Tom Hanks' WWII Comments Spark Controversy

(CBS)  Comments actor and producer Tom Hanks made in interviews regarding the conflict with the Japanese during World War II are sparking controversy.

In an interview with Time magazine, Hanks, who starred in the World War II drama "Saving Private Ryan" and produced both "Band of Brothers" and the current HBO series "The Pacific" with Stephen Spielberg, compared the Japanese conflict to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods," he told the magazine. "They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"

Hanks brought up the comparison again while promoting "The Pacific" during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"'The Pacific' is coming out now, where it represents a war that was of racism and terror. And where it seemed as though the only way to complete one of these battles on one of these small specks of rock in the middle of nowhere was to - I'm sorry - kill them all. And, um, does that sound familiar to what we might be going through today? So it's-- is there anything new under the sun? It seems as if history keeps repeating itself."

Photos: Tom Hanks
Photos: Chaplin Honor for Tom Hanks
Photos: Hefty Hollywood Hunks

The remarks have stirred a backlash from conservatives.

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly said Hanks is trying to "inject racism" into both wars.

"We had to kill the Japanese because the Japanese wouldn't surrender, period…and the jihadists, if they were Thais, Burmese, and they attacked us, we'd be doing the same thing today," O'Reilly said on Saturday.

Karl Rove, in an interview with O'Reilly on Monday, said that Hanks is "impervious to rational discussion."

Rove said Hanks is "a wonderful actor, he's a superb director, he's a good storyteller, but he's a conventional Hollywood liberal…He receives his opinions in whatever they drink or smoke or eat out there in southern California in the acting community."

Hanks defended his remarks to CNSNews.com during an appearance at the World War II memorial in Washington on Thursday.

"I said it's familiar with what's going on today," he said. "You can walk into the National World War II museum in New Orleans, in the Pacific wing, and Steven Ambrose himself has made that very point. It's up in black and white, that after Pearl Harbor, these people that were very, very different from each other, the Americans and the Japanese, who had different heritages, who had different theologies and different ways of government, had a different sense of society went at it tooth and nail."

Hanks continued, "I have talked to all sorts of people who have, in the vernacular, used incredibly racist terms about the people on the other side of the fence, and we can see all the time that comes over in the regular news media from their side, from the other side, terms that can only be viewed as racist. But let's just take the word 'racism' out of it and put 'ignorance' instead, because it's, racism, is a mere virulent form of what that ignorance is."

I'd like to think that as our time has gone by and as Americans have found themselves in 2010, ignorance is being replaced by a certain amount of enlightenment and racism is going to be replaced eventually by an acceptance. It's just taking an awfully long time."

[AirPower23]

I am sorry, but Fox News and many of you have no idea what you are talking about, I had to right a dissertation on this subject and believe me there was a great amount of hatred and tension towards these two different and foreign enemies. I have been over to Afghanistan and fought with many great men,and believe me there is a great hatred for these people and it is caused through war and bloodshed. You will never know what you are talking about until you have experienced what very few have. All Tom Hanks was talking about was that there is a great amount of racism when two entirely different groups of people go to war. THATS ALL don't read any more into it.. that is all he is saying.

[jnostromo]

Typical of hollywood....It is very easy to make comments about a time you did not live through...Perhaps he would have preferred the US do nothing and allow the axis to have taken over the world....I believe the people exterminated in the nazi camps and the people who died on the death march or in japanese camps or the unarmed australian nurses who were machine gunned along with unarmed injured australian soldiers would have a different point of view... It is so easy for a rich "actor" to spout off about something he never experienced..I have lost respect for him

[Timonere613]

OK, this is a very dumb comment from a guy I really liked. We would have never had more than trade wars with Japan had they not attacked Pearl Harbor. After that all bets were off and we did what we had to do to win the war. But if it is racism that concerns friend Hanks, perhaps he should read his sources about what the Japanese troops did in China or what they did to our POW's.

