Iraq War Films: Defining a Subgenre
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IRAQ WAR FILMS: DEFINING A SUBGENRE A Master’s Thesis by MAGDALENA AGATA YÜKSEL Department of Communication and Design İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University Ankara 2015 IRAQ WAR FILMS: DEFINING A SUBGENRE Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences of Ihsan Doğ ramacı Bilkent University by MAGDALENA AGATA YÜKSEL In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION AND DESIGN IHSAN DOĞ RAMACI BILKENT UNIVERSITY ANKARA January 2015 I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in Media and Visual Studies. --------------------------------- Asst. Prof. Colleen Kennedy-Karpat Supervisor I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in Media and Visual Studies. --------------------------------- Asst. Prof. Ahmet Gürata Examining Committee Member I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in Media and Visual Studies. --------------------------------- Asst. Prof. Andrew J. Ploeg Examining Committee Member Approval of the Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences --------------------------------- Prof. Erdal Erel Director ABSTRACT IRAQ WAR FILMS: DEFINING A SUBGENRE Yüksel, Magdalena Agata M.A., Department of Communication and Design Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Colleen Kennedy-Karpat January 2015 This thesis analyzes a new subgenre of war films, concentrating on particular case of Iraq War films. Treating the war film genre within the notion of a historical event, war is here understood as a setting rather than a direct battlefield experience. Consequently, this thesis recognizes the subgenre of Iraq War films as encapsulating the experiences from both the warzone and homefront. The focus here is thus not only limited to the soldiers at the front, but also to their families, overseeing the trauma as happening in the U.S. While trying to distinguish the conventions of this new subgenre, this dissertation also focuses on the historical context of the war, comparing the War on Terror’s context and representations to those of the World War II and Vietnam War. Ultimately, defining Iraq War films is set on the axis of the previous war films’ conventions, the new technological nature of warfare, and an intimate link between the postmodern influence that affects both narrative and visual style of Iraq War films. Keywords: Iraq War, films, cinema, genre, postmodernism, soldier iii ÖZET IRAK SAVAŞ FİLMLERİ: ALT TÜR BELİRLEME Yüksel, Magdalena Agata Yüksek Lisans, İletişim ve Tasarım Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Asst. Prof. Colleen Kennedy-Karpat Ocak 2015 Bu tez çalışması, savaş filmlerinin yeni bir alt türünü analiz etmekte ve özel olarak Irak Savaş filmlerini temel örnek almaktadır. Tarihsel olarak savaş konseptinin sinemada yer aldığı gerçeğine dayanarak savaş sadece doğrudan muharabe alanı tecrübesi olarak değil, arka planda ilerleyen bir durum olarak incelenmiştir. Dolayısıyla bu çalışma Irak Savaş filmleri alt türünü hem muharebe hemde sivil cephede yaşananlar olarak kapsamaktadır. Tez çalışmasının odak noktası sadece ön cephede savaşan askerlerle sınırlı değil, bu askerlerin aileleri ve Amerika’da yaşanan travmalarıda içermektedir. Bu yeni türün kurallarını ortaya koymaya çalışırken bir taraftanda savaş konseptinin tarihi altyapısını, İkinci Dünya Savaşı ve Vietnam Şavaşındaki terrorisimle savaş bağlamıyla kıyaslamaktadır. Sonuç olarak bu çalışma, Irak Savaş filmlerinin eski savaş filmlerindeki genel geçer kurallarla aynı çizgide olduğunu vurgulamakla birlikte, yeni nesil teknolojik muharebenin doğası, postmodern etki ve Irak Savaş filmleri arasındaki yakın bağı bulmayı amaçlamaktadır. Keywords: Irak Savaşı, filmler, sinema, tür, postmodern, asker iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would never have been able to finish my thesis without the guidance of my committee members and support from my husband. First and foremost I want to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Asst. Prof. Colleen Kennedy-Karpat, who has been a great mentor for me and a great supporter in times of doubt. Without the hours of talking, patient exchanges of e-mails and Colleen’s efforts, this thesis would have not been completed. One could not wish for a more wonderful supervisor. Besides my supervisor, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Asst. Prof. Ahmet Gurata and Asst. Prof. Andrew Ploeg, for their insightful comments and hard questions. Finally, I thank my husband for supporting me throughout all my studies and watching for hours the war films with me, and most of all, for always being by my side. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... iii ÖZET .................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................v TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................ viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................1 CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND .............................................................................4 CHAPTER 3: THE WAR EXPERIENCE ............................................................16 3.1 Soldiers in World War II and Vietnam: The foundations of generic conventions ...................................................16 3.2 The Iraq War combat film: Elements of the genre ............................28 3.3 The Gulf War and Jarhead(s) (2005) .................................................32 3.4 The pornographic image and Redacted (2007) ...................................40 3.5 Adrenaline junkie and The Hurt Locker (2008) ...................................50 3.6 The justification of war and Green Zone (2010) ................................59 CHAPTER 4: THE JOURNALIST IN THE WAR ZONE ..................................68 4.1 The war correspondents in the World War II and Vietnam War ........70 4.2 The Gulf War ......................................................................................77 4.3 The Iraq War ........................................................................................85 CHAPTER 5: THE POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IN IRAQ WAR FILMS ........................................................................................95 5.1 Vietnam War and before: defining the post-traumatic stress disorder ................................................96 5.2 Iraq War: finding its own voice for war trauma ................................107 CHAPTER 6: HOMEFRONT: WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND ...................................................133 vi 6.1 Propaganda, protests and managing the war at home in the 20th century ....................................................................................134 6.2 The Gulf War and the Iraq War—echo of the “good war” or the relapse of the disdained war? .............................................................143 6.3 The Death of a Soldier ......................................................................146 6.4 Protecting the Homeland ...................................................................162 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS ..........................................................................168 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................172 APPENDIX .........................................................................................................177 vii LIST OF FIGURES 1. Big Ant International poster “What Goes Around Comes Around. Stop the Iraq War.” .....................................................................................................133 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Total war takes us from military secrecy (the second-hand, recorded truth of the battlefield) to the overexposure of live broadcast. For with the advent of strategic bombing everything is now brought home to the cities, and it is no longer just the few but a whole mass of spectator-survivors who are the surviving spectators of combat. (…) [T]he streets themselves have now become a permanent film-set for army cameras or the tourist- reporters of global civil war (…) The West, after adjusting from the political illusions of the cinema-city (…) has now plunged into the transpolitical pan-cinema of the nuclear age, into an entirely cinematic vision of the world. Paul Virilio (1992: 66) The reality and execution of war has changed throughout the decades with the technological progress that brought advances in both weaponry and communication. These developments resulted in a more and more electronic battlefield, with the Internet and immediate access to information initiating the time-space compression that allows both spectators and actors to be part of the same spectacle. In case of recent U.S. wars, which are conducted with the usage and aide of these technological advances, war representations in films often try to encapsulate the new war reality within its generic conventions. Compared with previous wars’ films, these representations of recent conflicts offer a different outlook