HBO’s Band of Brothers: Countertendencies and the

World War II Combat Film Genre

JAMIE BOWEN

Torben Grodan defines “genre” as a category or set of characteristics given to

describe a piece of fictional work (162). These fictional works are complex and can
be analyzed and categorized in different ways, therefore making it difficult to have
one-size-fits-all categories (genres) in which to place fictional works (162). The
War film genre is no different, which has led to the creation of subgenres, such as
Prisoner of War (POW), war as propaganda, antiwar, and the World War II (WWII)
combat genre. Some even argue that the war genre is the “most difficult” of the
genres to characterize (Solomon 242).
A great example of this is the renowned WWII docudrama Band of Brothers
(2001). At first glance, and according to many viewer and film critic reviews, the
miniseries follows the traditional glorified and heroic genre characteristics of a
WWII combat film while simultaneously guiding the audience through an authentic
portrayal of the horrors of war. It transcends the genre by balancing between it and
its antithesis, the antiwar genre. This paper argues that Band of Brothers is truly
unique in that it goes beyond the traditional scope of either the antiwar or WWII
combat film by showing the complexity of human nature and its propensity for both
good and evil. WWII was perhaps the last war that was highly publicly favored.
The soldiers were viewed as the “good ole boys” or the “greatest generation” and
war was romanticized in popular culture. WWII popular opinion has even been
used by political leaders to justify their own desires to go to war in the modern day
(Morgan 26). Band of Brothers pulls back this façade, validating the soldiers of
WWII by showing both the heroics and horrors of war and not just the romanticized

JAMIE BOWEN is an assistant professor in the department of communication at Austin Peay

State University (APSU). Prior to APSU, Bowen worked in print media for three years and
corporate communication for six. His research centers on gender in post 9/11 American war
films. Bowen graduated with a Ph.D. in journalism and mass communication in May 2019 from
Arizona State University. He has a M.A. in public administration and a B.A. in mass
communication from the University of Utah. He can be reached at bowenj1@[Link].

The Popular Culture Studies Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1

Copyright © 2020

59
60 Bowen

parts. By breaking from the status quo, it gave space for post-9/11 war films to
transcend specific war sub genres and make more complex and nuanced stories.
Band of Brothers was a key turning point for how war is viewed today in popular
culture and American society. Band of Brothers has certainly been examined in
other ways by scholars (see Glen; Ramsay; Schatz; Zapatero and Ramos), but scant
academic literature exists considering it through this specific lens, therefore leaving
a void in the scholarly record.
Band of Brothers aired on HBO in fall 2001 as a 10-part TV miniseries co-
produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. The series is based on historian
Stephen E. Ambrose's book, Band of Brothers. The series portrays the experiences
of the paratroopers who served in “Easy Company” of the 101st Airborne during
WWII. The story follows the soldiers from basic training in Georgia to them
parachuting over Normandy during D-Day, all the way to the capture of Hitler’s
mountaintop fortress, Eagle’s Nest. The series chronicles the horrors of war from
the failure of Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands to the soldiers starving,
frozen, and at their wit’s end during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. Overall,
the miniseries is a realistic portrayal of soldiers at war. The critically acclaimed
series won the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for
Television and was nominated for two other awards (Band of Brothers).
Jeanine Basinger created the widely accepted WWII combat film genre after
examining more than 100 WWII films. Basinger defines the genre as following a
group of military personnel led by a hero while exhibiting the theater of war:
death/sacrifice/loss, military forces involved, relationship to history and the
objective (178-9). Although Basinger examined a wide range of WWII films in
defining the genre, the renowned WWII docudrama Band of Brothers (2001) was
not amongst them.
This paper will employ a close-reading examination of all ten episodes of Band
of Brothers. Using close-reading and textual analysis, this analysis will focus on
cinematography, dialogue, and acting in this series to assess techniques and
characteristics employed by the filmmakers to determine if these features fall in
line with characteristics and techniques used in the WWII combat and antiwar genre
or go beyond them. To gain a thorough understanding of how Band of Brothers
falls into line and differs from the traditional subsets of the genres it is attributed
to, background will be given of the war genre and the WWII combat genre.
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Band of Brothers exhibits
overarching characteristics of the WWII Combat genre and realistic depictions of
HBO’s Band of Brothers 61

war as illustrated in the antiwar genre. However, it goes beyond both genres in
exhibiting the atrocities of soldiers during war time by dehumanizing American
soldiers, which solidifies Stanley J. Solomon’s notion that the war film is “the most
difficult of all genres to define” (242).

