Ideological, Dystopic, and Antimythopoeic Formations of Masculinity in the Vietnam War Film Elliott Stegall

Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2014 Ideological, Dystopic, and Antimythopoeic Formations of Masculinity in the Vietnam War Film Elliott Stegall Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IDEOLOGICAL, DYSTOPIC, AND ANTIMYTHOPOEIC FORMATIONS OF MASCULINITY IN THE VIETNAM WAR FILM By ELLIOTT STEGALL A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2014 Elliott Stegall defended this dissertation on October 21, 2014. The members of the supervisory committee were: John Kelsay Professor Directing Dissertation Karen Bearor University Representative Kathleen Erndl Committee Member Leigh Edwards Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am most grateful for my wife, Amanda, whose love and support has made all of this possible; for my mother, a teacher, who has always been there for me and who appreciates a good conversation; to my late father, a professor of humanities and religion who allowed me full access to his library and record collection; and, of course, to the professors who have given me their insight and time. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures................................................................................................................................. v Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………...... vi 1. VIETNAM MOVIES, A NEW MYTHOS OF THE MASCULINE......................................... 1 2. DISPELLING FILMIC MYTHS OF THE VIETNAM WAR……………………………... 24 3. IN DEFENSE OF THE GREEN BERETS ………………………………………………...... 72 4. THE BOYS IN COMPANY “C”: THE BOYS ARE NOT ALL RIGHT ………………...... 105 5. CONCLUSION AND EPHEMERA: ABOUT FACE …………………………………..... 154 WORKS CITED …………………………………………………………….....……………... 170 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ..................................................................................................... 182 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure #1 Clarence Ware applies war paint to Charles Plaudo, their heads shaved, Mohawk style. Stars and Stripes. June 5, 1944 ......................................................................................... 39 Figure #2 “22 Gia Long Street.” Photograph by Hugh Van Es. April 29, 1975.......................... 44 Figure #3 “Napalm Girl 1” Kim Phuc. Photograph by Nick Ut/AP. June 8, 1972...................... 61 Figure #4 “Napalm Girl 2” Kim Phuc. Photograph by Nick Ut/AP. June 8, 1972...................... 63 Figure #5 “Napalm Girl 3” Kim Phuc. Photograph by Alan Downes/ITN, before and after Nick Ut’s iconic photograph was taken. June 8, 1972................................................................ 66 Figure #6 “Quang Duc: self-immolation.” Photograph by Malcolm Browne. June 11, 1963 ..................................................................................................................................................... 69 Figure #7 Jump Into Hell. Movie Poster, 1955........................................................................... 96 Figure #8 “General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner in Saigon.” Eddie Adams. February 1, 1968.......................................................................................................... 159 v ABSTRACT This dissertation argues that representations of masculinity in the Hollywood war/combat films of the Vietnam film cycle reflect the changing and changed mores of the era in which they were made, and that these representations are so prevalent as to suggest a culture-wide shift in notions of masculinity since the Vietnam War. I demonstrate that the majority of the representations of masculinity in the Vietnam War film cycle (an expression that includes all films on the Vietnam War but particularly those produced in Hollywood) have achieved mythic status—accepted truths—but are often exaggerated and/or are erroneous to the point of affecting how historical events are understood by subsequent generations. Such is the power of cinema. This dissertation, then, adopts a cultural-political-historical perspective to investigate Hollywood’s virtual re-creation of the Vietnam War and its combat participants as dystopic, antimythopoeic figures whose allegiance to patriotism, God, and duty are shown to be tragically betrayed by a changing paradigm of masculinity and has thus created a new mythos of the American male which abides in the American consciousness to this day. All of which is to ask, why was there such a significant change from admirable cinematic representations of America as a nation that represents the ideology of freedom and liberty for all and U.S. soldiers as the hallmark of strength and goodness in the WW II movies to the mostly wretched representations of both in the Vietnam War cycle? While each chapter of my dissertation will attempt to identify plausible answers to these questions, I will also seek to explore why and how these alterations from the regnant traditions of American values—honoring the military, respecting the government and other traditions, such as the nuclear family, marriage as a sacred institution, monogamy as the respected norm, children as inviolable, gender roles as fixed, separation of the races, etc.—came to such a tumultuous head in the 1960s and resulted in the significantly altered constructs of values and masculinity that have become the norm in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. In order to investigate historical cinematic representations effectively, it is necessary to consider the actual events of the times and challenge the subsequent various mythopoeic formations of the Hollywood Vietnam veteran. This dissertation approaches these numerous and related questions via close cinematic readings of two films from the Vietnam War film cycle: The Green Berets (1968), directed by John Wayne, and The Boys in Company C. (1977), directed by Sidney Furie, with commentary on scores of others, in particular, Hamburger vi Hill (1987), directed by John Irvin, and We Were Soldiers (2002), directed by Randall Wallace. These films are selected because, with the exception of The Green Berets, they are somewhat lesser known films of the Vietnam War film cycle; thus, there is less scholarship devoted to them and therefore greater opportunity for original analysis. I devote one chapter each to a close reading of each film and investigate the ideologies of each film, its representations of masculinity, and note formalistic characteristics where relevant. Intrinsically relevant is the fact that these films represent the significant cultural development of the Vietnam War film cycle over a period of nearly twenty-five years. vii CHAPTER ONE VIETNAM MOVIES, A NEW MYTHOS OF THE MASCULINE They are murdering all the young men. For half a century now, every day, They have hunted them down and killed them. They are killing them now. At this minute, all over the world, They are killing the young men. They know ten thousand ways to kill them. Every year they invent new ones. Kenneth Rexroth, “Thou Shalt Not Kill” 1953 Kenneth Rexroth’s reading of his 1953 poem “Thou Shalt Not Kill: A Memorial for Dylan Thomas” influenced Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” published in 1956. Rexroth says in his preface that “The poem is directed against the twentieth, the Century of Horror” (The Portable Beat Reader, 305-6). I hope to be neither trite nor poetic in making this claim: every war is built upon the horrors of the previous war. Rexroth’s poem, written during the height of the Cold War and the Korean War, reflects the horror that was WWII. It also clearly foreshadows the coming war in Vietnam. It also begs the question, who is this mysterious “they?” The simple answer is, men. The poets of the 20th century are by no means the first to rail against the tragedy that is war. But few have waxed poetic in recognizing that the tragedy that is war is concomitant with the construction of that which is man himself. An analysis of war with this premise in mind—and in the case of this dissertation, an analysis of how war is (re)presented in cinema—can succumb to infinite regress, given how the history of mankind is equivalent to the record of mankind’s un-kindness, i.e., warfare. Thus, I will limit my analysis to the films centering on the Vietnam War, two combat films in detail, both Hollywood productions of the Vietnam War film cycle, with only occasional and anecdotal reference to films on earlier wars and to historical records of those wars as a means to demonstrate the main premise of this dissertation: representations of masculinity in Hollywood war/combat films reflect the changing and changed mores of the era in which they were made, and that these representations are so prevalent as to suggest a culture-wide shift in notions of masculinity since the Vietnam War (American participation in combat, beginning with air 1 bombing of targets in North Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident is roughly the period from 1964 to 1975). I will demonstrate that the majority of the representations of masculinity in the Vietnam War film cycle (an expression that includes all films about the Vietnam War but particularly those produced in Hollywood) have achieved mythic status—accepted

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