Re-visit Review: "Pearl Harbor"

I'm the kind of person who enjoys revisiting books, movies, TV shows and other media over and over. Re-reading a favorite book can feel like catching up with an old friend - it's familiar and comforting, something you can count on in an ever-uncertain world. Re-watching a movie or TV show means I can catch subtle clues I may have missed the first time.  And it's always interesting and enlightening to experience media from a more evolved, educated point of view.

I say all this as explanation for why I was so excited this weekend when I discovered that Pearl Harbor is available on Netflix. Pearl Harbor, for those of you who were not 16-year-old white suburban girls in 2001, is director Michael Bay's take on the December 7, 1941 surprise attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor that led to the United States' entry into World War II. I don't embarrass easily, so I have no shame in admitting that I was obsessed with this movie, although not as obsessed as 13-year-old Kristen was with Titanic. Apparently I'm a real sucker for melodramatic love triangles set against the backdrop of nautical disasters.

A quick refresher: The love triangle at the center of Pearl Harbor is between Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett), who are lifelong best friends and U.S. Army Air Force pilots, and Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), a Navy nurse. Rafe and Evelyn have been dating for a few weeks when Rafe volunteers to go to England to fight in the Battle of Britain. Evelyn and Danny are stationed in Pearl Harbor when they receive word that Rafe's plan was shot down and he's presumed dead. In their grief, Danny and Evelyn start hooking up, but then - surprise! - Rafe returns, having been stuck in Nazi-occupied France for several months. Then - bigger surprise! - the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service shows up and bombs the bejeezus out of Pearl Harbor. In the aftermath of the attack, Danny and Rafe volunteer for a dangerous retaliation mission to Tokyo, but before they leave, Evelyn confesses to Rafe that she's pregnant with Danny's child. The mission goes awry, and Danny ends up getting killed. Rafe returns and (after presumably serving in the Air Force during WWII) marries Evelyn, raises Danny's son as his own, and they live happily ever after. 

Before this weekend, I hadn't watched Pearl Harbor in at least 15 years, which apparently is enough time to forget what a hot mess this movie actually is. Over the course of the film's three-hour running time, I had a lot of strong reactions, which inspired this "Re-visit Review" blog post. Maybe it'll become a regular feature of "These Are Things I Think About." Or maybe I'll never do it again. I can do whatever I want - it's my blog! Let's jump in!

Hot Takes

• I'd forgotten that Pearl Harbor is a "who's who" of future stars and random cameos. Dan Aykroyd! Baby Michael Shannon! Crazy Tom Sizemore! Even David Hornsby, best known as Rickety Cricket from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as a soldier in an early scene (or so IMDB tells me).
• Alec Baldwin should be in everything, always. Like, that's just a fact.
• I've added "be on a film set while shit gets blown up" to my bucket list. I'm sure this is both tedious and stressful AF, but I'm fascinated by the technical choreography that goes into blowing up planes, simulating strafing and safely pulling off stunts simultaneously. Excuse me while I Google "how to be a pyrotechnician"...
• Watching Josh Hartnett try to be an action star is hilarious: During the attack sequences, his sense of "Oh shit, shit's blowing up, what the fuck do I do?" doesn't feel so much like acting as Hartnett's actual inner monologue.

In-Depth Analysis

• The jingoism. My god, the jingoism: Here's a drinking game for you - next time you watch Pearl Harbor, drink every time someone delivers an extremely cheesy line about America, freedom, or the honor of serving one's country. You'll be wasted before the first act is over. Yes, I know it's an American movie about a war in which America played a very large role, so a certain amount of patriotism is to be expected, but it's as if screenwriter Randall Wallace wrote the screenplay by pulling dialogue out of am "America, Fuck Yeah!" phrase generator. What's really surprising is that Pearl Harbor was filmed and released before 9/11, so it wasn't even riding the surge of patriotism that rose after the attacks. 
• The whitewashing. My god, the whitewashing: Pearl Harbor is located on the island of Oahu in Hawaii (Hawaiian Territory at the time of the attack), which was, of course, home to Native Hawaiians of Polynesian descent (full disclosure: I tried to get the actual number of Native Hawaiians who lived on the island in 1941, but my research proved unfruitful). But you wouldn't know about that presence by watching Pearl Harbor. According to Bay, everyone on the island is white, except for Dorie Miller (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), a real-life American Messman Third Class who became the first Black serviceman to receive the Navy Cross as a result of his actions during the Pearl Harbor attack. Including Miller's story allows Bay to make some half-hearted commentary on segregation in the military, which is problematic in and of itself. But the complete erasure of Native Hawaiians from the story is so egregious that I found myself at one point actually yelling, "Where are the Hawaiians?!" I will admit that, watching this film in 2001 in my hermetically sealed bubble of white privilege, the absence of Native Hawaiians did not register with me. Now, I'm actually surprised that there wasn't a bigger outcry about it. I searched through Pearl Harbor criticism (and there is quite a bit of it) but none of the articles or reviews I found mentioned the fact that the film all but erases the Native Hawaiian population. I have to wonder how such a portrayal would be received in 2018.
• I definitely slut-shamed Evelyn as a teenager: Sigh. I can write at length about my complicated history with slut-shaming, and I'm sure I will at some point, but that's not what this blog post is about. Watching Pearl Harbor reminded me of all the judgement I held against Evelyn back in the day. You were supposedly in love with Rafe, but he was barely cold in the grave, and you're like, "Whatever, I'll just move on and start boning his best friend." Whore. Ugh. Yeah, it was bad. Watching the movie as an adult with some perspective on things like relationships and grief, her actions make a lot more sense. I mean, her and Rafe were dating for like a month before he left for Great Britain. I have leftovers in my refrigerator that are older than their relationship. Her reaction was completely appropriate - she was sad, she mourned she moved on. Why did I feel like she was somehow dishonest in her affection for him because she didn't wear widow's weeds for like, three years? I also mentally gave her shit for having sex with Danny, although that also makes more sense now too, and not just because Josh Hartnett in a pilot's uniform still makes me #thirsty. Grief makes you do crazy things. I definitely had some of my more questionable hook-ups in the wake of my father's death, and I absolutely attribute them to bonkers state of mind I was in after the loss. If having a little sexy naked time in a parachute hanger makes you feel better, Evelyn, then get it. I'm sorry I ever judged you.
• There's actually kind of a nice bromance at the center of the movie: Look, it's still Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett, so it's kind of like a bromance between two wooden fence posts, but still. This is a depiction of friendship between men who are actually able to show some vulnerability with each other, which is refreshing. Tucked in between the action-packed battle sequences and patriotic dick-waving are small scenes between Rafe and Danny showing them navigating the terrain of friendships - betrayals, support, fears, dreams, shared memories, and love. It was a surprise, and surprisingly sweet.

So there you have it, some thoughts and reflections on Pearl Harbor. Overall, I'd give it three glasses of wine, which is exactly the amount of alcohol to drink to be in the right state of mind to enjoy this movie as an adult.