Dunkirk and the Politics of Reverse Sexism

In a previous blog, I described how cultural diversity upholders have pilloried Christopher Nolan and his “Dunkirk” for whitewashing Operation Dynamo, and how even the French are complaining that the film ignores them. But the biggest heat Nolan’s unconventional war flick received came from the Faux-Feminists who precisely challenge the movie for following combat film conventions.

The FF group has a tremendous beef with the lack of feminine presence in “Dunkirk.” Let me start by saying I do wish there were more women in Dunkirk, but as a war film connoisseur I understand the absence of estrogen and applaud Nolan for at least showing us some girls in his epic.

“Dunkirk” belongs to a subgenre better known as “combat story.” It’s one of the many subgenres that shelters under a huge umbrella known as “War Film.” Other subgenres are Holocaust movies, medical army yarns, resistance tales, espionage flicks and home front drama. In those categories, women rule. Just think ”Diary of Anne Frank,” ”The English Patient, ” “Charlotte Gray, ” and  “Mrs. Miniver.”

Women in war films

On the other hand, it’s a century old convention that films dealing with combat experience in Korean, Vietnam and World Wars do not have women characters hovering about the battlefield. Are there recognizable women around in films such as “Saving Private Ryan, “ ”The Sands of Iwo Jima,” ”The Thin Red Line,” “The Great Escape,” or “Apocalypse Now ?”  Even “Black Hawk Down” and “The Hurt Locker” lacked feminine presence.

(Daily Mail)

Our images of women involved in Operation Dynamo come from old photographs and newsreels, and they are always on English soil: nurses bearing wounded soldiers on stretchers, canteen workers pouring thousands of cups of tea, and, of course, the women that waited on shore for their men. We met them as the “jambusters” of Great Paxton in “Home Fires.” Farmer Steph welcoming her husband back; housewife Pat not so happy to know that her abusive husband is returning after being wounded in Dunkirk; butcher Mim mourning her son missing at sea, and Sarah coming to terms with knowing her husband, and Great Paxton’s vicar, is now a prisoner of war.

Steph gets her husband back, but Dunkirk has traumatized him.

So, it is highly innovative that Nolan placed women in the thick of the battle. Because, despite all the nitpicking, the film does show us female nurses tending soldiers on the ships. And, ohhh my, they look courageous and useful. In fact, their brief appearance makes them seem morally stronger than many of those poor hysterical soldiers. But complainers (complaining is such a free and rewarding habit) already find fault in his inclusion. The nurses are annonymous, they have few dialogues, etc.

Hey, how many male characters have names in Dunkirk? There is Sir Mark Rylance’s Dawson and his crew, they got names. Kenneth Branagh is Commander Bolton, Tom Hardy is Farriers and his sidekick is Collins (played by Jack Lowden. Don’t forget THAT name). Do they get first names? No, that would be too much.

Hurry! Harry Styles is drowning! Give him more lines!

 Harry Styles is called Alex and gets lots of lines (but no last name) because…let’s face it!  He is Harry Styles. Aneurin Bernard’s dog tags identify him as Gibson. But we learn that he has not a Gibson bone in his body. No spoilers here, but it is linked to the French accusing the film as Francophobe. Cillian Murphy’s character is terribly important, and gets to spout gibberish a lot, but in the credits, he is strictly known as “Shivering Soldier.” Hi, Shivering!

The one that is a hoot is Finn Whitehead, who for some reason, is believed to be the main character. In the credits, he is known as “Tommy. “ Critics and reviewers missing the irony, think his name is Thomas. Wrong!!! Tommy was an affectionate nickname for British soldiers.  Sort of Gi Joe. Since Nolan has directed an allegory, Tommy comes to be a sort of Everyman, a representation of all those stranded on that beach, dreaming of haven.

So, it is established that. in “Dunkirk,” male characters have few lines to speak and even less names to wear. Therefore, we cannot hold against Nolan that his women are discreet, but diligent and helpful. Still, I have a feeling that women did play a part in that epic retreat, a larger part.