The War Genre

According to Matthias Grotkopp and Hermann Kappelhoff, the war genre answers
the question of “Why do we fight?” According to the authors, the war genre
“includes the presence and memories of stocks of images on the one hand and the
attachment to a set of values, the mythology of sacrifice and guilt on the other”
(34). The typical war film creates an emotional experience, and “It is on these
grounds that the war film performs its function, modulating the emotional
experience of the audience and so shaping the process of living memory and
compassionate relation” (34). The war genre has several subgenres, thus making it
hard to lump any one film, let alone a ten-part miniseries, into one category.
Therefore, this study employs two war subgenres, the WWII combat film and
antiwar, to analyze the docudrama, Band of Brothers.
The WWII combat film genre, as created by Basinger, follows a group of men
with the hero as the leader. The group of men come from different areas of the U.S.
and from various backgrounds and socioeconomic status. The story is narrated by
an observer, usually a man keeping a diary or a man who thinks or talks out loud.
The leader/hero is forced into leadership, and the story unfolds as “a series of
episodes [...] which alternate in uneven patterns the contrasting forces of night and
day, action and repose, safety and danger, combat and noncombat, comedy and
tragedy, dialogue and action” (Basinger 176). The episodes feature deaths of group
members, battles, and growth as a group. The genre portrays the enemy either close-
up or faceless, and, in the end, the conflict is resolved after much sacrifice, loss,
discouragement, and hardship (Basinger 177). The genre is also propagandistic in
its portrayal of war.
Antiwar films and “glamorized” war films are both propagandistic, but with
differing results. “Glamorized” war films romanticize war through “illusions about
valor, liberty, and righteousness.” Antiwar films illustrate how war is full of “death
and desolation” (Solomon 250), and depicts “war as hell” through “interesting
evidence to document the truism” (Solomon 251). The antiwar film “operates
mainly in a realistic mode that serves to deglamorize the romantic elements
62 Bowen

associated with fighting for a cause, for freedom, or for the attainment of noble or
heroic ends” (Solomon 252).
This study will analyze the themes and characteristics from both the WWII
combat genre, highlighted above, and the antiwar genre as observed in Band of
Brothers. It will call attention to the realistic and deglamorized portrayal of war,
which goes in opposition to the traditional WWII combat genre. This analysis is
important to not only cement that the war genre is hard to define by having an
artifact falling under two contrasting subgenres simultaneously, but to pull back the
façade of the romanticized/glamourized WWII narrative in popular culture by
representing all war as hell, even the popular ones.

Findings in Band of Brothers

This study finds that the docudrama, Band of Brothers, exhibits various overarching
themes from the WWII combat film genre, as well as, characteristics of the antiwar
genre and beyond. The analysis was carried out through a rhetorical analysis of
dialogue and filmic language to show how it aligns with WWII combat and antiwar
films to produce a complicated representation of war.
Propaganda. Pro-military propaganda is employed from episode one, featuring
training at jump camp and introducing the audience to the group of soldiers the
series follows. The viewer sees Easy Company (the overall group) chant together
as they run up and down the mountain Currahee, which is a drill used to exhaust
the soldiers and weed out those who do not belong in the military. Although the
soldiers are running three miles up and down the mountain, their chanting together
and working together exhibits the brotherhood of the military.
Throughout the episode, the viewer gets a sense that training is tough through
close-ups on individual soldiers going through drills and their reactions to
commanding officers treating them poorly. A close-up is used on one soldier as he
is being told that he is going to get kicked out of the military unless he can run six
miles in fifteen minutes, up and down Currahee. A wide-shot shows him struggling
to run, and then the whole company shows up to run Currahee with him in full gear,
further demonstrating unity and brotherhood. Propaganda is further employed in
two other episodes: in episode two, where a successful operation is carried out and
fast editing and continuous shots are employed as propaganda to show excitement
of war; and in episode five, where an entire company of SS soldiers is taken by
surprise by Easy Company and are killed and captured, showing the enemy as weak
HBO’s Band of Brothers 63

