War in Ukraine. A Hollywood Film

      It is now Day Six of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Up to this point, the TV broadcasts failed to catch my attention, although the event itself was important to me. If truth be told, my nationality lay rooted in Ukraine: my mother was born there and so was all her immediate family. As Jewish immigrants, she and her parents escaped from their homeland, her father carrying her on his shoulders across a river. To this day, I have yet to know which waterway. I only knew that it was 1908, and I was told all these years that my family ( and I ) were Russian.

     As a media critic, I tend to see live broadcasts of war as "story telling," often replicating a Hollywood film. After all, wasn't the first Iraqi War during the early 2000's like a western or even horror movie, following a traditional narrative structure: introduction of a problem ( the enemy's takeover of Kuwait ); presentation of protagonists ( TV correspondents and particular military fighters who became heroes); the goal ( winning the war); barriers for the U.S. that challenged this  goal ( facing agrarian vs. urban environment and unfamiliar territory, among other problems); and resolution of the war.

     The current conflict follows this structure and will likely continue to do so, the focus being on both the overcoming of the barriers facing Ukraine and the connection that the audience has with the "protagonists."  The viewers are beginning to look forward to seeing the networks' chief foreign correspondents ( NBC's Richard Engel in my case ), to follow their movements from place to place, to begin to worry where they are if they don't appear regularly. We are also bonding with particular local Ukrainian residents, beginning with Alexander, a restaurant owner who has become a hero helping other inhabitants, taking refuge in a parking lot in Kyiv,  

     And, of course, there's President Zelenskyy, another hero who refuses to leave his Capitol, who says, "I don't need a ride, I need ammunition." Such words are being repeated even now, both a rallying cry for the war and the conveying of the essential barrier in the war: lack of arms.

     The President's statement is being echoed throughout the broadcasts in a strong way: the image of Russian tanks in a 17-mile line heading toward Kyiv. What a powerful visual metaphor for Ukraine's plight. 

     Story telling, the Hollywood way, does it again.