For years I have wished to write something about a woman in Dunkirk, but who could she be: a nurse, a refugee, a girl crossdressing as a soldier? Then, at the turn of the Millennium, I began writing a novel about the war. At some point, one of the heroines borrows her dad’s yacht and heads to Dunkirk to rescue her French husband. Was there a precedent in real life? Did women man some little boats? Were they part of the crew?

Right before seeing “Dunkirk”, I got to see “Their Finest.”  In that comedy, Gemma Atherton is hired by the Ministry of War to write a script about two girls who crossed the Channel in their dad’s boat. Except that eventually it is found out that due to engine problems, Rose and Lily never got too far from the shore. For propaganda purposes, the filming of  "The Nancy Starling"continues.

 I got a sour taste in my mouth. So that’s what women efforts amount, then and now? To celebrate epic anecdotes that never took place? To make things worse, now “Their Finest” is being peddled as a reverse-Dunkirk, a film that does “highlight the role of women in the Second World War.” Don't get me wrong. I love "Their Finest"but it's not comparable to "Dunkirk."

 In a way, Christopher Nolan has saved the day for us girls. He does include female sailors. In one Little Ship, we see a lady in skirts. Yes, she is woman, doesn’t look like a Scottish soldier on a kilt. And then we have Kim Hartmann, in an apron, all Mama Weasley feeding rescued soldiers in a boat. As her small craft passes Commander Bolton on the pier, she yells at him that she is coming all the way from Dartmoor.

Nevertheless, faux-feminism is not satisfied. The final pearl came from Mehera Bonner. This Marie Claire contributor, took over Twitter to complain about “Dunkirk” calling it “mediocre,” an excuse “for men to celebrate maleness,” and went on to describe Second World War as a war “dominated by brave male soldiers.”  She expanded her peeves further in an article where she summons Nolan to make war films about women or about other marginalized groups. I believe that since so little has been done on Dunkirk, this movie IS ABOUT a marginalized group.

Bonner also says she would rather stick to films like “Wonder Woman.” I happen to like “Wonder Woman,” but I can tell the difference between light fantasy and historical fiction. Bonner’s opinion is of no consequence to me, but the fact that her bizarre tweets got 22.000 Likes tells me she is not alone in Idiocy Land, and that worries me.

For the record, Dunkirk is not a macho movie. My brother fell asleep while watching it, and pronounced it “not riveting enough.” On the other hand, my ovaries had me on the edge of the seat, biting my nails and crying.  Oh, I did cry watching those not so brave male soldiers being rescued by the very  old, the very young, the very feminine. And I’m not a lonely voice in the wilderness. 

Writing for The Federalist, Emily Zanotti has called Bonner’s opinion “offensive” and “sexist” and has remembered that the ones that buried down women’s contributions to Second World War were the late 20^th century feminists who, like their icon Jane Fonda (and others),  were sooo anti-war.

 I feel all this nitpicking has dragged us away from the film, its merits and its flaws. Isn’t it about time to bury the hatchet, and concentrate on “Dunkirk” as an artistic achievement?  All the controversy should be settled by an enlightened opinion such as that expressed by  Rohan Nahar  in The Hindustan Times:

Dunkirk is about an ideal - which is why none of the characters are defined beyond basic traits, like their first names and perhaps their rank. We know nothing about them. We care because the film inspires empathy. We don’t want to see human beings die a terrible death. These characters are meant to represent everyone who was involved in the operation. It is a celebration of the bravery shown by common people. And if Indians were involved, the film, however abstract it is in its ways, pays homage to them too.

 I hope as the hype goes down, people will go into libraries and do research about the forgotten minorities.  I hope that in the incoming months more will be written about Dunkirk, about the Indians, the French, the Women, (and even if it’s not politically correct, about the Jews, as well) that were involved in the rescue. Christopher Nolan’s film has opened a door for all of us who are not militant, just afflicted by insufferable intellectual curiosity, to learn about an important but terribly overlooked historical event.

