And American Sniper (2014) Representation, Reflectionism and Politics
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UFR Langues, Littératures et Civilisations Étrangères Département Études du Monde Anglophone Master 2 Recherche, Études Anglophones The Figure of the Soldier in Green Zone (2010) and American Sniper (2014) Representation, Reflectionism and Politics Mémoire présenté et soutenu par Lucie Pebay Sous la direction de Zachary Baqué et David Roche Assesseur: Aurélie Guillain Septembre 2016 1 The Figure of the Soldier in Green Zone (2010) and American Sniper (2014) Representation, Reflectionism and Politics. 2 I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have made this thesis possible. I would like to thank Zachary Baqué and David Roche, for the all the help, patience, guidance, and advice they have provided me throughout the year. I have been extremely lucky to have supervisors who cared so much about my work, and who responded to my questions and queries so promptly. I would also like to acknowledge friends and family who were a constant support. 3 Table of Content Introduction..........................................................................................................................................5 I- Screening the Military....................................................................................................................12 1. Institutions.................................................................................................................................12 a. The Army, a Heterotopia.......................................................................................................12 b. Deindividuation.....................................................................................................................14 c. Responsibilities.....................................................................................................................20 2. War and Progress.......................................................................................................................25 a. Technology on screen ...........................................................................................................25 b. Gloryfing Ancient Warfare to Discredit the Iraq War ..........................................................27 3. War Imagery Debunking the War on Terror Rhetoric................................................................31 a. Unveiling the War on Terror Rhetoric ..................................................................................31 b. Death, Destruction, Violence................................................................................................35 II) The soldier's heroic image ............................................................................................................43 1. “Masculinity on the front”.........................................................................................................44 a. Women as Background Characters .......................................................................................44 b. Masculine Codes...................................................................................................................47 c. Gender and the Film Genre Theory ......................................................................................52 2. Rethinking Heroism...................................................................................................................55 a. Romantic Ideal and Heroic Values........................................................................................55 b. The Hero’s Vulnerability ......................................................................................................59 3. Racism.......................................................................................................................................67 a. The Enemy............................................................................................................................67 b. Racism within the military ...................................................................................................70 III) Ethics and Egopolitics..................................................................................................................73 1. The Soldier’s Duality.................................................................................................................73 a. Private and Public Identity....................................................................................................73 b. Public Figure.........................................................................................................................77 2. An Ethical Debate......................................................................................................................79 a. The Soldier’s Dilemma..........................................................................................................79 b. Good vs. Evil.........................................................................................................................86 3. Religion and Morality ...............................................................................................................95 a. A Religious Conflict..............................................................................................................95 b. Angels of Death ...................................................................................................................95 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................106 Works Cited......................................................................................................................................109 4 Introduction War film as a genre itself from the earliest years of film history. Indeed, the first war film to be documented, Tearing Down the Spanish Flag (1898), was produced in the year of the Spanish- American War1. Yet “Hollywood producers did not recognize the box-office potential of propagandist war and anti-war films until the success of D. W. Griffith’s influential Civil War epic adapted from Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman, The Birth of a Nation (1915)”.2 A “rather lengthy period of mostly patriotic war films” followed the success of Griffith’s film but the aftermath of the very unpopular Vietnam War radically changed the war film genre in American cinema. Many films around that time communicated the American public’s disillusionment towards the war, which is a trend that has largely carried on into today, as the vast majority of war films since the Vietnam War have made it a point to more deeply address the horrors of war3. Today, a meta sub-genre has risen from the recent geopolitical context: the Iraq War Film. In 2011, Martin Barker, a professor specialized in philosophy and cultural studies, observed in his book A Toxic Genre: The Iraq War Films, that “over the last five years, a cycle of films has emerged adressing the ongoing Iraq conflict”4. And, since 2011, the interest in the Iraqi conflict on screen has not dropped, as proven by the recent success of American Sniper. Like any american war film, this new sub-genre reveals much on America. Indeed, as Michael Hoffman suggested in an article on the Cinemablography website: “in the world of cinema, there is perhaps no other genre that is quite as effective at simultaneously addressing sociopolitical issues and assessing elements pertaining to human nature as the war film genre.”5 The numerous films made about the Iraq War can be used to understand today’s American identity. In addition they shed light on contemporary politics as “the worlds of film and politics are increasingly intertwined and even interdependent.”6 The Iraq War Films are even more politically permeated as the narrative is directly connected to geopolitical matters. Relying on films in order to understand socio-political subjects goes back to Fredric Jameson’s theory on mass culture. In his article “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture he suggests that “mass culture is popular and thus more authentic than high culture.”7 In other words, recent Hollywood war films can be approached as key elements to understand society. They are very much revealing of contemporary socio-politics and shed light on today’s military environment. 1 Tim Dirks. “War Films”, Film Site, visited 16.02.2016 http://www.filmsite.org/warfilms.html 2 Ibid. 3 Michael Hoffman. “The War Film Genre: Assessing Human Nature”, Cinemablography, May 2014. http://www.cinemablography.org/blog/the-war-film-genre-assessing-human-nature 4 Martin Barker. A 'Toxic Genre': The Iraq War Films (Chicago: Pluto Press, 2011) 5 Hoffman. op.cit. 6 Terry Christensen and Peter J. Haas. Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films (London: Routledge, 2005) 7 Fredric Jameson. “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture”, Signature of the Visible. (London: Psychology Press, 1992) 5 The latter holds a key place within American society. Indeed, “the United States has unquestionably been the most formidable military power in recent years,” “its spending levels […] is the principle determinant of world military spending.”8 Generally, the US military spending has been on the rise and the US Department of Defense numbers indicate that “recent increases are attributed to the so-called War on Terror and the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions.”9 The importance of the military institution in America is also revealed through popular culture, as the U.S. produces many war films supporting the examplary