This is unfortunate as the premise of Da 5 Bloods could have lent itself to a more rigorous examination of racism, war and social class. Both charges—that Da 5 Bloods may not question the nexus between Black-power politics and anti-imperialism as far as it could have, and that it falls victim to the same clichés it chastises—expose frictions in the film’s politics that Lee doesn’t quite resolve. There is a deeper darkness to be explored when Blackness is at the heart of the matter. Spike Lee’s new film, Da 5 Bloods, is not your typical American Vietnam War movie. If BlackKkLlansman was a limp, naive and ultimately safe plea to white audiences, Da 5 Bloods is frightened and angry. Thankfully, Da 5 Bloods is a tremendous experience, though it is also clear that the copious amounts of Spike Lee’s famous idiosyncrasies hurt as often as help. No signup or install needed. In putting Black subjectivity at the center, Lee also continues to put American subjectivity at the center. But overall for me personally the film felt a bit disjointed, overly long and struggled to get across the points it wanted to make. I’ve always been aware of the political Tight Rope that Nguyen has had to walk – living immersed as he has in the (south) Viet Namese-American community. Dear Black GI: Da 5 Bloods and Spike Lee’s gory, exploitative examination of imperialism and PTSD. “Forrest Gump” is a stone-cold classic (despite what my brother says) and Robin Williams will always be my favorite comedian. The group also left a large cache of gold bars. Vietnamese Lives, American Imperialist Views, Even in ‘Da 5 Bloods’ - The New York Times Jun 24, 2020 3 mins, 27 secs For Americans, Hollywood turns a defeat by Vietnamese people into a conflict that is actually a civil war in the American soul, where Americans’ greatest enemies are actually themselves. This is certainly true for what Americans call the “Vietnam War” and what the victorious Vietnamese call the “American War.” Both terms obscure how a war that killed more than 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese was also fought in Laos and Cambodia, killing hundreds of thousands more and leading directly to the Cambodian genocide. But Da 5 Bloods contains bright spots and inquiries into blackness, imperialism, and Vietnamese-communist dissent worth hearing out. “Da 5 Bloods is a welcome reminder of Lee’s vitality and value as a filmmaker.” President Fake Bone Spurs is a frequent punching bag with MAGA hats employed as quasi-cursed objects. “Da 5 Bloods” is a lesser Lee movie — honestly, it’s a mess — whose characterizations of Vietnamese people are inextricable from its political failures. Unfortunately, I don’t have the expertise nor the time to lay this groundwork in its fullest, but the history of America stealing property from Black families and preventing Black families from wealth accumulation through house ownership is much more recent that many of us remember. Da 5 Bloods (2020) Director: Spike Lee Screenwriters: Spike Lee, Kevin Willmott, Paul De Meo, Danny Bilson Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Delroy Lindo, Jean Reno, Jonathan Majors, Norm Lewis, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Clark Peters RATED: R (strong violence, grisly images, and pervasive language) Sometimes a serious drama. They never lynched me. Oof. The emphasis of the violence in war, I believe, actually distracts the film from its own core narrative, being a biting criticism of the American government. ‍And so is this: The relationship of American imperialism and war films.‍My apologies, but I must dive into another quick history lesson. And no, McConnell is not responsible for his ancestors’ wrongs, but too many lawmakers choose to forget that the very definition of the wealth gap means that you inherit economic benefits from your ancestors where other people do not. Despite assigning 200 agents to the case, the FBI never found out who constituted the Citizen’s Commisssion. Born in Vietnam but made in America, I have a personal and professional interest in Hollywood’s fetish about this war. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is a vital work on an overlooked subject in American film: the experience of black veterans in the Vietnam War, a perspective largely lacking from … At the end of the day, Da 5 Bloods isn’t truly about American imperialism. Ep. Your email address will not be published. Da 5 Bloods is American Imperialism in Blackface — Ft. Bitch Pack, Phan, and Michelle ('Escape From Plan A' Ep. 194) Escape From Plan A Podcasts Movies Media Phan Le, Thuc Nguyen, and Michelle Pham join Diana to critique Spike Lee's Vietnam War movie "Da 5 Bloods". Ep. Family members, outraged Twitter posts, politicians, and journalist correspondents who fight against reparations with head-shaking comments like this gem from The Week in 2019: “The moral case for reparations may be strong, but the political and cultural consequences