Nolan, Dunkirk and the Madness of Diversity

For religious reasons, I couldn’t get to see “Dunkirk” on its debut week. In the interim, I tantalized myself reading every review of the blessed film. Soon, I noticed an ongoing trend. Reviews did not dwell on historical accuracy or cinematic merits, they were all about Christopher Nolan’s omissions regarding multiculturality. It has been said that the film is “too white” and that it fails to comprehend all the nationalities present on that beach. Apparently, Chris Baby, you did manage to wake the dragon. Bad Boy! But would  “Dunkirk” have been historically correct if the director-producer-scriptwriter had played the diversity card? Did Nolan have the time and space to tackle every minority’s experience on that chaotic but amazing evacuation?

I am not a Nolan fan. His films meet with my utmost indifference, but I am a Second World War buff and I feel the Battle of Dunkirk (and the evacuation scheme known as “Operation Dynamo”) has got  little coverage in historical fiction.  The arrival of this mega films to local theaters had me enthused and grateful for a chance to see my favorite baby boar, Tom Hardy, in a Spitfire cockpit.

I first heard about the Battle of Dunkirk, there on that South American outpost known as Chile, when I was eight years old. My dad, a bigger WWII buff than me, subscribed to a history of the war published, in installments, by Espasa-Calpe. I still recall the cover of that thin pamphlet called El Milagro de Dunquerque (The Miracle of Dunkirk) and the very sad picture of those flat helmets worn by the British army, strewn on the abandoned beach. It was so touching to see that last glimpse of the helmets in Nolan’s film.

(Daily Mail) 

And so, in second grade I knew all about the British Expeditionary Force, besieged by Nazi Germany’s army, and wondrously hauled home by a last-minute mass departure that got over 300.000 men out of that beach. Although valuable equipment had to be left behind, the rescued troops saved the Allied cause. Otherwise, there would have been no soldiers to defend Britain or to continue the war on other shores. In its day,  Dunkirk was hailed both as a success and a miracle, but nowadays most average millennials know nothing about such a pivotal historical event.

The truth is that Dunkirk, as momentous as it was, is not properly covered in history texts. Historians have not yet come to terms as to whether to consider it a terrible defeat (it was) or a triumph of the spirit (in propaganda terms, it was an absolute victory).  And when it comes to films, so few have been done.

Two years after the mega evacuation, Walter Pidgeon, playing the husband of that heroic “Mrs. Miniver,” took his sloop to sea to rescue Allied soldiers. Thus, Hollywood incorporated Dunkirk to its repertoire. Alas! It was a one-night show, because Tinseltown has never again touched the subject.

Oddly enough, neither were the British very much into commemorating Dynamo on film. After 1945, the English film industry would annually bring out a batch of war flicks, but  it took eighteen years for it to develop something about Dunkirk. Properly called “Dunkirk,” it covered Operation Dynamo through the eyes of a journalist (Bernard Lee), a profiteer turned heroic rescuer (Lord Richard Attenborough), and Sir John Mills playing the quintessential Tommy. Even though “Dunkirk” was a total hit, it would take almost sixty years, before anybody, in the English-speaking world, dared to film the epic retreat again.

In 1964, The French tried their hand in the Battle of Dunkirk.  Professor Robert Merle had won the 1949 Goncourt Prix with Weekend a Zuydcoote, a novel based on his own experiences on that fateful beach. He was one of those soldiers who didn’t make it to England and ended up in a German Stalag. He writes then not about Operation Dynamo, but about doomed men stranded in a town that is slowly being destroyed. Henri Verneuil adapted the book in 1964 with Jean Paul Belmondo (the hottest actor in France then) playing the lead, Sergeant Julien.

It was common for Dunkirk to resurface on film adaptation of novels, but as a passing event in the lives of the protagonists. One example is Paul Gallico’s tear-jerker The Snow Goose which is subtitled A Story of Dunkirk. In 1971, Jenny Agutter (decades before becoming sweet Mother Julienne in “Call the Midwife”) won a BAFTA, playing Fritha,  an Essex country girl. Thanks to the title goose, she befriends Philip (Sir Richard “Dumbledore” Harris), a reclusive hunchbacked artist. When war breaks, Philip is rejected by the army. He proves his valor precisely by taking his boat to Dunkirk and rescuing several hundred men before getting killed.

Thanks to Ian McEwan, Millennials got to hear about Dunkirk when the most famous soldier to trample its beaches, Robbie Turner, took them there in Atonement. James McEvoy played Robbie in the film adaptation.  There are two things I liked about the film, Keira’s green dress and the inclusion of the Battle of Dunkirk.

