Chris Dahmen's Sahara report.
In the film Sahara, the amount of propaganda is quite ubiquitous, and blatant. The production front; supplying materials for victory, civilian responsibility, nature of the war itself and the subordinate relationship of other allied nations and especially the German and Italian nations (the enemy) America are all adequately represented by Tom Gunn. He is the all American anti-intellectual who is most representative of the American propaganda especially as it is conveyed and taught to Americans as an ideology. First, according to the prevailing ideology, the production of materials at home was everyone's responsibility. It is only natural that the film would have a scene where the hard boiled anti-intellectual wouldn't give up when his tank broke down, but would instead keep trying to fix it until it worked because there was a serious war going on and everyone had to do their share. His name too "Tom Gunn" sounds like "Top Gunn" is appropriate. He is a hired gun with no wife and kids at home, he's just here doing his job, his duty. This was a serious working class man who could have been just like anyone. His image and identity is more popular with the masses of poor working class people who were the one's who really help the war effort at home. The depiction of the English and French as totally subordinate to the US is embodied or symbolized when the French and English officers give the sargeant Tom Gunn full responisbility to lead them to the promised land. There is also a fleeting joke about Tom GUnn being Moses at one point in the film too. The French officer is called "Frenchie." Something that French men would undoubtedly object to today. His character is portrayed as a lazy playboy who just want to follow the mission because he likes the AMerican's cigarettes. The joke implies an open stereotype. The nature of the enemy too is an open form of ideology that is not an accurate depiction whatsoever. The Germans and the Italian prisioner were alienated throughout the film, the germans in particular were seriously depersonalized. One way this is carried out is through language. Everyone in the group speaks English. But the German doesn't speak English until the end and even then it is only for political purposes, not for humanitary ones. THe Italian prisioner's accent is deliberatley accentuated to give the slight impression of foreignness. And the mission of the war in general has a kind of Christian appeal that is executed through some Christian motifs in symbolism and allegory. For example, the tank is like Noah's Ark and the grandiose mission is to have every one of the European allies and axis together in this "universal" human dillemma against the forces of nature. But the irony(or lack thereof) is that it is a working class anti-intellectual American who is conducting this mission for "humanity." Even the geography is like the middle east (Israel). Also TOm Gunn lambasts the German prisioner at one point in the story by saying that he is willing to "cheat, steal, and kill his neighbor." This was three and a half of the ten commandments the German was being accused of breaking. (the half was the reference to neighbor. "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife") I don't know what's more sacreligious, breaking the ten commandments or using this ideology to slander others reputation in film with an American audience. There is a moment when in a triumphant jubilee of victory, someone yells out "it's a miracle." after realizing there is a spring of water that was just discovered that no one knew about in the desert. John the Baptist anyone? Finally there is one allegory of the "sermon on the mount." Tom Gunn acting as Jesus, gets tempted by the German commanding officer of a regiment acting as Satan on the Temple of the mount acting as whatever mount they were standing on(?) three times. THe third time the German officer, Satan, gave in and wanted some water. Thus they were metaphorically weaker than the anti-intellectual version of Jesus the AMerican savior of humanity...