“What is Life?” During the War on Terror

American disenchantment with the government after the end of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s through 1970s has since grown to be also disenchanted with the American dream. The September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001 is the primary marker for the radical change in American sentiment and the defining moment of the so-called “millennial generation,” the generation of people who were in primary school through college during the attacks. As Americans struggle to make sense of the War on Terror, their sentiment toward the government was often conflicted, confused, and frequently changed. Though the war began with a patriotic fervor inspired by the Bush administration, a sentiment of indifference emerged a few years into the war with the exception of a few major bloody events. Dissention characterized the later years until President Obama declared in 2013 that the United States to no longer be pursuing the War on Terror. Between the indifference and dissention stages, the American dream changed and even became irrelevant.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more superhero films were being produced than in any other period in American history. Historians can use the numerous superhero films just as Americans used them when they were release since these films provide explanations of the War on Terror for Americans to make sense of it and reflect how Americans perceived the war at the time.[1] The “good guys” in popular culture realms tended to be either superheroes acting outside of the federal government, as is the case in the numerous Marvel films produced since 2001, or common Americans who sometimes take extralegal actions, disregarding the government though they work for it. In the latter case, examples from Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2008) and the current television show Homeland depict American soldiers and intelligence agents disregarding official orders to stop pursuing a case so they can essentially be the heroes and save the world without government help. In Homeland’s first season, CIA agent Carrie Mathison carries out an investigation against executive orders, which ultimately turned out to be the right thing for her to do to protect important government officials.

In Homeland season 1, Carrie has a wall of classified documents (stolen from Langley) in her house for her unsanctioned investigation

Similarly in The Hurt Locker, Sergeant James refuses to follow orders, but his disobedience ultimately saves the lives of hundreds of people. In these films, the federal government is often portrayed as a hindrance, something likely to cause more harm than good, particularly in Homeland. Eventually, vigilante soldiers and superheroes became the ideal American hero for much of American society during the War on Terror.

While Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker provides intense scenes of battle and the everyday lives of soldiers in Iraq during the War on Terror to actively show the affects of war on soldiers, no war or intense action is seen in Ben Fountain’s novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. Instead of filling the novel with the heroic actions of the story’s soldier hero, Fountain focuses on how Billy interprets his life and American life through a stream of consciousness narrative. Billy’s thoughts throughout the book, like The Hurt Locker, show how being on the battlefield affects young people, but his interactions with non-military characters in the book show how the War on Terror has affected Americans at home. The War on Terror simultaneously made sense and made no sense at all for many Americans in the early twenty-first century. The fact that films attacking the idea of the War on Terror were hardly successful early in the war suggests that Americans initially wanted to support the war effort. It seems that nearly every American knew someone, friend or family, who served in the war and believed he or she had to support the war effort to support their friend or family member, regardless of their moral leaning toward the war. Being conflicted over supporting the troops or opposing a war they most often did not understand created indifference and dispiritedness among Americans.

The fact that the Fountain’s story does not have an end goal to lead up to really pushes the point of the novel through Billy’s eyes, that there is no clear purpose to life. The morality of the war is not in question in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk or in The Hurt Locker, but rather their individual purpose in life and the purpose of the United States. Billy points out the United States’ complicity in the war and that Americans are instead “stuck on teenage drama, on extravagant theatrics of ravaged innocence and soothing mud wallows of self-justifying pity.” His experience during his two week “victory tour” in the United States shows him the American life for which he is fighting. Billy is not impressed by the “draft-dodging, platitude-mouthing millionaires and their trophy wives…[or] a scantily clad Beyoncé entertaining football fans with a ridiculous military-themed halftime show.” For Billy Lynn in Fountain’s novel and Sergeant James in Bigelow’s film, being separated from the trivial aspects of American life, they realize that the war has made them foreigners in their home country and decide their life’s purpose is war. War had become a way of life in the early twenty-first century.

War being a way of life is not the point of the novel or the film. Both use the “war as a way of life” mentality to capitalize on the excessiveness of American culture. When James has returned to the States from Iraq at the end of the film, he is very clearly overwhelmed by the excessive number of food choices when his wife asks him to buy cereal. Similarly, Lynn finds the expensive leather and crystal Cowboys’ merchandise at the Texas Stadium absurd and jokes with Mango about it.[2] The American dream of being economically comfortable, married to a beautiful woman, and having a house filled with happy children is lost on both these soldiers and American society in general. Billy sees distorted images of the old American dream among the wealthiest crowd at the Cowboys’ game. James actually has achieved the old American dream, but returning to it from war makes his life seem empty and purposeless.