and underprepared in comparison to the U.S. military. By exhibiting the

brotherhood of the military, exhibiting the excitement of war during battle, and the
superiority of the U.S. military, war is romanticized and therefore propagandistic.
Past Life Pieces. Rituals from the soldier’s past and present lives, such as
celebrating holidays, reading mail, and discussing postwar plans, are exhibited in
the episodes. In episode one, soldiers are successful at doing their jump. A close-
up shows them happy as they celebrate at a local bar by drinking and having fun by
insulting their commanding officer and trainer, Herbert Sobel. In episode two, the
soldiers are seen watching movies while waiting to jump on D-Day and picking up
their laundry from a local English woman. In episode three, a wide-shot of five
soldiers shows them gloating to each other about the different souvenirs they had
found while combing through the battlefield. In episode six, various close-ups
exhibit soldiers in their fox holes during the Battle of the Bulge, where they are
portrayed making coffee, discussing what they are going to do when they get home,
and singing on Christmas Eve. In episode ten, a wide-shot depicts many soldiers
playing baseball, and close-ups reveal a sense of relief to not be at war anymore.
Enemy Portrayal. In episode one, Sobel, the company’s commanding and
training officer during paratrooper school, is portrayed as an enemy to his soldiers.
This is first evident through a close-up of Sobel investigating his soldiers, trying to
find things about them that would not be considered by others to be a big deal. He
uses his findings of lint, rust, and wrinkly trousers as an excuse to revoke all
weekend passes. This is further indicated when Frank Perconte complains that he
had a crease in his pants when Sobel said he did not, making him feel like he was
unfairly judged by Sobel. Sobel functions as an enemy who brings the soldiers
closer together as they deal with his misgivings and absurdity as a unit.
Throughout the remainder of the series, the German soldiers were portrayed as
the enemy, mainly in a faceless way. During battle scenes, wide-shots portray the
enemy at a distance, and during D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, the enemy is
present but not seen by the audience. The enemy is seen close-up during episode 3
when company soldiers encounter some enemy soldiers after they parachute into
France. This is further exhibited during episode six, when Winters encounters a
group of SS soldiers and he kills one up close.
Hero/Leader. In episode two, Richard Winters is cemented as the hero/leader
of the group. When he lands in France, he is calm in demeanor when others are
scared, which is exhibited through close-ups on his face. This is further illustrated
as he maneuvers himself through the battlefield, collecting lost soldiers, using his
64 Bowen

savvy survival skills to lead them to safety. In episode five, Winters is portrayed as
a good leader after he carried out a mission that killed or captured an entire
company of SS soldiers. This is portrayed through a wide-shot of him running in
front of his soldiers, leading them to the battlefield. When he arrives, he is taken
off guard by a young SS soldier and an entire company of SS soldiers standing
around. A close-up shows him, without hesitation, start firing at the company even
though he is alone, having arrived earlier than the rest of the company. In episode
seven, the hero changes from Winters to Ronald Speirs as a wide shot shows him
take charge during the battle of Foye when others were overcome with fear.
Death/Loss/Sacrifice. Death and loss are evident in many of the episodes and
become an overarching theme of the series. Company soldiers are injured and are
either sent back to the battlefield or sent home. Lynn (Buck) Compton, who is
injured during a battle in episode four, is one of those soldiers who is sent back and
forth after being injured. By episodes six and seven, the company has lost many
members and loses three key characters in Compton, Joseph Toye, and William
Guarnere, all exhibited through close-ups during the Battle of the Bulge.
Furthermore, the great sacrifices these soldiers faced during this same battle are
evident as the camera portrays them in close-ups on their fox holes as they are
starving, frozen, and at their wit’s end from being undersupplied during the siege.
The deaths or losses of beloved characters weigh heavily on the company as they
maneuver through the war, to the point that the soldiers fear they will not make it
home either. This is best illustrated in episode eight by Donald G. Malarkey when
he is asked to run a mission in enemy territory. A close-up on his face shows that
he is disheartened at the need for him to carry out another mission. Malarkey is
later taken off the mission by his commanding officer, and a close-up on his face
shows the relief of not having to go out into battle again.
Countertendencies. Countertendencies are characteristics, methods, and themes
that are counter to what would be traditional to the, in this case, war genre or WWII
combat genre. In episode one, countertendencies such as dissent, anti-hero, and
anti-group are seen throughout the episode and portrayed through the lack of
support for Sobel. Sobel is portrayed as incompetent in the field of battle during
practices in Georgia because he makes bad decisions and fails to listen to his
supporting officers. His decisions result in 95 percent of his unit getting fake killed
during the drill. Similar results occur during drills in England, showing his
incompetence. The dissent is further demonstrated when Lewis Nixon worryingly
says, “He gets jumpy and you get killed” ([Link]-[Link]), referring to Sobel’s
HBO’s Band of Brothers 65

