MovieChat Forums > Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982) Discussion > Is there something significant about the...

Is there something significant about the Movie Pink is watching?

posted 11 years ago by Optimus_Prime_is_OP
5 replies | jump to latest

Or is it something that isn't significant, or what?

By the authority of Stan 'The man' Lee, Comic book will now be wrote as 'Comicbook'

[–] Optimus_Prime_is_OP 11 years ago

Anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwtpWXmRLtA

[–] Badgerman68 11 years ago

The film is The Dam Busters - depending on how deeply you want to look at it it can have some significance.

1. The film is about the RAF bombing of the Ruhr dams in WWII (Operation Chastise) where they destroyed the 'walls' of the dams.

2. It's one of the most famous British war films so links in with the frequent references made by The Wall to WWII.

3. The use of the film clips where the dog's name (N*****) is used highlights the juxtaposition of British society between the time Dam Busters was made (1955) when the N-word wasn't considered particularly offensive in Britain and The Wall (1982) when it had become a strong racial slur - this also ties in with the fascist/racist symbolism depicted in such songs as Run Like Hell.

[–] pheters 10 years ago

Thanks Badgerman68! A very interesting answer.

[–] ghostgate2001 10 years ago

Besides the obvious connection of "The Dambusters" being a WW2 film - tying in with all the WW2 imagery and Pink's psychological issues stemming from the death of his soldier father in WW2, back when Pink was just a boy - I've always assumed that he leaves the TV on that particular film because it's so incredibly British.

Pink is an Englishman, isolated and alienated - having a total breakdown - in a foreign land (America) and he's stumbled across this nostalgic little slice of "home" while flipping through all those channels on the TV. It's comfortingly familiar, and reminds him of a time in the past which was probably the last time he was happy.

As for the "N-'s dead" bit, in "The Dambusters" that scene refers to the (accidental) death of the main character's beloved pet dog - also the mascot of the squadron - so I think it shakes Pink out of his reverie by bringing the specter of death (sorrow, tears, loss) into what was, up until that point, a little oasis of comfortable blankness.

As the other responder said, the "N-" name itself probably isn't very important. I think the death and loss is the point. If it is significant then maybe it's to underline the gap in time and culture between the world of the past that "The Dambusters" represents to Pink, and where Pink is right now, in reality. "The Dambusters" represents a more innocent time, now gone, possibly.

In England, in the 1940s - the period in which "The Dambusters" is set - the N- word didn't carry the same racial baggage it did in the USA. The word literally just meant "black" - as in: descriptive of the colour, nothing more - and was a fairly common name for a pet with black fur, as innocent as calling a white dog "Snowy" would be today. Seems bizarre to us now, but the past is - as they say - a foreign country: they do things differently there.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]