of enacting the policy are likely to be extremely high.” Or the infinite words of wisdom from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: “I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years go, when none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea.” This coming on the heels of ancestry records showing that McConnell is a descendent of Alabama slaveowners. and subsequent collaboration with American Imperialism. On the one hand, I am an admirer of many of Lee’s movies. But Da 5 Bloods contains bright spots and inquiries into blackness, imperialism, and Vietnamese-communist dissent worth hearing out. Da 5 Bloods is Spike Lee fully embracing his strengths as both an essayist and a pulp scavenger, finding form in adventure genre modes while taking to task a symbolic Vietnam space affected by American images, the threat of imperialism, and the dynamics of historical trauma. ‍Reparations are scary. The Vietnam War was further proof that Black soldiers could become victims of American imperialism … But maybe I’m underselling its divisiveness, even among people who support slavery reparations. Da 5 Bloods happens today, but there are scenes where the four main characters are twenty-something men fighting the Vietcong. Viet Thanh Nguyen writes about how, despite the centering of Black voices, Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods still falls into the trap of American imperialism in regard to its Vietnamese representation in this op-ed for the New York Times. . Full Disclosure represents a clear alternative to the Pentagon’s current efforts to sanitize and mythologize that war, and to thereby legitimize further unnecessary and destructive wars. Other people, like The 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones, believe that individual payments are non-negotiable. Da 5 Bloods is Spike Lee fully embracing his strengths as both an essayist and a pulp scavenger, finding form in adventure genre modes while taking to task a symbolic Vietnam space affected by American images, the threat of imperialism, and the dynamics of historical trauma. Da 5 Bloods shifts in and out of itself with cutaways and references to American and cinematic history, along with traditional flashbacks. March 1971 Opinion polls indicate Nixon’s approval rating among Americans has dropped to 50%, while approval of his Vietnam strategy has slipped to just 34%. I have read “The Sympathizer” and want to get Viet Nguyen’s other book on Viet Nam, but this analysis of Spike Lee’s film shows a very welcome political evolution by this important writer and analyst. Da 5 Bloods star Delroy Lindo has praised the Thai film crew Spike Lee used on his new film, praising them as the real heroes of the film.. In the film, the ultimate realization is this: When it comes to Black Reparations, we are forced to trust an American imperialist government to take moral action, rather than their precedent of acting on self-interest. Could his antiracist critique overcome the investment in American imperialism that most Americans have without knowing it? But Da 5 Bloods has an even wider scope, trying to take in the entire sweep of American imperialism from Vietnam on, and confronting how black citizens sacrificed their … It’s a story of four Black Vietnam veterans returning to Ho Chi Minh City to retrieve the remains of their fallen commanding officer and recover a fortune of gold, originally intended as payment from the CIA to the Lahu people for fighting against the Viet Cong, lost in the jungle. They never called me n—. The Vietnam War was further proof that Black soldiers could become victims of American imperialism after being used as … Of these 7, 5 agreed to be publicly identified: Keith Forsyth, John C. Raines and Bonnie Raines, and Robert Williamson; the recruiter and informal leader, William C. Davidson, died in 2013 before the book was published but had planned to reveal his involvement. . Where Da 5 Bloods feels incomplete, though, is in its overall consideration of American imperialism, and that murkiness is most obvious in the film’s central argument, which itself feels conflicted. Produced by Netflix, Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is an action-adventure movie and a journey through American history that is as much about war movies as it is about the Vietnam war. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Da 5 Bloods is a 2020 American war drama film directed, … Has anyone ever read “From Hanoi To Hollywood: The Vietnam War In American Film”? The Full Disclosure campaign is a Veterans For Peace effort to speak truth to power and keep alive the antiwar perspective on the American war in Viet Nam — which is being commemorated during this decade with a series of 50th anniversary events. Four black US veterans travel back to Vietnam to retrieve the remains of a fallen comrade: “Stormin’” Norman Holloway. Out of 16 military personnel charged with offenses concerning the My Lai massacre, only 5 were actually court-martialed, and only Calley was found guilty. And in terms of who they were fighting against — many questioned who the real enemy was.