incompetence. Additionally, this is instilled when some soldiers are talking about
Sobel:
Roy Cobb: “You gotta admit, he's got no chance. Either the Krauts will get
him, or one of us.”
Joseph Liebgott: “Who? Sobel?”
Darrell (Shifty) Powers: “He screwed up one maneuver.”
Joseph Liebgott: “Ah, you know, I'm always fumbling with grenades...
Would be easy if one went off by accident, you know…”
Darrell (Shifty) Powers: “Well, they must have put him in charge for a
reason.”
Joseph Liebgott: “Yeah, 'cause the Army wouldn't make a mistake, right,
Shift?” ([Link]-[Link])
In a refusal to follow Sobel into combat, some of the soldiers create a mutiny by
writing letters of resignation to their commanding officer. A close-up on their faces
shows stoicism and frustration. Though it is treasonous to resign, they are ready to
face the consequences to survive in battle.
In episode two, sticking to the anti-hero countertendency, American soldiers
are portrayed as inhuman or evil. This is exhibited when William Guarnere
disobeys orders and kills the German soldiers relentlessly during battle. A close-up
on his face shows how angry and remorseless he is as he puts round after round into
the enemy. This shows that some U.S. soldiers treat the enemy inhumanely by
brutally firing upon the enemy when they are not returning fire. Furthermore, the
enemy is portrayed as human during the episode instead of evil. This is illustrated
when Malarkey comes across some German POWs and finds out that one is from
Oregon. Malarkey asks the soldier why he is in the German army, and he says that
he answered the call to come back to the fatherland to serve the Germans. This
humanizes the enemy by showing that they are just answering the call like the U.S.
soldiers and can even be from the same neighborhood. Immediately following this
scene, Speirs gives all the POWs cigarettes, seemingly as an act of empathy, but
then shoots them all. This makes some U.S. soldiers look like they are just as evil
as the enemy, although not every soldier agrees with Speirs’ action.
In episode three, unintended consequences of war, such as mental health issues,
are portrayed. This is first illustrated from the opening scene when Albert Blithe is
staring into the air. A close-up shot reveals that he is confused, signifying shell
shock or mental health problems due to the battle. Blithe is seen throughout the
battle of Carentan hiding and then gets hysterical blindness, which takes him out of
66 Bowen

