like shit. When the Nazis invaded France our hero did what his father did; he came to France to fight for freedom, unlike these crackers who waited until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor before getting involved. And there’s also a lady there and someone in a wheel chair. One of your American soldiers is Latino. And one of them reveals he’s gay.
Problem solved. Your cast now looks like a college recruitment ad and you get to make a little statement about how fucked up the world was in 1944.
Bonus historical “WTF?” Our protagonist mentions being drafted “three months earlier”, so March-April 1944. He would have then gone through basic and then parachute training… and he still made it to England for D-Day? I’m no expert on the history of the 101st Airborne, but I’m fairly certain it was a volunteer unit (though maybe that means draftees could volunteer for that service?). I’m also under the impression that the training was quite rigorous and they weren’t accepting of mediocre soldiers. Lastly; I don’t know how much unit building was going on in the weeks before the invasion. The 502nd parachute regiment arrived in England in October of 1943, where they continued training. The timing just seems weird. Like the writers knew the 101st airborne was well know to audiences due to Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers so they were like “let’s just do that”.
Armchair Screenwriter 