But a writer at GQ Magazine is not so enthusiastic. She complained, “Where are the stories about Not-White-Men’s Lives?”

Who is this whiny writer, anyway?

She goes by the preposterous moniker “Sophia Benoit” (pronounced Ben-WAHH) and pens heavyweight cultural fare such as “The 7 Sexiest Things Men Did Last Month,” and “A Museum is a Terrible Place for a Date.” The latter tells me that Ms. Ben-WAHH doesn’t like museums, much less history museums. Or perhaps history in general, for that matter.

So she griped about 1917 at Twitter:

“I’m not ‘upset’ that there weren’t many women in the movie 1917; I f****** get that there were not very many women in trenches. The qustion is why does that story keep getting told?”

But seriously, Benoit is really not angry. She says so.

“Folks, I’m not even ‘upset’ or ‘made’ or w/e that 1917 got made. I’m sure it’s great! That’s outside the question at hand which is where are the stories about not-white-men’s lives & why are they still not getting made?”

Right. Benoit isn’t miffed at the success of this male-dominated film. And Nancy Pelosi has never had plastic surgery, either.

Yes, men fought WWI. Its leaders were men, too. And while this airhead claims she’s an expert on sex, she knows nothing about history.

To be sure, it’s difficult to understand the cause of WWI. It doesn’t resonate like World War II with easy-to-understand accounts of Pearl Harbor and Nazi atrocities.

Instead, the prelude to the Great War featured nationalism, populism, and a series of incidents that melded into a perfect storm in August, 1914, when European nations fell into alliances like dominoes.

That long-forgotten conflict, which raged primarily across Europe and the Middle East from 1914-1918, changed our modern world in ways that Ms. Benoit should know about, if she weren’t so angry that white men largely fought the war.

WWI saw the introduction of planes and tanks as weapons. New medical technologies were developed to deal with wounds caused by machine guns, including prevention of infection in an era before penicillin. Head injuries also prompted development of helmets, and for the first time, doctors studied “shell shock.”

Renault FT-17 tank at National WWI Museum. Personal collection.

But even though WWI ended in 1918, its effect on the world did not. Communism arose in Russia after Czarist Russia fell in 1917. The victorious British and French carved up the Ottoman Empire, turning the Middle East into the powderkeg it is today. Hitler later used the Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks as a blueprint for Nazi atrocities.

Moreover, the punitive Treaty of Versailles, which bludgeoned a defeated Germany after WWI, led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism. In fact, many historians claim that World War II was really a continuation of World War I.

In short, the repercussions of 100 year-old hostilities still echo today.

Never mind all that, according to Ms. Sophia Benoit. There’s too much testosterone associated with the Great War — white men’s testosterone, that is. That’s anathema to Benoit and her fellow social justice ignoramuses. But what do you expect from a generation which doesn’t recognize the name of Auschwitz or know how many victims died in the Holocaust?

I’m glad WWI is featured again in such recent films as They Shall Not Grow Old, Journey’s End, War Horse, and of course, 1917. Perhaps these movies will lead new generations to understand how the men who fought that war changed civilization, instead of the moronic blathering of a GQ sex writer who resents the stories of white men who bled and died in that conflagration over 100 years ago.

Featured image: “Gassed” by John Singer Sargent/cropped/Imperial War Museum, London/public domain.