battle. Throughout the whole episode, Blithe is hysterical and cannot compose
himself in battle. In one scene, a close-up of Blithe in a foxhole shows him
screaming during a firefight. Furthermore, Speirs’ character is portrayed as too
calm during battle, to the point of desensitization. In one scene, he is talking to
Blithe about how he sees war as just a game: “Yeah...It's a game, Blithe. That's all.
Hell, we're just moving the ball forward one yard at a time” ([Link]-[Link]).
Speirs then says:
Speirs: “You know why you hid in that ditch, Blithe?”
Blithe: “I was scared.”
Speirs: “We're all scared.”
Speirs: “You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But,
Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead.
And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a
soldier’s supposed to function…without mercy. Without compassion.
Without remorse. All war depends upon it.” ([Link]-[Link])
This demonstrates the psychological dissonance many soldiers go through in order
to cope during war, and further demonstrates that Speirs is desensitized. This in
turn dehumanizes him because he is now functioning as a soldier without mercy,
compassion, and remorse, which demonstrates why he killed the German POWs.
Additionally, looting and dehumanizing traits are seen throughout episode three.
Perconte steals multiple watches off dead bodies, which demonstrates a lack of
respect for the dead and is dehumanizing. A close-up later shows him again taking
a watch off a dead man’s arm as if it was a typical thing to do.
In episode four, the lines of morality are blurred as soldiers are seen looting and
laughing about it, as if looting is acceptable because they are at war. Later, the
ineptness of the U.S. military is demonstrated when the U.S. soldiers are dominated
during the battle, which is counter to propagandistic techniques, showing the enemy
as superior. Furthermore, this episode is the first time the theme of individual
survival is featured. Denver (Bull) Randleman gets stranded behind enemy lines
after the battle. During this time, he hides in a barn with a Dutch father and daughter
when a German soldier investigates the area. A close-up on Bull reveals him having
to kill the German soldier with a knife to avoid drawing attention to his location. A
close-up shows disgust in the face of a Dutch girl as she sees what Bull does. This
demonstrates the consequences of war (having to kill the enemy in a brutal way)
and the individual desire to survive, instead of focusing on the overall team
survival, which is typical in a WWII combat film.
HBO’s Band of Brothers 67

In episode five, mental health consequences of war are exhibited. This is

illustrated through a close-up on Winters when he is on the subway in Paris. He
sees a boy and then has flashbacks to the SS boy he killed in his last combat mission.
Winters is dazed from thinking about the flashback, and the boy finally has to tell
him that the train has come to its last stop. This clearly demonstrates psychological
trauma from his actions during missions. It is further demonstrated when Winters
talks with Lynn (Buck) Compton during a movie and he seems out of it mentally.
Buck had been shot in the previous episode and was not the same, which was visible
in a close-up on his face revealing a blank stare, showing him as a shell of a human.
In the final scene of the episode, Easy Company is preparing to replace soldiers on
the front line in Bastogne. When they pass by the soldiers returning from the front
line, close-ups reveal these soldiers as disheartened, defeated, and traumatized as
they walk slowly with their heads down, and one soldier simply says with
desperation to them to “get out of here” ([Link]), illustrating that he has gone
through hell and was warning others of what awaits them in Bastogne.
In episode six, the glory and heroics of war are removed, and the episode slowly
builds to questioning the war, exhibited through the medical staff. The first example
is after Renée Lemaire, a nurse, is complaining to Eugene Roe, a medic, after losing
a patient:
Roe: “You're a good nurse.”
Renée: “No. I never want to treat another wounded man again. I'd rather
work in a butcher's shop.”
Roe: “But your touch calms people. That's a gift from God.”
Renée: “No, it's not a gift. God would never give such a painful thing.”
([Link]-[Link])
A close-up shot shows that Renée is visibly upset. The nurse, who has an important
life-saving skill, has become so desensitized to the violence and gore that she no
longer sees it as important or life-saving. Though she isn’t overtly questioning the
war efforts, she is questioning the necessity of her skill set and obviously feels
hopeless because she compares it to a butcher shop, where the animals have one
fate: death. The juxtaposition between her hopelessness and Roe’s optimism and
apparent belief in the war effort is powerful.
The buildup of questioning the war continues through the eyes of Roe when he
brings his friend who is paralyzed to the nurse. A close-up on Roe shows him
standing, blank-faced, as a fellow soldier asks him what happened to the soldier
and Renée asks him if he is okay. He finally answers the soldier after being asked
68 Bowen