‍“Da 5 Bloods” begins with this very notion. For many, many years now, Hollywood has avoided the stories of Black Vietnam War veterans. Could his antiracist critique overcome the investment in American imperialism that most Americans have without knowing it? Your email address will not be published. Part 1. . The scars of imperialism never leave when the media tells you the boots have left. John Huston's classic 1948 treasure hunt western-adventure is a big influence on the latter half of Da 5 Bloods, as the Bloods are forced to overcome a variety of challenges in their efforts to collect the missing gold bars and get out of Vietnam in one piece. Hollywood has only recently started a movement to create films that are more diverse and socially responsible — depicting the inhumanity of war without accidentally glorifying its violence or propagating a national agenda. The agent in charge of COINTELPRO was William C. Sullivan. white American soldiers who had no problem flying the Confederate flag at base camps. It was put together by Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. Why? For Vietnamese people, as well as Laotians, Cambodians and Hmong, their role is almost always that of the extra, their function: to be helpful, rescued, blamed, analyzed, mocked, abused, raped, killed, spoken for, spoken over, misunderstood or all of the above. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods begins with a long montage of archival footage that ranges through the ’60s and ’70s, including images of Muhammad Ali, Lyndon B. Johnson, Neil Armstrong, Angela Davis warning of fascism coming to the U.S., and the fall of Saigon. A big chunk of “Da 5 Bloods” pays tribute to John Huston’s masterful 1948 adaptation of B. Traven’s classic parable of greed, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Like that film, the plot involves a search for gold, though unlike Humphrey Bogart and John’s dad, Walter, the main characters here have a good idea where the treasure is. More so than any Vietnam War movie I've seen, Da 5 Bloods goes beyond the psyche-scarring, generational consequences of fighting in an unjust, unjustified war, instead becoming about the psyche-scarring, generational consequences of how imperialism forces its victims to fight one another rather than their oppressors. ), March 30 It was later found out that on this date; “a confidential Army directive orders personnel to intercept and confiscate personal mail containing anti-war and other dissident material sent to soldiers in Vietnam.”, VIETNAM FULL DISCLOSURE / VETERANS FOR PEACE Towards an honest commemoration of the American War in Vietnam, “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory . Then repression, intimidation, and entrapment are to be expected.” The files were distributed to the media, which led to the exposure of the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO program: a series of covert, and often illegal, projects begun in 1956 aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political opposition. 231: Quitting your startup to play Cyberpunk. ... imperialism, and violence are tragically, inextricably intertwined. Unfortunately, that is really easy to forget in a film that is — even critics who praised it will admit this — tonally inconsistent. March 1 A powerful bomb apparently planted in protest of the invasion of Laos. Meanwhile, American war efforts and its depictions in popular entertainment engender a patriotism that supersedes other social abuses. Black reparations are necessary.‍Black reparations are necessary.I’m saying it twice because we seem to get caught up in the numbers, questioning “how much?” or, “how many?” or, “how long?” while the world — as far as the world of the American government can extend itself — continues to drag its heels. It’s a timely watch, sure, but it’s also a timeless one. English. “Da 5 Bloods” is full of wonderful performances, and the warm, profane masculine banter among the bloods is a response to and a relief from the horror they have shared and still face. But despite his valiant efforts, Lee’s conflating of the legacy of imperialism in Vietnam and “MAGA” America doesn’t quite work. "Though sometimes messy and freewheeling, Da 5 Bloods is a fascinating, frequently gripping and powerful interrogation of the connection between American imperialism, anti-Black racism, and … Memory is haunted, not just by ghostly others but by the horrors we have done, seen, and condoned, or by the unspeakable things from which we have profited.”