Cultural impact of the Falklands War

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The cultural impact of the Falklands War spanned several media in both Britain and Argentina.

Contents

[edit] Books

[edit] Non-fiction

The war provided a wealth of material for writers, and many dozens of books came from it; in the United Kingdom (UK) the definitive account became Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins' The Battle for the Falklands. Other titles focused on the Sea Harrier (Sharkey Ward's Sea Harrier over the Falklands), the land battles leading up to the Argentine surrender (Christian Jennings and Adrian Weale's Green Eyed Boys), and the general experience of battle (Ken Lukowiak's A Soldier's Song and "Marijuana Time").

[edit] Fiction

  • Jack Higgins' thriller Exocet dealt with one of the war's most famous "buzz-words"; for many years afterwards, "Exocet" became synonymous with "missile" in the UK ("Yomp" and "Task Force" also entered the language).
  • In 1983 Pierre Boulle published the novel La Baleine des Malouines, translated in the UK as The Falklands Whale and in the US as The Whale of the Victoria Cross, about a blue whale which befriends the British task force.
  • Raymond Briggs' picture book The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (1984) is a satire of the Falklands War.
  • In 1997 Australian Jim Thorn wrote a novel about a fictional sequel to the conflict, "Falklands 2".

[edit] Poetry

The famous Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, himself partly of British descent and bilingual in Spanish and English, wrote in 1985 a short poem (Juan López y John Ward) about two fictional soldiers (one of each side) that died in the Falklands, which he refers to as "islands that were too famous". He also said about the war: "The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb."[cite this quote]

A large amount of poetry has been written on both sides, regarding the war. An Argentine example, is Elegy for the Argentine Dead Boys, in the South Atlantic by Salvador Oria.

[edit] Films and television

A small number of films and television productions emerged from the conflict.

  • Simon Weston, a Welsh Guardsman who had suffered serious burns during the bombing of Sir Galahad, became a popular figure due to British media coverage. A series of television documentaries followed the progress of rehabilitation and eventual recovery from his injuries, the first being Simon's War (6 April 1983) in BBC One's QED series.
  • The first Argentine film about the war was Los chicos de la guerra ("The Boys of the War") [1], directed by Bebe Kamin in 1984.
  • The film version of Whoops Apocalypse (1986) features a conflict very similar to the Falklands War between the United Kingdom and a fictional country Maguadora over the fictional Santa Maya.
  • The 31 May 1988 BBC drama Tumbledown, told the story of Robert Lawrence MC, a junior officer in the Scots Guards (Colin Firth) left paralysed down his left side by a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by an Argentinian sniper on Mount Tumbledown during the final push for Stanley, and his adjustment to disabled life after the war.
  • On 13 June 1992 the BBC screened An Ungentlemanly Act, relating the story of the initial defence of the Islands during the Argentine Invasion, with Bob Peck as Major Mike Norman and Ian Richardson as Governor Rex Hunt.
  • Although the drama by Ian Curteis that became known simply as The Falklands Play was originally commissioned by the BBC in 1983 and then temporarily set aside until 1985, the Corporation subsequently gave a number of reasons why it could not be made, including that it would have been broadcast too close to the 1987 General Election. Curteis maintained that the generally sympathetic portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, and his refusal to include material that was contrary to both the official record and what his interviews with the major protagonists had revealed, went against a perceived BBC anti-government bias, citing the fact that Tumbledown - which he and others claimed was more "anti-establishment" - was made and broadcast. Curteis's play was eventually recorded in a truncated form and screened by the digital satellite channel BBC Four in 2002.
  • The 2005 Argentinian film Iluminados por el Fuego ("Enlightened by Fire") [3], directed by Tristán Bauer and starred by Gastón Pauls, received a San Sebastián Festival special award. The film tells about a veteran's memories, re-awakened after he learns of the suicide of a former soldier comrade.
  • The 2006 British film This Is England [4], directed by Shane Meadows, is set in July 1983 in a small coastal town in England and includes documentary footage and pieces of radio broadcasts about the Falklands War. The main character of the film is 12-year-old Shaun whose father was killed fighting in the Falklands War.

[edit] Theatre

  • British playwright Steven Berkoff wrote the highly critical satirical play Sink the Belgrano! about the British decision to go to war and the sinking of Belgrano.

[edit] Sport

Tottenham Hotspur's popular Argentine midfielder Ossie Ardiles had helped beat Leicester City one day after the invasion, to no ill effect, although he subsequently left the UK for a year, of his own volition. Ardiles' cousin, José Ardiles, a fighter pilot, was killed whilst on service in the War. The war also created heightened passions between Argentina and England in the 1986, 1998, and 2002 FIFA World Cups, featuring memorable performances by Diego Maradona, Peter Shilton, and David Beckham. (See Argentina and England football rivalry.)

