Sahara Reflection (Sharmeen Mahmood)
This week's movie was definitely supportive of the war propoganda. Bogart's role was very much the ideal "american hero." The movie was pretty good overall and even better in terms of following the government's agenda for Hollywood. The movie portrayed the enemy as one which was ruthless and must be taken down. For example, the nazi soldiers killed the french man by shooting him in the back after meeting to try and come to an agreement. The American soldiers were seen as very brave and yet good hearted men. This was seen by the way that they treated the Italian man whom they came across in the desert. I do not think that the movie really showed the role of minorities much. However, from whatever was shown of the sudanese man, you can clearly see the discrepancies in roles of white men versus men of color. The sudanese man was shown in a very slave like role. He was very obedient to the other soldiers based not only on the ranking of the soldiers but solely on their skin color. He is told to jump down the well and without any hesitation immediately jumps. Also, I feel that even the minority religion which he belonged to (Islam) was not portrayed correctly. The sudanese man claims to quote the Prophet Muhammad when in fact, being a muslim myself, I don't think that the given phrase was authentically the Prophet's. A mockery was made of not only the sudanese man, but also of Islam in that scene.
The fact that women were not really a part of the storyline says something on its own. I feel that it kind of puts the role of women secondary to everything else that is shown. Perhaps this was not deliberate on behalf of the film's producers. However, I feel that by not adding any significant female role in the film, the producer's have made a statment of their own regarding the war.
Overall I thought that Sahara was a pretty decent movie. I think that it must have really served its purpose in the time it was made. It is very supportive of the war and I can see how it may be used to boost morale regarding the war efforts.