. On the other hand, I feared that Lee, despite being a Black American with a powerful, necessary voice, would, in the end, be an American. March 8 The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI removes files from the Media, Pennsylvania office of the FBI. Director: Spike Lee. 194: Da 5 Bloods is American Imperialism in Blackface by Escape From Plan A from desktop or your mobile device They didn’t put no dogs on me. Senator McGovern attributed the bombing to “our Vietnam madness”. One faction, like Bernie Sanders or the city of Asheville, North Carolina, believes that investing in community organizations and government initiatives are the only ethical means of distributing reparations. Black soldiers finally get their own story, but in one important respect, the film is no different from other Hollywood dramas that … Stories that underline America’s usage of Black soldiers as fodder for the frontlines or the government’s insidious Project 100,000, which drafted impoverished Black soldiers at a disproportionate rate. Errors in the Official Commemoration Website, Resources for Learning about the American War in Viet Nam. Half of all Americans polled believe the war in Vietnam to be “morally wrong.”. Budget. Da 5 Bloods takes you on a journey you'll never forget. These Viet Kieu are overseas VNese who left after 1975, because of their essential collaboration with the defeated American occupation. How the majority of Black soldiers felt they were fighting two fronts — Martin Luther King Jr. leading the Civil Rights Movement back home while fighting (for?) It took us a hot minute, but the foundation of Black reparations is essential to understanding both the story of the film and its contemporary social commentary. For Americans, Hollywood turns a defeat by Vietnamese people into a conflict that is actually a civil war in the American soul, where Americans’ greatest enemies are actually themselves. He is sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor; the sentence is later reduced to 20 years, then 10 years. In its own typically solipsistic, American-centered, whitewashed fashion, Hollywood has been waging this war on celluloid ever since John Wayne’s atrocious “Green Berets” in 1968, a film so nakedly propagandistic it could have been made by the Third Reich. Da 5 Bloods is Spike Lee fully embracing his strengths as both an essayist and a pulp scavenger, finding form in adventure genre modes while taking to task a symbolic Vietnam space affected by American images, the threat of imperialism, and the dynamics of historical trauma. FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover issued directives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, neutralize or otherwise eliminate” the activities of these movements and especially their leaders. ‍To borrow from a social media post going around lately: “If you care more about looting than human life, well … We don’t know what else to say.”‍Because the American government has been looting Black communities for centuries. ... the film fails to challenge the violence the committed during the war or have anything to really say about global imperialism. Lee stuffs a dizzying amount of context in Da 5 Bloods, which is part polemic against the lasting damage wrought by American imperialism, part history lesson and part rejection of … This one is shorter, I promise.American cinema sure loves war, and if the Academy Awards are any measurement (which is debatable), to the spoils go the Vietnam War. Da 5 Bloods feels both timely and timeless, Lee doing what he does best — giving an unflinching and layered look at the complex connections between anti-Blackness, American identity, and American imperialism. ... imperialism, and violence are tragically, inextricably intertwined. It’s an exercise I recommend to no one. In an interview with Into America: NBC News, Hannah-Jones states, “There should be individual cash payments to descendants on top of investment in segregated Black communities and segregated Black schools, on top of strict enforcement of the civil rights laws that we already have.”‍But here I go again, getting lost in the details of the debate. From Oscar darlings “Platoon” and “Forrest Gump,” to the valkyrie helicopters of “Apocalypse Now” and Robin Williams’ iconic radio broadcast “Gooooooood morning, Vietnam!” — Hollywood has a certain reluctance to depict Vietnam as anything other than moments of white American heroism, and we as moviegoers are reluctant to change it. Spike Lee's new film goes far in its critique, but not far enough. Da 5 Bloods tries to tackle the entire sweep of American imperialism from the Vietnam War on. Spike Lee’s new film, Da 5 Bloods, is not your typical American Vietnam War movie. This article originally appeared in F Newsmagazine. That’s what we’ve heard. exploded at 1:32am in a restroom in the original part of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, with responsibility claimed by the “Weather Underground”. However, his lost remains were not the only thing they left behind on the battlefield. But instead of expensive SFX, Lee just had his 60 … The members’ identities remained secret until early 2014, when 7 of the 8 who could be found agreed to be interviewed by journalist Betty Medsger, who was writing The Burglary. And even as it takes up unfinished real-world business at home and in Vietnam, “Da 5 Bloods” wrestles with some of the defining myths and motifs … 1. They didn’t rob me of my nationality.”