Billy’s interpretation of civilian life during the War on Terror thoroughly describes Americans conflicted emotions toward the war. His encounters show people who seem to have forgotten or simply do not care enough about the war until in the soldiers’ presence as well as people openly opposed to the solders’ line of duty.[3] Sergeant James’ story embodies the heroic vigilante soldier Americans favored at the time, a reflection of American sentiment toward their government. Both Billy and James reflect indifference to the traditional American dream and the adoption of a war way of life without regard to their moral judgment concerning the war.

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[1] Drew McKevitt, “Watching War Made Us Immune: The Popular Culture of the Wars,” in Understand the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, eds. Beth Bailey and Richard H. Immerman (New York: NYU Press, 2015), 4.

[2] Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2012), 29.

[3] Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, 301-307.

Informing the Right-Wing’s Public Opinion of FDR

The Great Depression as told by Internet memes –

Public opinion of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the twenty-first century is extremely varied and often uninformed. Right-wing republicans and conservatives have accused FDR as a socialist, communist, and fascist. Famous right-wingers, such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and their followers have also consistently blamed the former president for unnecessarily expanding the federal government and installing social programs they believe cause modern economic problems in the United States. In his book A Concise History of the New Deal, Jason Scott Smith addresses and corrects common right-wing criticism of FDR by providing a detailed historical account of the events that cause most controversy and sufficient information that explain why “voices of opposition are discredited.”

Smith adds to the common belief that the 1929 stock market collapse began the Great Depression by faulting excessive capitalism for the collapse. By explaining the economic crash as the collapse of capitalism, he solidifies the idea that the New Deal was FDR’s solution to fix capitalism while simultaneously discrediting modern right-wing belief that FDR’s New Deal diminished capitalism (Smith 2)

Right-wing critics of FDR have forgotten the ineptitude of Republican President Hoover, who only worsened the economic crisis

Right-wing critics of FDR have clearly forgotten the ineptitude of Republican President Hoover, whose lack of action to avoid expanding the federal government only worsened the economic crisis at the beginning of the Depression. Through the use of FDR’s public speeches and Eleanor Roosevelt’s private comments, Smith essentially claims government expansion was necessary for a democratic, capitalist United States to survive. He explains that FDR equated the economic crisis to a wartime crisis, during which times it was necessary to expand the reach and power of the federal government (Smith 32). By viewing uncontrolled capitalism as the enemy in the economic battle that was the Great Depression, Smith simultaneously makes FDR’s logical reasoning for expanding the government easy to understand and shows why Hoover’s ideas to combat the Depression failed. Making these assertions is needed to convince small-government favoring right-wingers that government expansion produced by the New Deal was necessary and helpful. The assertions that expanding the government was necessary and effectual also are needed for Smith to tackle accusations of FDR being communist and fascist.

Accusations of FDR being both fascist and communist simultaneously are enough evidence to prove right-wingers are either misinformed or uniformed. Communism and fascism have some similarities, but, depending on the type of political spectrum used, the two ideologies are opposite. This “Political Spectra” chart provides two spectrums displaying how communism and fascism are similar and opposite. This chart, when analyzed with Smith’s account of FDR, should inform right-wingers that FDR was not communist or fascist. According to Smith, FDR’s reforms are both radical, according to his opposition at the time, and reactionary as his reforms were in direct response to the Great Depression. On the radical-reactionary scale, Smith places FDR in the middle as liberal. On the authoritarian-libertarian scale, Smith still places the former president as liberal by examining FDR’s belief that “necessitous men are not free men” and the government should ensure and protect the things that provide the needs of individuals as found in the Second Bill of Rights.

FDR’s script on his Second Bill of Rights

Rush Limbaugh, a favorite television/radio host among right-wingers, believes FDR’s proposed Second Bill of Rights is socialist legislature. As a favorite show host, Limbaugh is a type of spokesperson for the right-wing making his opinion and judgment of FDR’s Second Bill of Rights representative of the general right-wing public opinion. Limbaugh believes that only the economic market can determine peoples’ rights to earn sufficient wages enough to provide adequate food, clothing, and recreation, meaning “what [people] earn is nothing more than our value.” With this translation, Limbaugh is himself determining who in society is important based on worth and devalues those who currently lack the ability to earn sufficient wages. According to such a translation, Limbaugh’s approach to politics and economics is, ironically, more fascist than FDR’s ideology. Smith’s arguments clearly pose FDR’s New Deal as an equalizer for the American people ensuring value of every person by protecting individual human rights (Smith 172).