several times, but he never answers Renée. This, with fast edits between the
shocked look on his face and the large amount of wounded and dying soldiers,
exhibit his bewilderment of how little help the soldiers are getting from the U. S.
military. It is as if it is the first time he is seeing the scope of the human damage
and loss. The next scene is the climax of this notion of questioning the war where
the company is gathered around to listen to Col. Robert Sink read a letter from
General McAuliffe to the company. During the letter, a wide-shot shows Roe sitting
up against a tree with a disconnected look on his face while his fellow soldiers are
laughing at the content of the letter. The letter reads:
Col. Sink: “General McAuliffe sent a message to the entire division.
Thought maybe your people'd like to hear it.”
Col. Sink: “Men...General McAuliffe wishes us all a ‘Merry Christmas.’”
Col. Sink: “‘What's merry about this all, you ask? Just this: We've stopped
cold everything that's been thrown at us from the North, East, South and
West.’”
Col. Sink: “‘Now, two days ago the German commander demanded our
honorable surrender to save the U.S.A. encircled troops from total
annihilation.’”
Col. Sink: “‘The German commander received the following reply: 'To the
German commander: Nuts!’”
Col. Sink: “‘We're giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy
Christmas present, and being privileged to take part in this gallant feat of
arms, we're truly making ourselves a Merry Christmas.’”
Col. Sink: “Merry Christmas to you all and God bless you.” ([Link]-
[Link])
During the reading, the camera zooms in on Roe’s face after cutting between the
company and back to him, ultimately getting a medium close-up of his face. Roe’s
face appears disconnected, gazing into the distance, in disagreement with the light-
hearted reaction of his fellow soldiers to the letter. He sees this “privileged” and
“gallant feat of arms” as coming at a great cost, similar to what Renée called a
“butcher’s shop.”
In episode seven, we see more negative consequences of war (specifically
mental health) as well as anti-hero themes portrayed by incompetent leaders putting
soldiers in harm’s way. This is first illustrated in the interviews (with the actual
soldiers being portrayed in the miniseries) at the beginning of the episode when one
soldier talks about how he had trouble in later life because the events of Bastogne
HBO’s Band of Brothers 69

would come back in dreams and he could never forget them. When the episode
begins, the mental health of Compton is explained when he sees Joseph Toye and
Guarnere get blown up by an enemy shell. A close-up on Compton shows a look of
disbelief. The viewer later sees a close-up on his face showing him crying, as well
as a close-up of him at the aid station laying down and depressed. This montage
illustrates the consequences of war: depression.
Furthermore, Norman Dike Jr. is portrayed as an incompetent leader whom no
one can trust. This is portrayed through various comments from Carwood Lipton
during the episode. Lipton says that Dike would disappear for hours without anyone
knowing where he was, he was seen as a “bad leader” because “he made no
decisions,” and the company had “no confidence” in him. Lipton even complains
to Winters that Dike is “gonna get a lot of Easy Company men killed” ([Link]-
[Link]) when they invade Foye. During the battle of Foye, Dike goes against
Winter’s order and almost gets a number of soldiers killed. During the battle, slow
motion cinematography employs extreme close-ups of the soldier’s faces as they
frantically ask Dike to make a commanding decision. Instead, an extreme close-up
on Dike’s face shows him wide-eyed and stressed as he tries to make a decision.
In episode nine, overarching themes of humanizing the enemy, questioning why
they are still fighting, and excessive looting by Spiers are exhibited. This is first
demonstrated during the interviews with the real-life soldiers talking about the end
of the war. They talk about how they were fighting for their country, and the
Germans were no different. In the very next scene, a close-up on some violinists
and a cellist playing Beethoven while the German people clean up their bombed
town humanizes the German people. This is further illustrated when 300,000
German soldiers are marching past the U.S. troops after surrendering. Winters says
about the German soldiers, “Look at them, even in defeat they know how to march
with pride” ([Link]-[Link]), which shows a reverence for the enemy in their
surrender, which is humanizing, instead of mocking or demonizing them.
The questioning of the war effort is illustrated in this episode when Nixon talks
to Winters about the failed parachute mission they made earlier that day. At this
point, Easy Company is in Germany, and many German soldiers have already
surrendered, so the end of the war is near, and any further loss of U.S. life is
practically a waste. Nixon seems frustrated from the sarcastic tone of his voice as
he discusses how their plane took a direct hit and he and two other soldiers made it
out, but the rest of the company died over Germany somewhere, “Boom.” Winters
gives his condolences, and Nixon sarcastically agrees that it is terrible and says at
70 Bowen

least he did not die. Nixon then laments that he has to write all of the letters home
to the soldiers’ parents letting them know that their kids never made it out of the
plane, essentially saying that they died for nothing. Winters tells Nixon to write that
the soldiers died as heroes, and Nixon asks Winters, “You really still believe that?”
([Link]-[Link]). Winters replies with a yes and asks Nixon the same question,
but Nixon just brushes it off. Nixon appears frustrated at the pointless loss of life,
which furthers the questioning of the war effort.