It was War, Tom. And although you obviously know more about it than me, you seem to be so anti government you have let the truth get by. The truth is that they were the enemy who committed horrible acts of aggression and slaughter. At that point the political correctness of the day was forgotten, with good reason.

I regret the treatment of loyal and decent Japanese Americans in WWII. I can't justify that treatment, but in the prism of the times I understand it.

John McCain was given a rough time over calling the men who tortured him in the Hanoi Hilton "*****." He didn't flinch when he told the questioner that these men were *****, which had nothing to do with their nationality.

In war we vilify the enemy and they do the same to us. The Japanese were at least as good as us in that regard. Our guys did what they had to do to save humanity, as Hanks showed so very well. Sorry they weren't polite about it.

By the way, the conservative pundits seeking ratings shouldn't sway anyone's opinion in this. They play to the same vein of intolerance they complain about in Tom Hanks. The tune has been adjusted to appeal to their audience.

[jnostromo]

You are right...War is war..you cannot go to war liking the enemy...The terrorists chose to attack innocent people..I would ask Mr Hanks just what did the people on the airplanes , and the people in the buildings do to attack the extremists...the answer is nothing...The terrorists alone chose to kill innocent people...Racist, give me a break..it is just more of the hollywood drivel that spews out to the public...The Vietnam war has been over for 3 decads but hollywood in certain of their genres is still living it...My father served in the pacific and my uncle served under Gen Patton....they both did what they had to for their country...Both were lifelong democrats and not racists...

[AirPower23]

I am sorry but you are an idiot tim and so many people here a just being foolish, he is not being anti governmental, he is just stating the clear fact that there was a hatred between the two groups, racist feelings. NOTHING ELSE. Until any of you face an enemy in battle then shut the hell up. I had to write my Air force academy dissertation on racism between United States and Japan during world war II, and I have been to Afghanistan if anything I know much more about this subject than most people here

[SL66]

Typical Liberal swill. Always a race/racist issue. I like Tom Hanks and his movies but this is disgraceful. Of course there was racism and always will be. But the US treated the Japanese much better than we were treated but I guess he forgot that. To make comparisons to today is just as ignorant as the racism he claims.

The Muslims are slowly and methodically engaging in the same expansionism as the Japanese did. Only now it's from within which is even more dangerous.

But you can't talk common sense to a Liberal such as Tom because it's always about race and racism. That's all they have left to cling to.

[OldDevilDog23]

I find it very sad that the majority of you people commenting here are so completely ignorant of something that I was involved in. You see, I was there. I was a BAR man with E22 during WW2. I landed on Tulagi with 286 men in 1942. From there we hopped over to Guadalcanal, where I spent many a night in hell, including Bloody Ridge. I fired my weapon so much, that I went through 3 barrels. When we finally left the canal to head back to New Zealand, I had gone from a 6'2" 215 pound 19 yr. old, to a 122 pound malaria ridden skeleton. When we mustered for our company photo back in New Zealand, we had 74 upright bodies. I did my time & I know how me and my buddies felt. We did hate them back than. They were different and they didn't value life like we did.

My Marine Corp days ended on the second day on Tarawa, when a Japanese Sniper's bullet went through my ammo carriers head. The bone from his skull exploding took out my right eye. racism was alive and well.

I'm an 86 year old man now. I lost an older brother in WW2 and I lost my sun in to Vietnam in 1970. I know what my family has given up for this country, and I've earned the right to have an opinion. I'm a life-long Democrat and what Mr. Hanks said was being a patriot. He stood up for what he thought was right, instead of being a bunch of FOX watching tag-alongs. I bet not a one of you have ever had an original thought between you, that wasn't spoon fed to you by Glenn Beck. Open your eyes and see what's around you.