[edit] Music

Music referencing the war includes:

  • Pop musician Elvis Costello wrote the song "Shipbuilding" (1983) with Clive Langer in response to the Falklands War. Written from the point of view of workers in a depressed shipbuilding town, it points out that their jobs come at the expense of the lives lost in the war.
  • Much material produced around this time by the anarchist punk band Crass was extremely critical of the war and its aftermath, in particular the album Yes Sir, I Will and the singles "Sheep Farming in the Falklands" and "How Does it Feel to be the Mother of 1000 Dead?" The latter, intended as a statement directed at Mrs. Thatcher, led to questions in parliament and a request for prosecution for obscenity from Conservative MP for Enfield North Timothy Eggar [5]. Crass were also responsible for Thatchergate, a hoax tape, originally attributed to the Soviet KGB, on which the spliced voice of Margaret Thatcher appears to imply that the HMS Sheffield was deliberately sacrificed in order to escalate the conflict.
  • The Falklands War provided much of the subject matter for Pink Floyd's 1983 album The Final Cut, written by Roger Waters. The lyrics are highly critical of perceived British jingoism and of the Thatcher government's actions. A specific lyric protesting the sinking of ARA General Belgrano reads: "Brezhnev took Afghanistan; Begin took Beirut. Galtieri took the Union Jack. And Maggie, over lunch one day, took a cruiser with all hands... apparently to make him give it back."
  • The folk rock band The Levellers wrote and produced the song "Another Man's Cause" featuring the lyrics "Your daddy well he died in the Falklands."
  • Macclesfield based punk band The Macc Lads penned a typically un-PC song called "Buenos Aires (1982, Falklands War Mix)" which included lyrics such as "Costas Mendes lives in fear / Of men who drink real beer!" and "hey hey hey / The Boys are on their way / With their planes and tanks and tommy guns / and their bellies full of Boddingtons."
  • The song "Como Estais Amigos" written by heavy metal band Iron Maiden is a tribute to the Argentinian people and those who fought and died in the Falkland Islands war.
  • The title track of The Exploited's 1983 album Let's Start a War directly addresses the Falklands War, implying Margaret Thatcher started it almost on a whim, for her own benefit and to take the focus away from other problems Britain was facing at the time such as unemployment.
  • On their album From Here to Eternity: Live, The Clash, substitute a line in Career Opportunities for "I don't wanna die, fighting in the Falkland Strait" which was a common adlib during their set at the time.
  • Some people in Britain took the song "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" by the New Zealand pop group Split Enz to be a criticism of the war, and the song was banned by the BBC. The group denied that this was the song's intent [6].
  • Relating to the sinking of the Belgrano, British garage band Thee Milkshakes recorded the instrumental song "General Belgrano" on their fourth album "The Men With The Golden Guitars" released in 1983. The song begins with the sound of a submarine's sonar.
  • Punk band New Model Army's "Spirit of the Falklands" took a highly critical stance of the war and its 'selling' to the public by the British Government.
  • In 2006 Swedish power metal band Sabaton released the album Attero Dominatus, featuring a song entitled "Back In Control", whose subject is the Falklands War. It features lyrics along the lines of "Back in control, push them further out to sea / Falklands in our hands, back under British reign".
  • Political Singer / Songwriter Billy Bragg's 1983 album Brewing Up with Billy Bragg featured a song Island of no Return, in which a soldier details his experiences 'fighting fascists in the southern sea'. Bragg joined the British Army in 1981, but bought his way out a few months later.
  • The Falklands Hymn by Iain Dale
  • The song 'Uninvited Guest' by British group The Christians mentions the Falkland Wars briefly in its lyrics.
  • American Midwestern Disc-Jockey/Musician Steve Dahl parodied the war using his own lyrics but the music of the J. Geils Band song "Freeze-Frame".
  • The Finnish rock band Eppu Normaali published a song Argentiina on their LP Tie Vie, comparing the war to a bad football game with cheating, incompetent referee (who understands only baseball) and "the choir of the disappeared" as the cheerleaders.
  • The Clash make reference to the war in the song This is England.
  • Extreme right wing band, The Ovaltinees sang the song "Argentina" about the war on the 1983 EP "British Justice".[1]

[edit] Computer games

  • The popular computer games Harrier Attack and Yomp presented unofficial portraits of the fighting.
  • The naval strategy game Strike Fleet included a scenario set in the Falklands, where the player took control of British destroyers under attack from Argentine submarines.
  • Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis is a critically acclaimed tactical shooter and battlefield simulator released in 2001. The game is set in 1985 on a small island of peaceful civilians, overrun by a hostile invading force. Although the combatants in the game are American and Russian, there are very obvious parallels with the Falklands campaign. There is also an unofficial mod (1982: Flashpoint in the Falklands) [7] for the game that explicitly deals with the Falklands war.
  • Malvinas 2032 is a real-time strategy game, in which the player has to command the Argentine forces and re-take the Falkland Islands for Argentina, developed by Sabarasa Entertainment.
  • Falklands War - 1982 — This scenario collection, created with the Harpoon3 naval warfare simulator, is intended to accurately recreate the real-life war from 1982.

[edit] State Recognition

Monument for the fallen soldiers, Buenos Aires
Monument for the fallen soldiers, Buenos Aires

The war is commemorated as Día del Veterano de Guerra y los Caídos en Malvinas (Veterans and fallen soldiers of the Falklands Day), a public holiday in Argentina, usually on the first Monday of April. It is sometimes referred to as Malvinas Day.

In Britain, those who lost their lives are remembered as part of Remembrance Sunday.

In the Falkland Islands themselves, there are two holidays as a result of the war, Margaret Thatcher Day on 10 January, and Liberation Day on 14 June (or first Monday after, if it falls on a weekend).

[edit] External links