The
General’s Daughter, based on the novel of the
same title by Nelson DeMille which in turn is constructed
from a true story, is a powerful film about discrimination
against women in the military, recalling the publicity over
the Tailhook incident and similar exposés. Directed by Simon
West, the film takes place at a Fort MacCallum, Georgia, where
a woman employed in the psychological warfare unit is killed.
Paul Brenner (played by John Travolta) and Captain Sarah Sunhill
(played by Madeleine Stowe), of the base’s criminal investigation
division, are summoned by General Campbell (played by James
Cromwell) for instructions on how to investigate the murder.
The general’s adjutant, Colonel Fowler (played by Clarence
Williams III), informs them that in solving the case, "There
are three ways of doing things: The right way, the wrong way,
and the Army way," meaning that a scapegoat should be found
quickly so as not to tarnish the reputation of the general,
who is being considered for the vice presidency. The most
exciting element of the film is the investigation, which goes
farther than the "army way." Brenner first discovers that
the victim is Elisabeth Campbell, the general’s daughter (played
by Leslie Stefanson), and tapes hidden in her home reveal
that she is a dominatrix who has enjoyed mind games with many
military personnel whom she has chained and strapped in her
basement. Further investigation takes Brenner and Sunhill
to a psychiatrist at West Point, and filmviewers are led to
believe that the daughter’s sadomasochism was a psychological
adjustment to the post-traumatic stress resulting from an
incident during a military exercise while a cadet at West
Point, where she was held down, spread-eagled, tied to four
stakes in the ground, and gang-raped. She never got over the
fact, when she needed compassionate support, that her father
told her to forget the incident due to the deleterious impact
that a public accusation of gang rape would have on the armed
forces in general and the military’s effort to recruit women
in particular. Her murder in the film occurred when she tried
to assume a nude spread-eagled position on the ground at the
Georgia military base in a vain effort to get her father’s
attention, but one of her sex partners saw her on the ground
and killed her. Titles at the end of the film note that 200,000
women now serve in the U.S. armed forces and predict that
soon women will occupy every position now held by men, but
the sidekick role assigned to Sunhill belies the apparent
message. Presumably, severe criminal penalties and the "right
way" of investigating allegations of rape will deter future
male harassment of females in the don’t-ask-don’t-tell military,
or so the film would have us believe. MH
I
want to comment on this film
