Does the nice guy really finish last?

Communication theorist Kenneth Burke is recognized as the expert concerning dramatism, a notion that humans use language strategically to deal with life, resembling acts of drama. Derived from Burke's work with dramatism surfaces pentadic criticism, which focuses on five essential elements:  act (what took place), scene (background/context), agent (who's performing the act), agency (means of performing the act), and purpose (goal of the act). Once a critic has identified the five elements, they can then further analyze the artifact to locate its dominant term or idea everything else centers around. This blog will consist of a brief attempt to apply Burke's concept of dramatism and pentadic analysis to the film "Charlie Wilson's War." 

 

"Charlie Wilson's War", a 2007 picture directed by Mike Nichols and starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, displays one of the most covert operations in U.S. history. The film tells the true story of Charlie Wilson, a congressman who collaborated with CIA members and other countries to save Afghanistan from communist Soviet Union invasions during the Cold War, a time when the U.S. was in a "neutral" position. 

Necessary for pentadic criticism is the initial identification and explanation of each element, in this case, from the movie-makers view. With those elements, I will attempt to answer what point or worldview the move maker works to get across.  

Act - well-intentioned, well-known, wealthy people working for the rescue of victims and citizens in Afghanistan suffering from violent and cruel attacks of the communist Soviet Union.

Scene - Afghanistan and the U.S.

Agent - Charlie Wilson, CIA operatives, and Joanne Herring, Charlie's friend that primarily encourages and arranges for him to address the issue in Afghanistan.

Agency - "Charlie Wilson's war"/ allied countries of the US, Pakistan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia helping the Afghan population through providing appropriate weaponry and training to Afghan guerrillas.

Purpose - point out the irony in the U.S. endangering relations with the Soviet Union to help Afghanistan during the Cold War, and suffering one of the worst terrorist attacks, led by Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan's Taliban, in 2001.

I propose the identified purpose as the film's dominant element, or goal for making this film. As identified, I think the movie maker's purpose for creating the film is centered around the irony of the U.S. and Afghanistan relations during the Cold War versus the 9/11 attacks. While watching "Charlie Wilson's War", I couldn't help but think how ironic the action of "Charlie Wilson's War" is. The country the U.S. took major risks and spending a total of $500 million dollars for during the Cold War houses the party that killed thousands of Americans two decades later in an extreme act of terrorism, and the country America finds itself in war with today.

This film encourages its audience to consider that no good deed goes unpunished. The U.S., with allied countries Pakistan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, acts as the “good guy” in this film, helping a country find its way out of a terrible, defenseless situation against communist invasion. This film and its movie maker seem to support the conundrum that the nice guy will always, eventually, finish last, and asks the audience to consider and evaluate how much good resulted from helping Cold War Afghanistan. Different opinions concerning the situation of Charlie Wilson argue that the weapons provided to Afghanistan guerrillas during the Cold War laid the foundation for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Given the tragedy of the September 11 terrorist attacks, some say Charlie Wilson and the U.S. should have just stayed out of Afghanistan to begin with, rather than providing aid but wiping their hands clean of any after-math responsibility.