When criticizing Nolan’s merits, one should bear in mind then that there is almost no precedent for his film. In “Dunkirk, ” he strives to cram as much as he can for the viewer to leave the theater with at least an idea of what happened on those Northern France’s beaches. Nolan divides his film in three settings (the Army on the beach, the Navy and the Little Ships on the sea, and the RAF on the air) each within its own timeframe.  That is a lot to cover in an hour and forty-seven minutes. Nolan himself has said that this is neither a documentary not your conventional war movie. He describes “Dunkirk” as a work about “the mechanics of survival.”

As I said, before seeing the movie, I tried to get an idea of what I would encounter. More than reviews, I found disparagement. Few technical reproaches, plenty on content. On The Vulture, where the film was ripped apart, one of their complaints was about Nolan’s glorification of the Little Ships (and the Little People too). “Little Ships” refers to an armada of over 800 vessels (some of them private and manned by civilian crews) that took part in Operation Dynamo.

It is true, we can’t say their contribution saved the day. Obviously, the bulk of the evacuation rested on larger ships, but people such as the character played by Sir Mark Rylance  on “Dunkirk” or like Gallico’s hunchback,  inspired the nation with their courage (they did risk their lives), their patriotism and their altruism. Moreover, and due to shallow tides, large craft were unable to reach the beaches.  By getting close to land and ferrying soldiers to the bigger vessels, the Little Ships were instrumental in hastening, easing and upgrading the rescue process.

But the main condemnation that has fallen on Nolan’s work isabout  his lack of cultural diversity. It started with a standard (in our era of Political Correctness) warning made by Brian Truitt  in his USA Today review: “the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way.” Of course, the conservative press, on both sides of the Atlantic, had a field day laughing at what they deemed liberal crap, or the inability to understand that the clashing armies of Dunkirk were monochromatic.  That incorrigible James Delingbone had me on stitches.

Also, it would have added a new dimension had James Earl Jones been cast as the salty old Royal Naval officer called out of retirement for one last trip across the English Channel, or if Ice T and Snoop Dogg had been given the role of two aging rappers who parachute from a Dakota to administer weed to the desperate troops, or if Oprah appeared in a cameo as Queen Mary welcoming the returning troops after their desperate voyage.

But it wouldn’t have been historically authentic.

Delingbone is better at sarcasm than Lyanna Mormont, but he is missing a point.  The British Army was not entirely white. In 1939, four Royal Indian Army companies arrived in France. Known as K6, they were mostly Muslim Punjabis and Pathans from what is now Pakistan.  They were present in Dunkirk, Indian officers were decorated, mules had to be left behind, three Indian contingents were evacuated, one fell into German hands.

Two Indian soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk (Getty Images)

The Times of India was the first medium to blow the whistle in Nolan’s oversight. Others followed suit. I do mind the omission, but I can understand the film’s limitations. However, Indian soldiers have appeared in British war films since the Rank’s gong days. I remember as a pre-adolescent (in my “drooling over Dirk Bogarde” stage) watching Indian soldiers fight the Japanese in “The Wind Cannot Read.” And the Indian military effort has been celebrated on screen from “The Jewel in the Crown” to “The English Patient”.

Naveen Andrews as sapper Kip Singh in "The English Patient"

Now, Nolan can’t be blamed for this specific lapse since he has overlooked so many other nationalities. This was a world war, and although no British colonial forces were present at Dunkirk, we do get to glimpse a black man in a French uniform on the film. The French colonial army was anything but white and their contribution was enormous.

Contingents of Moroccan troops were among those forces that held the Germans at bay, propitiating the retreat.  But the French are not complaining about the race issue, they find the film offensive because their contribution and their presence are so minimized. I find this nitpicking exhausting. Imagine if other “white” nationalities would echo this bickering?

Soldiers from the Colonial French Army on their way to Dunkirk

Although, at some point Harry Styles and his Merry Men do bump into a Dutch soldier, “Dunkirk” does not talk about the Dutch and Belgian evacuees (ships from the Low Countries also joined the trop ferrying effort). There were Free Poles on that beach, and thanks to “Home Fires,” I learned there were also Free Czechs.  None of them are mentioned in the film.  Master Nolan, you are slipping, Sir!

