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Hollywood and Terrorism

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Hollywood and Terrorism Hollywood and Terrorism James Harrison A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master's of Arts Communications & Culture York University May 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-45940-9 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-45940-9 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. r^$iTi$ifiii iv Abstract Having produced nearly one hundred films on the subject, Hollywood has a fascination with terrorists. A staple of the action genre, terrorist films share a common fundamental plotline wherein evil terrorist schemes are thwarted by American heroes. Through fantasy, these films provide an allegory for affirmations of American national mythology, demonstrating the triumph of American values and virtues over various challenges. This study examines the Hollywood terrorist film throughout its history in terms of its melodramatic and mythological qualities, analyzing both the "Terrorist" and "Hero" characters as expressions of fantasy in America. Examining the terrorist films that followed 9/11 reveals the effects of the representational challenges that Hollywood faced in regards to terrorism, American mythology, and fantasy as a result of the impact of this ' event on American culture V Table of Contents Abstract iv Introduction: American Imagination, from Dream to Nightmare 1 Chapter One: The Role of the Hero will be Played by America 5 Playing the Hero's Role with Reluctance 8 Showing Compassion toward Innocents 9 Selfless in the Face of Danger 10 Dutifully Bound to his Values 11 A Servant of Society 12 Free-Thinking and Rebellious 13 A Cowboy at Heart 16 The Embodiment Heterosexual Masculinity 17 Physiology and the Impact of Reaganism 18 A Skilled Gunfighter :..:.. 30 A Suffering Patriarch 31 Wounded in the Course of Action 34 The Other Side of the Coin: Terrorist-Heroes 36 Chapter Two: The Terrorist: from Real to Reel 40 Villainy in America: Contemporary Anxieties 41 Germans (Nazis) 43 The Soviet Union and Communism 46 Islamic Fundamentalists 50 Passing Threats 54 Melodramatic Villainy; characterizing the terrorist 60 The Terrorist's Cause 62 The Body of the Terrorist 66 Female Terrorists 68 Mind of the Terrorist 71 Madness and Villainy 72 Villainous Sexuality 74 Homosexuality and Villainy 76 The Imaginary Terrorist 79 Chapter Three: Film after 9/11, 9/11 after Film 81 The Event: 84 Terror on Television 84 9/11: "Like a Movie" 89 Fantasy turns to Trauma 91 Trauma turns to Fantasy 92 The Aftermath: 93 9/11: The Movie 93 So how does the rest of "9/11: The Movie" unfold? 95 Full Circle: 9/11 in the Movies ..99 The Terrorist on Film after 9/11 102 Revenge: 107 Terrorists Dressed as Ores, Warlocks and Goblins 107 Time for Heroes 108 New Perspectives: Ill 2002 and After Ill 2007 and Beyond 114 Trauma Fades 117 vi References: 122 Filmography: 129 1 Introduction: American Imagination, from Dream to Nightmare Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 film Sabotage, an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, was the first film to depict a terrorist plot. Since then, Hollywood has produced nearly one hundred films that address the subject of terrorism, and shows no signs of stopping. While it may seem as though the terrorist film has come a long way from Sabotage to a film like The Sum of All Fears (2002)—developments in special effects, and filmmaking generally, have certainly escalated the visual spectacle of the films— the plot of these films remains essentially unchanged. Terrorist films subscribe on the whole to a standard plotline that proceeds in the following manner: Without warning, a terrorist (or terrorists) emerges with a bang: A bomb goes off in a crowded shopping centre, a violent hijacking takes place, or a nuclear device is detonated. The film's conflict is set in motion by an initial act of violence that signifies the potential for more. The terrorist villain gets the attention of the world with the initial act, and if his demands are not met, his next act—already set in motion—will be exponentially more devastating. With terror in full-force, and the nation paralyzed with fear, a hero (or heroes) emerges to track down the terrorist, kill him, and finally foil the terrorist plot, only narrowly averting disaster. Along the way the hero resolves his own issues: he brings his family back together; he falls in love; he redeems himself for a wrongdoing. These films are incredibly successful with American audiences, who flock to theatres to see the same plot executed in marginally different ways, but at the same time terrorism is real, and real terrorists threaten real lives. In 2008, terrorism is to some serious degree considered the single greatest threat to the American public, who is living under an administration that has declared global war against it. This peculiar dichotomy raises one principal question: given the putative threat of terrorism, why does the American public so enjoy a good terrorist film? 2 The answer that this study proposes is that the Hollywood terrorist film is a presentation of fantasy for American audiences, providing a diegetic world in which American national myths can be negotiated and reified. America imagines itself on film, a fantastic ideation that is positively self- affirming. Americans go to the cinema to watch their national identity legitimated on the screen through complex narratives. It is precisely this notion that is noted by Boggs and Pollard in "Hollywood and the Spectacle of Terrorism." They write: Terrorism has become a vital source of narratives, fantasies, and myths that contribute so much to highly entertaining cinema, with its international intrigue, exotic settings, graphic violence, and the putative conflict between good and evil. Scenes of terrorist and counterterrorist activity have a natural cinematic appeal, above all in the US where the gun culture, civic violence, crime sprees, and a flourishing war economy permeate the landscape. (2006; 337) In watching a Hollywood-made terrorist film, audiences view a subtle allegory that attempts to situate national and social practice into moral structures. The narrative mode that the terrorist film utilizes to achieve this function is melodrama, a pervasive mode of popular culture narrative that employs emotionality to provide an unambiguous distinction between good and evil through clear designations of victimization, heroism and villainy. (Anker,2)' Peter Brooks suggests that the use of the melodramatic narrative creates a text that is "morally legible," creating a Manichean opposition that places the values of the intended audience squarely within the realm of good (50). In melodrama, as Brooks suggests, "things cease to be merely themselves ... they become the vehicles of metaphors whose tenor suggests another kind of reality" (9). In Hollywood's terrorist films, characters, conflicts, and events take on additional levels of meaning beyond mere presentation, 3 collectively forming a morality play that expresses a particular interpretation of American values. This study offers a thorough account of two principal melodramatic characters— the hero and the villain—as they appear throughout the body of terrorist films released to date. The traits common to the amalgam of each of these characters is identified and considered on the basis of its expression of American mythology in relation to the coincident cultural environment. The first chapter, "The Role of the Hero will be Played by America," examines the manner in which the Hollywood terrorist-fighting hero comes to be emblematic of a virtuous national character. The motivations for the ways in which the terrorist-fighting hero's personality and physicality have changed over time become apparent, borrowing from cultural contexts that shaped national identity. The second chapter, "The Terrorist: From Real to Real" considers the construction Hollywood's terrorist villain as having been drawn from both reality and melodrama. The terrorist character effectively absorbs the anxieties of the culture that demonizes him, and is subsequently vanquished by a heroic member of it. Throughout this chapter, he is shown to be a device for representing potential threats to American values. As these potential threats metamorphose throughout history, so too does the terrorist villain's visage.
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