Now that Oscar season is upon us, so is the usual backlash that comes with being a front runner. It happens every year and encompasses a trivial matter into something bigger than it oughta to be- as it happens with the Hurt Locker though, this is soldiers talking.
Like every gossiped right wing job, Matt Drudge over @ Drudgereport.com has put in his time to include today a few articles from the Washington Post and the LA Times, constituting of interviews with American Soldiers whom are not too pleased the depiction of the titular characters' EOD background. Tough it out boys (and girls of course). To call Bigelow's masterwork a 'Huge slap in face to every soldier who's been on front line' is in fact an understandable thing but then again looking at their reasons why is proof that maybe they just didn't get the POV Bigelow drew out for her scarred and fearless character (s).
To say that Jeremy Renners' James is a "Rowdy, Reckless Cowboy" may be truthful and not without merit. However the critics of James' character traits are missing the point. The movie is not necessarily about the danger of war, it is also about the drug fueled high that comes with it for some rowdy, reckless cowboys. Have they even read the quotation the film opens with? - 'War Is A Drug' - it encompasses and explains why our main protagonist James goes into all the trouble and 'cowboyism' the movie lays out in front.
Maybe the soldiers criticizing Bigelow's film are far and few or maybe they just haven't experienced the energetic high James and -no doubting it- real life soldiers feel in the line of battle. I'm sticking by my prediction that The Hurt Locker wins on March 8th- controversy or not.