8 Black Hawk Down Black Hawk Down and the Silences of Ridley Scott's "Realism" Robert Nellis A telling moment occurs in the film Black Hawk Down (Bruckheimer & Scott, 2(01)' when the "reliable" Shawn Nelson is literally struck deaf by the gunfire of his partner. Nelson can no longer hear his fellow American soldiers, their gunfire, or the screams of his dying enemies. Prior to losing his hearing, Nelson puts in a mouth protector, explaining that on his last mission, he almost bit off his tongue. Thus, Nelson ensures that he will be able to speak of any evil he hears, but, alas, he becomes deal. Nelson's predicament somewhat parallels that of the audience of Ridley Scott's technically masterful film. Exposed to the depiction of an intense battle and immersed in a realistic rendering, one can hear only the immediacy of battle. Its deeper political implications have been silenced. A saying laments that some can "See no evil; hear no evil." Where deafness falls, it becomes the role of art education to counter the silence and invoke the visual. In contrast, Black Hawk Down invokes a kind of deafness . The film is a triumph in the realistic portrayal of battle; however that triumph contributes to the film's problematic nature as an ideological text. Given the popularity of the film, art and art education need to unpack and explore the relationship between the film's realism and its ideological function. Toda y, art education concerns itse!l with the broad mandate of llvisual culture." "media," television, popular music, advertising, and, of course, film comprise an important part of visual culture and thereby are increaSingly of concern to art education. Nellis 9 In the current period of conflict and global uncertainty, war films beCome important media texts for study and teaching in art education, both for what they say about war, nationalism, and the Other, and , especially for their silencing of these issues. "Analysis" is an important strand in art education, especially in its concern to identify the function of media art in society because such art serves to legitimate ideological positions, which, in tum, legitimate interest positions. This paper offers some "ways in" to discuss one media text, the film Blnck Hawk Down, with students, by focusing on the film's social function, especially the silencing character of that function. Black Hawk Down is a realistic war picture depicting the experiences of US soldiers downed in a hostile section of Mogadishu in October 1993, but this film's very realism and focus on the soldiers' experiences enable the film to function as a hegemoniC text, silencing voices critical of the US's real political and economic interest in its purportedly "humanitarian" Somali involvement. Black Hawk Down Black Ha wk Down is about a group of vastly outnumbered American soldiers fending off an attack from hostile Somalis. The film is based upon actual eveots. In an introductory intertitle, we are told that, in Somalia in 1992, many years of dan warfare are causing "famine on a biblical scale/' in which "300,000 civilians die of s ta_rvation." Mohamed Farrah Aidid is the most powerful warlord and rules the capital, Mogadishu. Aidid seizes international food shipments and uses hunger as a weapon. Consequently, 20,000 U.S. Marines are sent to Somalia to ensure the delivery of food and the restoration of order. In April 1993, after the Marines withdraw, Aidid "declares war on the remaining UN peacekeepers. " The follOWing June, Aiclid's militia slaughters 24 Pakistani soldiers and begins targeting Americans. US Delta Force, Army Rangers and the 160" SOAR are sent to Mogadishu in August to remove Aidid and restore order. The main action begins