VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.35, No.6 (2019) 135-145 135 DISCUSSION THE VIETNAM SYNDROME IN FORREST GUMP MOVIE SCRIPT Trinh Thi Van*, Nguyen Hong Van, Nguyen Thi Thu Phuc Department of Foreign Languages, Hanoi University of Mining and Geology Duc Thang, Bac Tu Liem, Hanoi, Vietnam Received 15 March 2019 Revised 16 September 2019; Accepted 22 December 2019 Abstract: Considered the most controversial war in the 20th century, the Vietnam War deeply divides the American society. Especially, it causes the Vietnam Syndrome which still is an obsession of American people until today. The research is carried out on a movie script of one of the most famous Hollywood films about the Vietnam War, Forrest Gump. The collected data are analyzed on the basis of Fairclough’s three- dimensional framework for critical discourse analysis (CDA). The study aims to reveal the different aspects of the syndrome considered as a psychological trauma expressing in many factors such as the topic, the plot, the characters, the setting, the genre, the theme songs, and the language of the whole movie. Moreover, the movie script exposes a long period of problematic and tragic time in the history of the United States. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, Vietnam Syndrome, movie script, Vietnam War, American Studies 1. Introduction many problems in American society and people. In other words, it was a trouble of 1The term Vietnam Syndrome, or Post- the whole country. Many veterans coming Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), was first back from Vietnam have failed in efforts to used in the early 1970s to describe the physical have an ordinary life. More Vietnam veterans and psychological symptoms of veterans committed suicide due to psychological coming back from the Vietnam War. By the problems after the war than those who had end of the 1970s, the Vietnam Syndrome was died during the war. At least three-quarters no longer a purely medical term, and it came in a million veterans became homeless or to have a political meaning, coined by Henry jobless. Kissinger and popularized by Ronald Reagan Intrinsically, the Vietnam Syndrome is to describe the US’s reluctance to send troops into combat situations overseas. This a collective psychological sickness caused happened because the US was afraid that they by the conflicts between ideological powers would get bogged down in a quagmire again, and reality. By ideological powers we mean like they did in Vietnam, and this would lead the belief in the “Noble” American Values, to a loss of support for the government. Dreams, Just Cause, Strength, etc. These The Vietnam Syndrome also led to powers decide the way they speak, live, and behave in their life. (Remember Thomas * Corresponding author. Tel.: 84-982853935 Paine’s statement that the cause of the Email: [email protected] 136 T.T. Van, N.H. Van, N.T.T. Phuc/ VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.35, No.6 (2019) 135-145 Americans is the cause of humanity). The relationships of causality and determination reality is what they see: the American soldiers between (a) discursive practices, events, and went to Vietnam to become “baby killers”, texts (b) wider social and cultural structures, drop napalm, and cause bloody massacres. relations, and processes; to investigate how such practices, events, and texts arise out of and are The question is whether the American ideologically shaped by relations of power and government continually tell lies to their nation struggles over power; and to explore how the in committing all these awful actions that opacity of these relationships between discourse generate psychological disorders in the whole and society is itself a factor securing power and country while and after the war. hegemony” (Fairclough, 1995, p.132-133). The demonstrations of the Vietnam Fairclough’s significant contribution to Syndrome are different, but the essential is CDA is the development of the analytical the doubt and disbelief of American people framework which many researchers have in the so-called American values. They raise considered a useful tool to do CDA studies so questions such as: Is America really such a far. In fact, Fairclough gives his opinion on free and great country? Does the American the actual nature of discourse and text analysis Army go to Vietnam to liberate miserable through the three-dimensional framework in people from the communists’ suppression? Figure 1 below: Does the merciful God exist as they used to think? In general, it is their disillusion in the future and in life. They lose their direction to the future and do not know how to move on. To find out the fact that the syndrome appears everywhere in every field of American society including in artworks, literature, newspapers, especially in movies; the research investigates the movie script of Forrest Gump – a very gripping example in which the Vietnam Syndrome hiddenly exists in outstanding factors of the movie such as the topic, the plot, the characters, the setting, the Figure 1. Three-dimension conception of genre, the theme songs, and the language. discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992) 2. Theoretical background and analytical As shown in Figure 1, Fairclough’s framework analytical framework includes three dimensions of discourse: the text, the discourse Theoretical background practice, and the socio-cultural practice. Corresponding to these three dimensions Emerging in the 1970s, CDA has developed of discourse, Fairclough identifies three strongly with its multidisciplinary approach on dimensions (or stages) of CDA as follows: the analysis of ideology and power relation. It has drawn the attention of many linguists Description is the stage concerned with with the outstanding CDA works such as identifying formal properties of the text. Fowler, Van Dijk, Wodak, and especially In this stage, the analysis of the language Fairclough. In Fairclough’s point of view, CDA structures produced is exercised. is defined as follows: “By “critical” discourse analysis, I mean discourse analysis which Interpretation is concerned with the aims to systematically explore often opaque relationship between text and interaction – VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.35, No.6 (2019) 135-145 137 with seeing the text as a product of a process And always independently, based on the social of production, and as a resource in the process and historical context of the Vietnam War and of interpretation. American society at that time, the explanation of the data was performed in order to find out Explanation is concerned with the the Vietnam Syndrome hidden behind. relationship between interaction and social context – with the social determination of the 3. Data analysis processes of production and interpretation, and their social effects. In this study, the researcher collected the data from the script of the film Forrest Gump According to Fairclough’s analytical written by Eric Roth and based on a novel by framework, CDA researchers center on not Winston Groom. The impacts of the Vietnam just analyzing texts and the processes of their Syndrome on the movie script were discovered production and interpretation, but also the and demonstrated by analyzing the data relationship between texts, processes, and their concerning main factors of the movie such as social conditions, both the immediate conditions the topic, the plot, the characters, the setting, of the situational context and the more remote the genre, the theme songs, and the language. conditions of institutional and social structures. Besides, some inter-textual factors, such as historical, socio-cultural, and artistic events Analytical framework and works, were also studied when needed. 3.1. Topic, Plot and Characters Among a wide range of qualitative research methods, the approach of critical discourse Topic analysis was chosen for this study in order to The topic of the movie, is about the Vietnam highlight the Vietnam Syndrome reflected in War which ended many years ago. By the time all the factors of he movie script. the movie was created, there had already been The data analysis focusing on the Vietnam many films, books, documentaries, articles, Syndrome based on Fairclough ‘s analytical etc. referring to the war throughout the United framework follows a three-stage process: States and all over the world. However, the description, interpretation, and explanation. director still chose this topic, which indicates In the stage of description, the authors that the questions about the war never come will particularly center on the factors that to an end in Americans’ conception. They are constitute the movie script such as the topic, always urged to go and find out the ways to the plot, the characters, the setting, the genre, solve the problems of American society as the the theme songs, and the language used in effects of the war. It means that the Vietnam the script. In the stage of interpretation, the Syndrome still persists - it can hardly ever researchers will show how the expressions fade away from American history. should be interpreted in the specific context It is also fundamental to note that the war of the movie script of which the syndrome has different names in Vietnam and in the displays explicitly and implicitly. In the US. In Vietnam it is cuộc kháng chiến chống stage of explanation, the researchers will Mỹ cứu nước (literally an Anti-American demonstrate how those expressions are Resistance War for National Salvation), while affected by socio-cultural powers such as in the US, it is called the Vietnam War, which situational, social, or institutional, in this case implies that it is just a war among other wars by the Vietnam Syndrome. – and “victories” – in the US history. It is clear The data related to chosen factors were how the ideological powers form the names described, and then interpreted separately. and concepts of wars in the US.