Czech Captain Novotny came from Dunkirk to bring joy to poor,  plain and abused Pat.

Truth be told, most Eastern European troops were evacuated in a joint effort known as Operation Ariel that went on a couple of weeks after the Dunkirk exodus was over. It continued throughout June from the main French ports on the Atlantic, and rescued French, British, Polish, and Czech soldiers as well as British nurses and some equipment.

Nolan’s film has made France unhappy. Her media complains about  French troops being ignored in the storyline. Surprising, since the film is brutally honest about the British attitude towards their allies.  The success of Dynamo was possible thanks to 30, 000 French soldiers that remained behind fighting off the Germans (The Indian contingent fought along them). As the film shows us, British Navy personnel felt their priority should be their Tommies, so the French were put on hold. It was only Churchill’s demands that made it possible to evacuate almost 100, 000 French troops. But they were the last to leave, as exemplified in the film by Commander Bolton’s final remark:” I’m staying for the French.”

At Le Monde, Jacques Mandelbaum calls Nolan’s omission impolite. He describes the film as “une histoire purement anglaise.” He says the film only gives a dozen of minutes to his countrymen. Geoffroy Caillet writing for Le Figaro is much more offensive. He claims that Operation Dynamo was a betrayal of the French since it ruined Le Plan Weygand and helped pave France’s debacle. WTF? You idiotic Frog (and I can use the word. My paternal grandmother hailed from La Gascogne just like D’Artagnan).  That is pure Vichy propaganda! Sorry, Mes petits, I will mourn for the slighted, forgotten French in Dunkirk, but raise my middle finger to those who use such false arguments.

When I was young, we had a neighbor, Monsieur Daniel G, he was a Communist and a former resistant. He also claimed to have fled Dunkirk. He said that on noticing that the French soldiers were lagging, he went, found himself a boat,  and rowed towards one of the British destroyers. They couldn’t turn him away and so he got to England.  I never knew if the story was apocryphal or not. But it could have happened.

French soldiers are hauled from water after their ship has been bombed off Dunkirk shore (BBC)

In Mandelbaum’s critic, he also mentions that we never get to see the Dunkirk civilians, and they had a tough time too. Well, this is an odd film, since the idea is to show civilians (ergo British) coming to rescue the soldiers, but it is true we don’t get to see the town or its inhabitants. In fact, Dunkirk was far from deserted. Its population expanded thanks to a constant reflux of Belgian refugees, most of them Jewish.

And hey! Now that every minority is demanding a pound of Nolan’s flesh, it’s time for me to join in. How come nobody mentions Jews in this film?  There were Jewish refugees on Dunkirk, and Jewish crews manning both the British vessels and the Little Ships. There were Jews in the British and French armies. Historian Marc Bloch, then a captain in the French Army, was evacuated in the Daffodil. There is no mention of the Jewish army doctors that were taken away by the SS and were never heard again. Only one of them reappeared, Isadore Scherer,  a South African medical officer, who ended up in Colditz Castle.

Some have complained that Nolan does not show the fate of those who fell in German hands. In fact, at the end of the film, when Farrier (Tom Hardy) hands himself over to the Germans, we just shrug. Tom Hardy managed to escape from “Colditz” in 2005, he can do it again. The truth is that a prisoner’s lot was not a  good one. Officers got to go to Stalags, other ranks became forced laborers. Those were the lucky ones .

Tom Hardy after escaping from "Colditz"

Several hundred of British soldiers of all ranks were massacred by the SS at Le Paradis. Dunkirk survivors don’t have a happier story to tell, deprived of food, water and medical aid, they were also beaten and mocked by the Germans. In a way, I’m glad that Nolan forgot to include their plight.  The movie is harrowing enough as it is.

In my next blog, I’ll go on detail about Nolan’s last faux-pas and how it has enraged the denizens of faux-feminism. Poor man, he just can’t seem to do right by minorities!

Poor Nolan! Now he is a Zionist agent