Semper Fi

[AirPower23]

hooah I have beyond respect for you sir, my grandparents flew in the army air corp. In World War II bombing Japan and Germany and so I decided to follow in their legacy. I decided to join the air force to fly over in Afghanistan. People see that he is a liberal or a democrat and immediately denounce him all he was saying was that war is hell, and war creates a hatred for one another especially when the cultures are incredibly different.

[Ken Jr.]

Tom Hanks said, "Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods,".

First let me say I am NOT a conservative so don't take all these responses as coming from one side of the political spectrum. But I was around during WWII. NOBODY I knew talked about the Japanese as Mr. Hanks has stated. It's really a shame that he made this comment. Now, if I watch the series at all, I'll watch with a jaded eye.

As for placing the Japanese in internment camps, well, certain Japanese who lived in Hawaii did indeed provide enemy support during the Pearl Harbor invasion. Furthermore, there was every evidence we were not winning the war. People were scared. You really need to look at Japanese internment from the perspective of the times, not from the perspective of today.

Yes, we did hate the Japanese .. We hated the Germans too. Those were scary times, those were times when regular air raid drills were held with all radios and lights turned off and huge loud sirens wailing up and down in pitch. Windows in the neighborhood had small flags showing one or more stars depicting sons fighting in this war, and when a star was gold we knew that that boy died for us.

Tom Hanks .. I respected you until you made these comments. Now I just feel pure scorn when I see your name or picture. With those few words you've given the current generation a very wrong view of how we were then.

[Ken Jr.]

Sorry about the rant but Tom Hank's words really ticked me off. As for the internment of the Japanese, yes it was wrong, very wrong, but at the time fear tended to override humanitarian feelings.

[cattlewomen]

I am always amazed that actors and actresses think that the public really cares about their opinions on these subject matters. It just shows what an ego they really have, I guess thats why they are in the business they are in. Who needs to hear these ACTORS spout comments they know nothing about, how can a person have the gall to talk about subject matters that don't pertain to them in anyway. Most americans would never have a bad thing to say about our fighting forces. How dare Tom Hanks bash his fellow americans. Why dont people like this leave our nation that we fought so hare for. Does Tom Hanks think that when we are at war that we should like the enemy and they should be our buddy? How would these young men and boys ever have killed another human being if they didnt tell themselves they were killing something not like them, this is how they kept their sanity, shame on you Actor Hanks, you will have many people who were once fans never seeing another project of yours.

[Jasonn13]

The only thing that 'then and now' have in common is that the United States was twice the victim of cowardly attacks that resulted in thousands of senseless deaths. It's not surprising that a hand wringing, bed wetting uber Liberal bonehead like Hanks missed that.

[shervan1]

My father fought in the pacific aboard the battleship USS SOUTH DAKOTA, also called old nameless, battleship X..... he was aboard that ship in the middle of the pacific for over 4 years... His ship fought in every major battle in the pacific, and was a part of the landing party on the japansese mainland.... My father is gone now, as most of them are........... That was a war we had to fight.... it was kill or be killed..... the audacity of Tom Hanks to discredit those men who fought and laid down their lives, and what a slap in the face to compare ww2 in the pacific, to these senseless wars we are fighting now..... what a slap in the face........ we did not have to go to iraq.... but we did have to defend our nation after being attacked at pearl harbor... Japan decleared war on us...... it was not iraq who declared war on us to get us in the sensless war we are now fighting...How can tom hanks even compare the two.. I have no respect for him.. he has no clue, obviously he had no family member who fougt in ww2......

[johnnyj42]

Shervan1, Couldn't agree more. My Grandfather served on the South Dakota. Are you on Facebook and the USS South Dakota page? I am a member of that page. If not please add it and contact me. I am the admin for the page and would love to find out more about your Father and the ship.

[rockhodg]

Tom Hanks has lost it, his acting and his intelligence. Japanese were the worst offenders in WWII, they killed some 100,000 Chinese people!! Time for Tom to go back to acting and stay out of politics, especially since he does not know what he is taking about. I have lost all respect for him!!!!