The battle of the Alamo, like Bunker Hill or the Battle of the Bulge, remains one of America's most sacred martial myths, which is why it keeps finding its way to the big screen. There's something inherently romantic, inspiring even, about being the outnumbered underdog, valiantly resisting to the last man . . . as opposed to a global superpower that goes around picking weak targets it can bomb with impunity.
This is what Noam Chomsky has so accurately described as "necessary illusions": Far better to recall those "freedom-loving" Texans in 1836 who fought for liberty (and their right to own slaves) against the hordes of Mexican dictator Santa Anna, than to critically examine America's history of toppling democracies and supporting dictatorships throughout Central America in the more recent past.
So as preppie-turned-Texan George W. Bush leads America into a hard-right policy of "pre-emptive" attacks against people for spurious reasons, it's only natural that the Disney corporation -- the same people who refused to distribute Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- brings us "The Alamo" one more time. What better to cultivate the national mood of patriotic self-sacrifice, to re-acclimate the country to the idea of deaths in a noble cause, to reinforce the paranoid belief that America is outnumbered and beset upon by enemies? (Yes, "The Alamo" was green-lighted for production after "9/11.")
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