Ignorant as an actor: Tom Hanks on the war in the Pacific

I enjoyed the first episode of HBO’s The Pacific, but my enjoyment was somewhat marred by hearing Tom Hanks, one of the miniseries’ producers, state that the war with Japan was based on racism, which he then compared to the current war on terrorism.

Raymond Chandler’s detective character Philip Marlowe summed up an actor-turned-hood in one of Chandler’s great novels by stating that the phrase “ignorant as an actor” was invented for him.

Ditto for Hanks.

Rich Trzupek offers a good response to Hanks’ comment in FrontPage Magazine ^[1]

“The implication that race had anything to do with the war is nothing but nonsensical, unsupportable, neo-historical propaganda,” Trzupek wrote.

Perhaps a screenwriter should be hired to inform Hanks that the Japanese declared war on America by bombing Pearl Harbor and America had Asian allies who fought alongside us like China and the Philippines.

Someone should tell Hanks to shut up and roll the film.