LOS ANGELES – Viewers of the third instalment in the Band of Brothers series, Masters of the Air, were treated to a unique experience for its thrilling finale, in the form of a 72-minute long-take of 46-year-old White man, Kevin Harrington of Rockford, Illinois, gratifying himself.
Series producer Tom Hanks spoke of the symbolism of the episode. “When Steven (Spielberg) and I started this journey over 20 years ago, we had one core objective in mind, to try to capture the essence of that most-noble of conflicts in a way that evokes its place in our hearts and minds,” he said. “You’d think we’d labour over what to present for this finale, but it was actually pretty clear. Nothing encapsulates the public’s feelings when they hear the phrase ‘World War II’ quite like a White dude grabbing some hand lotion and engaging in The Battle of the Bulge-in-his-pants”.
Many critics are hailing the studio’s decision to cast an amateur for the series’ conclusive episode, a bold choice that casting director Kathy Fellows says was the result of hours of research. “We knew we couldn’t just grab any old nobody, we needed a nobody who really cared,” she explained. “We scoured through countless social media posts in the USA, Canada, Britain and Australia for phrases like ‘lest we forget’, pictures of Arlington cemetery, photos of family members in uniform and, of course, poppies, before we found our guy; but, even then, we weren’t sure”.
She continued, “But, once we set him down in front of the camera, let him unzip, raise the flag on Iwo Jima, and get a good grip on his Fat Man and Little Boys, we knew we had our man”.
Despite its overall success, the series hasn’t been without its detractors, with many citing the general lack of presence of soldiers of colour, but studio exec Lance Darby waved away any concerns. “Hey, we’re all very concerned about diversity and, while you might not see them on screen, people of colour are an important part of this production in a very special way”. He explained “Do you think a guy can just edge for over an hour on his own? No! that’s why we had to temper his excitement by shouting out sobering facts to bring down his mood”.
We had a guy off screen screaming things like “The Pacific War actually started long before 1941, but no one cared because all of the victims were Asian!”, “British India contributed the largest volunteer force in human history, despite all of the abuses they suffered under colonization!” and “The most-decorated American regiment was composed of Japanese Americans, many whose families had been interned, and whose commanders often deployed as cannon fodder for the safety of White soldiers!”.
“That’s what makes it so satisfying at the end when screams ‘Nagasaki’, and finally breaks the Siege of Phallograd. He got there the hard way”.
In the end, though, Darby insisted the end product is what the people really want. “Look, you know you just want celebrate our victory and not ask whether the firebombing campaigns were justified, pretend that Medgar Evers- a decorated veteran- wasn’t murdered by a White veteran for registering African Americans to vote, and keep believing that all the sex soldiers had overseas was consensual”.