‍Essentially, American imperialism is an erasure of human civil rights. 194: Da 5 Bloods is American Imperialism in Blackface by Escape From Plan A from desktop or your mobile device (See entries for March 16, and March 28, 1968, September 5, 1969, November 12, 1970, and March 31, 1970. In this context, “Da 5 Bloods” rightfully deserves its moment as it recounts, in unique Spike Lee fashion, the experiences of some of the Black soldiers who fought in disproportionate numbers during a war whose racism cut both ways, against Black (and Brown and Indigenous) American soldiers and also against the Vietnamese (and Cambodians, Laotians and Hmong). Playwright, Media Journalist, Editor, Designer, Black Reparations and American Imperialism in Da 5 Bloods, McConnell is a descendent of Alabama slaveowners, I’m Thinking of Ending Straight White Masculine Things, Every Snake Sheds Their Skin: “White Snake” and Regressive Representations of Heroines. Because of this, it is no less an imperialist narrative than the stories Spike Lee is trying to separate his work from. Da 5 Bloods has some great performances particularly by Jonathan Majors and Clarke Peters, also loved the use of the aspect ratio to reflect time periods. 232: 1/6...peak unrest or a glimpse into a chaotic new year? It was a powerful speech that Lee inserts into the final scene of Da 5 Bloods, a prophetic punctuation mark to Lee’s grand thesis. However, upon coming to the land of their “ally” these Viet Namese have been largely met with racism at worst, and dismissal at best – by U.S. society in general, and Hollywood in particular, even by Black filmmaker Lee. “Da 5 Bloods” is an adventure into the heart of darkness worth pursuing. ... war, and global imperialism. Da 5 Bloods takes you on a journey you'll never forget. 194) Escape From Plan A Podcasts Movies Media Phan Le, Thuc Nguyen, and Michelle Pham join Diana to critique Spike Lee's Vietnam War movie "Da 5 Bloods". ‍Which leads me to my final thoughts on the social relevance of “Da 5 Bloods.” It is a critique of the idea that the American government wants to, and will, properly serve and protect Black people. Thankfully, Da 5 Bloods is a tremendous experience, though it is also clear that the copious amounts of Spike Lee’s famous idiosyncrasies hurt as often as help. So, when Spike Lee’s new movie, “Da 5 Bloods,” was announced, my feelings were mixed. All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. Unfortunately, I have watched almost every “Vietnam War” movie that Hollywood has made. Da 5 Bloods’ second half really cranks up those vibes, with Delroy Lindo as the spiritual successor to Humphrey Bogart’s sweaty, delusional, and paranoid Fred C. Dobbs. War is in the fucking mind and soul, and it’s for money. Spike Lee’s latest joint, Da 5 Bloods, seems to have dropped on Netflix at an unnervingly opportune time. Unfortunately, the answer is no. A couple of films that do this, in my opinion, would be the recent “1917” and the underappreciated “Letters from Iwo Jima.”‍On their own, I have no problem with these films. Stream Ep. Listen to Ep. The Citizens’ Commission asserted “As long as the United States government wages war against Indochina in defiance of the vast majority who want all troops and weapons withdrawn this year, and extends that war and suffering under the guise of reducing it. As Viet Thanh Nguyen for “The New York Times” points out, this film treats Vietnamese people as “a clumsy exercise in American guilt that relegates the Vietnamese to victimhood, which is how Americans prefer to remember them, except when they remember them as the Viet Cong.”‍The struggle I have with “Da 5 Bloods” is that it’s a film where its ambition outlives its presentation. Four black US veterans travel back to Vietnam to retrieve the remains of a fallen comrade: “Stormin’” Norman Holloway. Could his antiracist critique overcome the investment in American imperialism that most Americans have without knowing it? Da 5 Bloods ★★ 1/2 (out of 4 stars). “Da 5 Bloods” is a lesser Lee movie — honestly, it’s a mess — whose characterizations of Vietnamese people are inextricable from its political failures. Starring: Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Chadwick Boseman, Johnny Nguyen, Van Veronica Ngo Required fields are marked *, Toward an honest commemoration of the American War in Vietnam. “Da 5 Bloods” clearly aspires to be a movie that jabs at American racism and imperialist warmongering, but whereas it succeeds at the former, it fails at the latter. $35–45 million. However, his lost remains were not the only thing they left behind on the battlefield. Da 5 Bloods star Delroy Lindo has praised the Thai film crew Spike Lee used on his new film, praising them as the real heroes of the film.. Spike Lee’s cultural messaging for once fails him in the politically muddled Da 5 Bloods. But aren’t those frictions the founding principles of his whole cinema? In true Spike Lee fashion, archival footage of an interview with Muhammad Ali in Chicago on Feb. 26, 1978, opens the film.