Discussion and Conclusions

Although Band of Brothers exhibits overarching characteristics of Basinger’s

widely accepted definition of the war genre, countertendencies eclipse these
narrative conventions. Many countertendencies are realistic depictions of war as
illustrated in the antiwar genre, such as soldiers questioning why they are fighting
and unintended consequences of war. These realistic characteristics were referred
to in many user reviews of the miniseries on [Link], as well as from professional
film critics from Variety (McCarthy, Variety), The New York Times (James, The
New York Times), The New Yorker (Franklin, The New Yorker), and BBC News
(Hill, BBC News). For example, the miniseries was portrayed as a balance between
“the ideal of heroism with the violence and terror of battle, reflecting what is both
civilized and savage about war” (James, The New York Times). However, some
countertendencies, such as the dehumanization of American soldiers and enemy
humanization, go beyond both genres in exhibiting the atrocities of soldiers during
war time. Only one professional film critic referenced these countertendencies,
stating that the soldiers, “the good, the bad and those in-between—are exposed in
their glory and their flaws” (Clinton, CNN). By discovering the countertendencies
in Band of Brothers to this definition, it further cements Solomon’s notion that the
war film is “the most difficult of all genres to define, even though the idea of war
is obvious enough” (242).
Accordingly, cinematic characteristics of the WWII combat film genre were
evident in Band of Brothers; however, there were various countertendencies
exhibited as well. The textual analysis revealed overarching themes of Basinger’s
war genre throughout the entire ten-part series. A group of military men (Easy
Company) is led by a hero (Richard Winters) to carry out various military
objectives. The group is composed of men from various backgrounds and ages. As
the series unfolds, contrasting forces are seen throughout “night and day, action and
HBO’s Band of Brothers 71

repose, safety and danger, combat and noncombat, comedy and tragedy, dialogue
and action” (Basinger 176). The enemy is seen throughout the series, sometimes
close and sometimes faceless. Rituals of the past and present are enacted throughout
the series, such as celebrating at the bar, singing, reading mail, doing laundry,
playing sports, celebrating Christmas, and discussing post war plans. Various
battles take place that create learning and growth for the group, and many members
of the group die or are injured.
The textual analysis also exhibited various countertendency characteristics in
the docudrama, which fall in line with the antiwar genre. These are soldiers
questioning why they are fighting and unintended consequences of war. These
elements fall within Solomon’s two goals of antiwar films: “[to operate] mainly in
a realistic mode that serves to deglamorize the romantic elements associated with
fighting for a cause, for freedom, or for the attainment of noble or heroic ends;” and
“[to employ] an iconoclastic approach to debunk heroic warfare” (252).
The textual analysis revealed two countertendencies that go beyond the WWII
combat genre and antiwar genres: enemy humanization and dehumanization of
American soldiers. Propaganda is an overall theme of the WWII combat genre, and
propaganda tends to portray the enemy in a negative light. According to visual
propaganda theory, propagandists (those who are facilitating in the creation of
propaganda) often diabolize the enemy or dehumanize them to help justify their
actions and rationale towards the enemy during war (Bryder 103-6). Additionally,
the core of the war genre comes from the character’s attitudes toward the enemy,
“the heroes are motivated to defend their side against an oppressive or totalitarian
enemy, usually depicted only from the heroes’ point of view, if depicted at all, as a
source of abstract evil” (Solomon 244).
By concluding that Band of Brothers transcends the traditional scope of both
the antiwar or WWII combat film, it has validated the soldiers’ experiences in
WWII by portraying both the heroics and horrors of war and not just the
romanticized parts. Additionally, it has given space for post 9/11 American war
films to transcend specific war subgenres and make more complex and nuanced
stories. Band of Brothers was a key turning point for how war is viewed today in
popular culture and American society.
Although this study demonstrates that Band of Brothers goes beyond the typical
WWII combat or antiwar film in its realistic portrayal of war, further research is
needed to demonstrate if this is evident in its sister WWII docudrama, The Pacific
(2010). Additionally, this research is limited because it is applying film war genre
72 Bowen

characteristics, which are reserved for a filmic medium, to a war miniseries, which
is made for television.

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