Ignore Hanks and Watch "The Pacific"

Some in the blogosphere are attributing the apparent low ratings for HBO's The Pacific to Tom Hanks’ comments on American racism. Viewers however should remember that the series is a homage to the men who fought and died, not to the producers.

HBO’s The Pacific debuted last Sunday and I must say that I was impressed.  The first episode follows the trajectory of several diverse characters as they leave their Norman Rockwell lives to become U.S. Marines and are eventually dumped into the hell that was Guadalcanal.

As a companion piece to Band of Brothers, it is natural to compare ratings.  In that sense The Pacific fell way short.   Band of Brothers’ debut was watched by 10 million viewers, whereas The Pacific’s had barely four million.  I hope as the series moves along its viewership grows, but if not I think there are several reasons why.

Now, some on the right-leaning blogosphere are attributing the apparent low ratings to Tom Hanks’ comments about which I wrote last week.  I certainly hope not.  After all, The Pacific is an homage to the men who fought and died there, not to the producers who brought it to the screen.

But I think the reasons for the low ratings are a combination of the times in which we live and the subject matter itself.  One theory for Band Of Brothers’ popularity is that it debuted on September 9, 2001 and played out while Americans were still in shock from 9/11 and were gearing up for war.  The exploits of the 101st Airborne fed that “coming together” feeling we sought and reminded us of the sacrifices that many of our soldiers were about to make anew.

It could also be that the viewing experience itself has changed.  In 2001 HBO On Demand and DVR were a dream.  So the preliminary first airing numbers may be artificially skewed against The Pacific.   When all the possible avenues of viewing are calculated, the ratings may turn out to  be more robust than would first appear.

If, however, the series does fall short, I think it could also be that Americans are just not as interested in the Pacific war as they are in the European theatre.  It starts with geography.  Most of us have a loose concept of France and Britain and can identify with cities like Paris and London.   But how many of us know that places called Aitape, Bougainville, Wewak, Eniwetok, Betio, or Manus even exist?   It is hard to form a connection with such alien dots on a map.

Also, we have been taught since children that the war against Nazi Germany was a noble crusade.  Band of Brothers drives home the point by taking us through the liberation of a ghastly concentration camp.   Ending the Holocaust and utterly destroying the Nazi regime that orchestrated it gave the sacrifice of those who liberated Europe real meaning.   There was no such “holy grail” in the Pacific.  We just wanted Japan to quit fighting before we had to kill them all!

Perhaps our current war weariness with Iraq and Afghanistan can account for some of the hesitation to watch yet more war in our living rooms this time around.

Plus, as awful as the fighting in Western Europe was, there still remains an appealing thin veneer of civilization about the whole affair from the point of view of the Anglo-American serviceman.  The contrast to the Pacific experience is striking in this regard.   If the men in Band of Brothers are seen offering their grateful German prisoners cigarettes, we see corpsmen in The Pacific trying to help a wounded Japanese soldier only to be blown to pieces as he detonates a hidden grenade.  Whereas the men in Europe got furloughs in a glittering Paris left intact by the retreating Germans, the G.I.s who liberated the Pacific war’s largest allied city, Manila, had to fight house by house against a fanatical enemy whose only motivation to stay was to butcher as many innocent Filipinos as possible before being overrun.  (In fact, the destruction of Manila in which the Japanese massacred over 100,000 civilians is one of the great tragedies of WWII.)

I was gratified to see that Hanks’ and Spielberg’s production touches upon the enemy’s brutality in Episode 1 by showing the remains of a captured Marine tied to a tree and mutilated by his Japanese captors.  But then there is the image of the humanized enemy caught in a cross-fire of Marines who purposefully “wing” him and shout jeers rather than shoot him down just to make his last moments alive a torment—he breaks down in sobs.

So watch The Pacific.  Forget Tom Hanks’ remarks.  He is but another symptom of limousine liberalism.   Watch The Pacific because the men of Peleliu, Buna, Leyte, Iwo Jima, etc. deserve to be remembered.  Watch it because we could all stand to learn more about the other WWII.  And watch it, of course, because if the first episode is any indication, it is darned good television.