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dc.contributor.authorPötzsch, Holger
dc.date.accessioned2023-12-13T12:19:23Z
dc.date.available2023-12-13T12:19:23Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.abstractThis article conducts a critical reading of the British war films Mark of Cain (Munden, 2007) and Battle for Haditha (Broomfield, 2007). Establishing the significance of cultural representations for politics and collective memory, I first locate both films in their historical and cultural contexts before I offer analyses that focus on the representation of US and British soldiers, Iraqi insurgents, and Iraqi civilians. I argue that Mark of Cain dissects how misunderstood loyalty, peer-pressure, and military organization facilitated abuses by British soldiers against Iraqi prisoners, but at the same time narrowly frames the Iraqi other as either largely invisible threat or hyper-visible helpless victim. In contrast, Battle for Haditha draws a more sophisticated picture of the Iraq war focusing on structural aspects of the conflict. In presenting the Iraq theater of war as a complex political economy with shifting allegiances and blurring loyalties, Broomfield offers insights in the backgrounds and rationalities of US soldiers, Iraqi civilians, and insurgents and this way alerts the viewer to structural aspects of evil in war as a system that reduces the paradigm of possible actions on all sides until only wrong decisions can be made. This, I conclude, makes Battle for Haditha an anti-war film proper.en_US
dc.identifier.citationPötzsch H. Guilt and Grievability at War: Military Accountability and the Other in 'Mark of Cain' and 'Battle for Haditha' . Journal of War and Culture Studies. 2024;17en_US
dc.identifier.cristinIDFRIDAID 2212122
dc.identifier.issn1752-6272
dc.identifier.issn1752-6280
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10037/32057
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.relation.journalJournal of War and Culture Studies
dc.rights.accessRightsopenAccessen_US
dc.rights.holderCopyright 2024 The Author(s)en_US
dc.titleGuilt and Grievability at War: Military Accountability and the Other in 'Mark of Cain' and 'Battle for Haditha'en_US
dc.type.versionacceptedVersionen_US
dc.typeJournal articleen_US
dc.typeTidsskriftartikkelen_US
dc.typePeer revieweden_US


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