Militarized Patriotism: Constructing Norms of Patriotic Behavior Through the Image of the Soldier in Film
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Political Science Theses Department of Political Science 8-7-2018 Militarized Patriotism: Constructing Norms Of Patriotic Behavior Through The Image Of The Soldier In Film Matthew Morley Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/political_science_theses Recommended Citation Morley, Matthew, "Militarized Patriotism: Constructing Norms Of Patriotic Behavior Through The Image Of The Soldier In Film." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2018. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/political_science_theses/71 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Political Science at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MILITARIZED PATRIOTISM: CONSTRUCTING NORMS OF PATRIOTIC BEHAVIOR THROUGH THE IMAGE OF THE SOLDIER IN FILM by MATTHEW BLAKE MORLEY Under the Direction of Henry Carey, PhD ABSTRACT Janet Cramer’s concept of militarized patriotism is an important contribution to the study of social militarization. This essay attempts to expand our understanding of militarized patriotism by interrogating the ways patriotic norms of behavior are established within American culture and altered during moments of crisis. I argue that changes in the cinematic reproduction of the image of the soldier during the 1970s established “honoring the soldier” as a new form of enforced patriotic behavior. In particular, I argue that the attempt to portray the “real” events of Vietnam constructed an image of the wounded soldier that allowed audiences to empathize with American veterans. As the image of the wounded soldier was consolidated in American culture during the 1980s and 1990s, honoring the soldier became a repressive mechanism that now works to legitimize a permanent state of war. INDEX WORDS: Patriotism, Militarization, War Films, Visual Analysis, Images, Soldiers MILITARIZED PATRIOTISM: CONSTRUCTING NORMS OF PATRIOTIC BEHAVIOR THROUGH THE IMAGE OF THE SOLDIER IN FILM by MATTHEW BLAKE MORLEY A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Art in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2018 Copyright by Matthew Blake Morley 2018 MILITARIZED PATRIOTISM: CONSTRUCTING NORMS OF PATRIOTIC BEHAVIOR THROUGH THE IMAGE OF THE SOLDIER IN FILM by MATTHEW BLAKE MORLEY Committee Chair: Henry Carey Committee: Jelena Subotic Mario Feit Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University August 2018 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This journey would not have been possible without the support of the wonderful staff, students, and faculty in the department of political science. Thank you to Dr. Carey, Dr. Subotic, and Dr. Feit for the advice, encouragement and, perhaps more importantly, the patience. To the staff, students, and faculty of the Institute for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, thank you for allowing me to be a part of such a remarkable and engaging space. Special thanks to Julie Kubala for your guidance and mentorship. You allowed me to look beyond my preconceptions to envision new possibilities. To my friends, my family, and my loves, thank you for the emotional, financial, and physical support. To Lucas, Nathan, Cory, and Rebecca, thank you for the advice and guidance through this process. And finally to Sherah, I owe you the most. Had it not been for you this would not be a reality. I am always in your debt for everything you have done for me: from the words of encouragement and your commitment to my success to, most importantly, the sacrifices you have made and the endless frustration. Words alone cannot express my gratitude to you. And yes…you were right. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ V LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. VIII 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................... 2 2.1 Patriotism ........................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Militarized Patriotism ...................................................................................... 7 2.3 Culture and the Endurance of Militarized Patriotism ................................ 10 2.4 Hollywood and the Image of the Soldier ....................................................... 11 2.5 The Power of Images ...................................................................................... 15 3 MILITARIZED PATRIOTISM AND THE IMAGE OF THE SOLDIER ................... 18 3.1 Constructing Patriotism through the Image of the Soldier ........................ 20 3.2 National Security and the Crisis of the Cold War ....................................... 25 3.3 Militarized Patriotism and the Conservative Soldier .................................. 31 4 THE CRISIS OF VIETNAM ............................................................................................. 34 4.1 The Green Berets and the End of the Conservative Soldier ....................... 38 5 MILITARIZED PATRIOTISM AND THE WOUNDED SOLDIER ............................ 43 5.1 The Wounded Soldier ..................................................................................... 45 5.2 The Conservative Warrior Extracts Revenge .............................................. 52 5.3 1990s Militarization and the Consolidation of the Soldier .......................... 56 vii 5.4 World War II Nostalgia and the Cult of the Soldier ................................... 58 6 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 62 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 63 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Sergeant York (1941), Warner Brothers ....................................................................... 20 Figure 2: Sgt. Stryker in the Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Republic Pictures ................................. 31 Figure 3: Col. Kirby in The Green Berets (1968), Batjac Productions ......................................... 38 Figure 4: Mike in The Deer Hunter (1978), Universal Pictures ................................................... 45 Figure 5: John Rambo in First Blood (1982), Orion Pictures ....................................................... 52 Figure 6: Cpt. Miller (far left) in Saving Private Ryan (1998), DreamWorks Pictures ................ 58 1 1 INTRODUCTION Despite a modest opposition in the United States and a near global rejection of the Bush administration’s unilateral foreign policies, including a strong anti-war movement in Europe, very little public debate occurred in the United States prior to the 2003 Iraq War (Cramer 2009, 151; Sheehan 2008, xiii–xv, 214). Any debate that did occur amounted to what Steven Van Evera terms “non-evaluation”; a debate where those in power seek to direct attention and public favor towards their position by actively ignoring or suppressing contradictory information and criticism (in Kaufmann 2004, 6). As Richard Jackson observes, the Bush administration successfully controlled the debate through a concerted effort to “deny, deconstruct, and delegitimize” oppositional narratives of the war (Jackson 2011, 398). By the time the war commenced, the American public overwhelmingly favored the war in Iraq (see Eichenberg 2005; Mueller 2005) and marched impulsively into a devastating war without a national discussion (Kohn 2008). The cost of the Global War on Terror has been drastic. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan killed over 6,800 U.S. military personnel and wounded another 32,000 (Deer 2016). By 2016, there were nearly 1 million disability claims filled with the Department of Veterans Affairs (Deer 2016). These numbers, however, pale in comparison to the effects the two wars have had on Iraqi and Afghani citizens. There have been at least 210,000 confirmed civilian deaths in both war zones (Deer 2016). In the years since the 2003, the United States military has expanded exponentially. In the last years of the Bush era, the United States was spending upwards of $600 billion annually to support a military infrastructure that spanned the globe (Boggs and Pollard 2008, 566). The promise of hope and change that lead Barack Obama into the Whitehouse had little effect on United States militarization. By 2012, US defense spending was over $700 billion, 2 nearly half of total military spending across the globe (O’Connell 2012). Despite this exorbitant spending, in the 2012 presidential campaign, both Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney called for an increase in the military budget (O’Connell 2012). As Aaron O’Connell points out, the US military has become the “third-rail” of American politics (O’Connell 2012). The costs of permanent war in the United States, both in material and human terms, is especially problematic considering it is now clear that the Bush administration’s campaign to garner public support for the war in Iraq was intentionally