‍“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother or some darker people or some poor, hungry people in the mud for big, powerful America, and shoot them for what? Though sometimes messy and freewheeling, Da 5 Bloods is a fascinating, frequently gripping and powerful interrogation of the connection between American imperialism, anti-Black racism, and … At times it feels like a comedy. The landmark Atlantic article by Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” explains this in great detail. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Spike Lee‘s latest effort, DA 5 BLOODS (2020), is messy and inconsistent, yet it has a lot of relevancy and remains a strongly felt piece on the broken men left behind by war. “Whole Thing a Lie” or a “Noble Crusade”? Da 5 Bloods shifts in and out of itself with cutaways and references to American and cinematic history, along with traditional flashbacks. For Nguyen to now so thoroughly condemn the colonial and imperial forces that invaded his country, in the face of the calcified, old Viet Kieu dictums, shows the refreshing face of a new generation. Despite the recent rise in activism and awareness for Black reparations, this month is the first time in our country’s history that any state (California) has signed a bill to create a task force to — just — study and — just — make recommendations regarding reparations for slavery. Stream Ep. For Vietnamese people, as well as Laotians, Cambodians and Hmong, their role is almost always that of the extra, their function: to be helpful, rescued, blamed, analyzed, mocked, abused, raped, killed, spoken for, spoken over, misunderstood or all of the above. March 10 China pledges complete support for North Vietnam’s struggle against the U.S. March 29 Lt. William Calley is found guilty of the murder of 22 My Lai civilians. The reason for this troubling treatment is simple: For Hollywood, and for Americans, it is better to be the villain or antihero rather than virtuous extra, so long as one occupies center stage. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is a vital work on an overlooked subject in American film: the experience of black veterans in the Vietnam War, a perspective largely lacking from … Unfortunately, the answer is no. “Da 5 Bloods” is a lesser Lee movie — honestly, it’s a mess — whose characterizations of Vietnamese people are inextricable from its political failures. And as the first Hollywood story of its kind, it would have been wonderful if such a shortfall didn’t exist, in order to appreciate both its artistry and its message. Watching “Vietnam War” movies is my own personal “Groundhog Day” experience, because I know, without fail, how Hollywood will represent the Vietnamese and Americans. Paul, in particular, has never let go of his high-octane past. And there are technical elements that I could really dive into that contribute to this inconsistency — the score overpowers rather than accentuates unspoken emotions, the film editing is unpolished with rough transitions, and there’s a lot of wasted time in the film where the screenplay could have condensed a couple scenes into one without losing any momentum.‍But the main criticism, and the most important one to consider, is that this film turns into a recreation of the Vietnam War for the veterans, literally engaging with the exact same battlefield trauma that they sought to leave behind four decades ago. As long as great economic and political power remains concentrated in the hands of a small clique not subject to democratic scrutiny and control. 194: Da 5 Bloods Is American Imperialism In Blackface and 233 more episodes by Escape From Plan A, free! We get distracted by the complexity of policy implementation as an excuse to place Black reparations in limbo. The sharp … With the film, Lee offers his submission to a history of bloodied, masculine Vietnam War movies. The sharp … In one of the stranger twists in self-aggrandizement, Hollywood renders Americans as the antiheroes, which might seem odd given that Hollywood is America’s unofficial ministry of propaganda. Sometimes it literally recreates scenes of Vietnam War films as a means of pastiche. 86. But when it comes to media representation, it is not about individual accomplishment or failure, but a pattern of rigidity in the stories we choose to tell. So, when Spike Lee’s new movie, “Da 5 Bloods,” was announced, my feelings were mixed. June 24, 2020 | Featured, Film, Home Page Bottom, By Viet Thanh Nguyen at the New York Times.