more points from nile’s introduction as The Goodest Marine
note: this is a criticism the movie’s narrative choice to introduce us marine nile in a certain very deliberate way, not a condemnation of nile as an individual. if you’re uncomfortable with what follows try to sit with it and interrogate yourself a bit. also these were gonna be gifs but i don’t have the energy, so they’re screenshots instead. long post ahead.
1. the unnamed boy who is shown to be suspicious/fearful of the american soldiers but for some unspecified reason responds to american soldier nile with immediate trust
apparently all it takes to alleviate his fears is a smile, some indistinct muttering and a piece of candy. they exchange a few words in pashto but we never hear what they are because the purpose of this scene is to frame nile as the one (1) marine children literally flock to as she’s pacifying them with candy. the content/essence of the interaction is not important. it’s very heavy-handed and gross.
this scene would have hit very differently (and done nile a lot more service in terms of characterization) if she’d been shown trying to establish a connection with him, being firmly refused and reacting with sadness/remorse. it would have told the audience that 1. nile is kind and empathetic and while the rejection of her sincere efforts hurts she can also understand where it’s coming from; and 2. she’s uncomfortable when reminded of her status as a member of an invading army - while at the same time giving the boy some agency.
(i’ll give the movie some credit for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment when nile stands up to go talk to her sergeant, literally swings the butt of her gun in the boy’s face without even noticing, and he looks at her with the same fear/suspicion he’d shown earlier towards the other soldiers. there’s an infinitesimal amount of nuance there but it goes nowhere)
2. the translator (referred to as ‘woman’ on screen in the english subtitles, named gita in the cast list because…..why name her on screen?) smiling warmly while watching nile with the kids.
this is another blink-and-miss shot but together with the scene above it establishes a Locals Love Her sort of deal which i guess is supposed to make nile’s marine status more palatable.
(also as @wondersmith-and-sons pointed out to me in the chat earlier today, translators are the first in line to get fucked over by the military if they’re considered liabilities, so that’s another layer to think about)
3. non-american lives as an afterthought
not only could nile’s line easily have been ‘he has killed many people’ and avoided prioritizing the lives of american soldiers over those of the people they’ve occupied, but the visuals linked to ‘and many of yours’ are………also of american soldiers. this was not at all a difficult scene to not make worse than it already was. removing the qualifiers from that sentence and leaving it at ‘he has killed many people’ would have done the job, but Choices were obviously made and they are fucking awful.
4. nile trying to be moralizing apparently
listen, i don’t have knowledge of the cultural context to discuss this in a more nuanced way, but i suspect neither does nile. we’ve never seen her try to establish a genuine rapport with anyone or learn about the culture beyond a few words. so this comes off as ‘i’m going to independently assume the reason you’re reluctant to talk to us is some deeply ingrained Family Duty Honor thing you guys have going on around here, and not the fact that you’re being questioned by a bunch of uniforms with guns. let me reassure you that turning this man over to us is the right thing to do because he has killed many of our people……………and many of yours too, i guess’
and the movie is like ‘and then it actually worked!’
5. ‘keep it respectful’ in action
except they were never ‘allowed’, they marched in armed to the teeth, on orders, without asking permission to come in. the point this scene is trying to make is that nile is polite and respectful but she really just comes off as incredibly unobservant. what if the women had tried to refuse them entry into their home? what would a nile freeman torn between her morals and military duty have done then? another potential establishing character moment wasted in favor of heavy-handed story-telling.
my point is that when picked apart nile’s introduction actually does more harm than good to her overall characterization. later in the movie we discover she’s compassionate, principled, very much able to think for herself and motivated by doing good. but we deduce all this from her consistent actions. the intro all but sticks a giant neon ‘SHE’S SO GOOD ISN’T SHE SO GOOD’ label on nile while actually making her look little more than unobservant and vaguely patronizing. because i think the goal isn’t to characterize nile as much as to say ‘we know some of our viewers find the us military reprehensible so here are our half-assed attempts to morally divorce nile from everything questionable. yes, she’s a cog in an imperialist machine, but isn’t she SO GOOD?’
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