Why has the glamorization of Vietnam movies ended after 9/11?
...ch 78). However, the film was accurate in showing Cronauer teach English to the Vietnamese. He also became disconcerted with the censorship of news when he was ordered to “not report a bar bombing he had witnessed” (78). Journal staff writer Abbott states: “while his program was certainly more innovative and likely than the fare American GIs were subjected to before his arrival in Vietnam in 1965, it was not as wild and manic as it was portrayed on film” (B.01). Although Cronauer was aware that this might be in bad taste, he decided to continue with his jubilance. He later found out that “when the soldiers had bad days they would talk back to his radio persona”(Darrach 78). I think this is unsurprising considering the trauma of war and its impact on the soldiers. Overall, the movie was not a good depiction of real life. Hollywood glamorizes the movie by making it more attractive and funny than it really is. It can be well summarized when the real Adrian Cronauer says: “if I had done half of the things Robin did in the movie I’d be in Leavenworth [penitentiary].” Full Metal Jacket (1987) is a more serious movie compared to the previous. The title is a subtle metaphor, as Kauffmann (1987) said: “the title of Full Metal Jacket describes a Marine rifle’s cartridges. Those cartridges do a lot of damage, and the first part of Full Metal Jacket is about the damage to the mind of the soldier. The sniper scene is realistic as are the dialogue and the battle action” (Kauffmann 28). The director Stanley Kubrick “dares the viewer to withstand certain varieties of cinematic discomfort;” because if a person ever wonders what war really does to humans, they would become outraged at the movie theater for showing such films, because of the cold cruel reality of the decadence of war (Castle & Donatelli 24). The director intentionally portrays the movie in a manner that is both obscure and disjointed because “war can not be adequately experienced by an audience” (24). According to Castle and Donatelli, “he does not want the audience to view the movie in a remote manner because there is not proper emotion in that” (24). In the article “Hollywood Goes To Vietnam”, journalist writer Szamuely states: “in his Full Metal Jacket, there is little of Vietnam, but a great deal ... madness, violence, and quirks in the American national character. Show him [Kubrick] a war and he feels obliged to mediate on the awful psychopathology of a man killing a man” (53). Szamuely cleverly points out “the theme is not the usual one of the malign influence of the war on the American character, but rather the opposite, the malign influence of the American character on the war. The story concerns the turning of young men into trained killers” (53). One of the unsolved mysteries in the story is the development of Private Pyle’s character going steadily insane. He was a heavier soldier and forced the rest of the soldiers to do extra work due to his misfortune of failing to complete all training exercises. After being beaten in his sleep by his fellow bunk-mates with heavy objects like bricks, Pyle has decided he has had enough. Szamuely maintains that “upon finally being accepted into the Marines, [Pyle] kills first his drill instructor and then himself” (53). Another example of the soldiers’ transformation into psychopath killers is when the GI contemplatively reflects by saying: “when we get back to the real world we’re going to miss not having anyone around worth shooting” (Szamuely 53). In summary, Full Metal Jacket (1987) can be best described as a “portrayal of a group of blindly obedient killers and inexplicably transformed into and ill-disciplined, incompetent, dim-witted lot” (Szamuely 53). By the time we get to the film We Were Soldiers (2002) fifteen years later, America’s history, representation and acceptance of war has changed. Hollywood seems to have shifted its views on wars after the year 2001 with the attack of 9/11 on American soil. In a time where American patriotism and unity was much in need, the war movies of the new millennium seemed to promote these higher human values. We Were Soldiers (2002) was just one of the many war motion pictures at the time, but as far as I can recall was the only movie to successfully rescue the theme of the Vietnam War and “the first to give Vietnam veterans the respect [...] for their faithful service in a long, bitter war that ripped [America] apart. It even has the potential to change the way America thinks about those who fought in Vietnam” (Galloway 14). The scene and battlefield in the film “luxuriates in the spacious terrain of the Ia Drang Valley as an occasion for wide-open vistas of fiery destruction. In huge tidal gushes, clouds of napalm streak across the Panavision screen, satisfyingly incinerating the enemy- until canisters hit too close to American lines and horribly burn one of our guys” (Doherty 8). The film makes an aggressive attempt to place the public on their side by showing comradely unity and the heroic actions of the American soldiers. The patriotism in the movie is slightly skewed from the normal perceptions of patriotism. Patriotism in the movie is represented by the soldier’s love for one another, by fighting for each other to keep each other alive. The soldiers in the movie do not fight for what America stands for. They simply fight because their comrades are American and have the same blood as they do. All that mattered was living and returning home, and making sure that one’s buddies did the same. The motto of Lt. Col. Hal Moore: “leave no man behind or dead in the battlefield” only serves to attest that the lives of their fellow soldiers were just as valuable as their own, and that these actions could only be honorable...