Rush Limbaugh’s approach to politics and economics is more fascist than FDR’s ideology

Another television and radio host right-wing representative, Glenn Beck, blames FDR for taking away Japanese-American’s rights by putting them in internment “prison” camps during World War II. To counter this, Smith explains that FDR’s advisors spearheaded many of the now most controversial programs and encouraged the president to agree to things whether or not he was decidedly comfortable with a particular program (Smith 50). Smith also explains that leaders of the public works organizations built the internment camps thinking they were helping in the war effort. While FDR ultimately signed off on the construction of internment camps and the relocation of Japanese-Americans, Smith argues FDR was not the mastermind behind the internment camps and the project was approved only because of the changes made to New Deal policy to prepare for war.

Right-wing criticism of FDR has become a popular topic of debate particularly for comparing President Obama to FDR. Smith’s pro-New Deal stance throughout his book makes FDR’s approach to the 1930s depression eerily reminiscent of President Obama’s approach to the 2008 economic recession. Being informed by Smith’s account of FDR and New Deal history would encourage twenty-first century right-wing Americans to embrace Obama’s social reforms.

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For further reading:

“Republican’s Latest Talking Point: The New Deal Failed” – New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/opinion/12mon4.html?_r=0

“FDR’s Failed Moral Leadership” – American Conservative    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/fdrs-failed-moral-leadership/

“A New FDR Emerges: Historians, Teachers, Authors Take a Fresh, Sometimes Critical, Look at Roosevelt” – Prologue Magazine at the National Archives   http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/winter/fdr-emerges.html

(This one has numerous charts and versions of the political spectrum showing the relationships between communism and fascism among other things)                    “Redefining the Political Spectrum: The Rational Spectrum” http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/redefining_the_political_spectru.htm

Postmodern Eighties: Blurred Lines of Good and Evil

Crime is the common denominator between the 1987 film Wall Street and the 1986 comic book The Dark Knight Returns, both of which could be considered postmodern morality plays. Traditional and modern morality plays, such a Shakespeare’s Macbeth and C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia respectively, are very simplistic in portraying the battle between good and evil. The postmodern morality play is clouded by the “dissolution of distinctions” that characterizes postmodernism. Postmodernism begins flourishing in the 1980s leading to distinctions between good and evil, right and wrong being blurred during the decade. Questions of right and wrong or, more simply, morality led to an increase in crime and debates on ways to handle these changes in society. To combat the blurring lines between good and evil that challenged morality, a new type of common-man hero emerged also suffering from the hazy distinctions between good and evil. Superhero comics were also remade in the 1980s to address the good and evil blurred lines with the hero often modeled after President Reagan, whose conservative approach to these social issues often made him appear to be a sort of renegade or vigilante.

a new type of common-man hero emerged also suffering from the hazy distinctions between good and evil

Wall Street director Oliver Stone’s directly stated his belief that the “the lines between right and wrong [are] indistinct and tenuous,” which was becoming a common realization among media writers and producers in the 1980s.[1] The blurred lines between right and wrong, good and evil are clearly seen in Bud Fox’s character development as well as in the nature of the many other Wall Street men. In the original script, Stone had Hal Holbrook, a supposed good guy character, “trading on an inside tip he received from Bud” to depict the haziness of morality in the 1980s.[2] Even though Bud is the film’s protagonist, his choices to follow in Gekko’s financial deviance exemplify the blurred line between good and bad. Bud does not initially see Gekko’s illegal financial practices as evil in part due to Gekko’s defense of his practices. Bud is blinded by Gekko’s logic from seeing the fine line between good and evil making him unaware of his morals decaying as he becomes successful in the stock market. Bud becomes aware of his moral degradation when his job and Gekko threaten to destroy his father’s company. Bud becomes a type of hero only when he is made aware that he has become more evil than good. His choice to abandon his successful life to save his father is a choice to become a vigilante of sorts fighting the immoral financial practices of Gordon Gekko.

In Wall Street, Gekko does not initially appear to be villainous, primarily because we experience the film through Bud, who idolizes of the Wall Street tycoon. Stone suggests powerful and manipulative people like Gekko have an ability to redefine the lines between right and wrong into extinction.[3] Gekko’s famous “greed is good” speech truly depicts just how easily blurred the lines between good and evil were in the 1980s. Gekko even says, “Greed is right” and persuades his audience that this is true by claiming, “Greed works… Greed for life, money, love, knowledge…will save the USA.” Yet this distorted view of greed and greed itself are the very things that ultimately destroy Gekko with much thanks to Bud’s heroic sacrifice of his career and love for his family. 

While confused morality and the resulting crime is a main feature in these 1980s texts, fear is a major characteristic of the overall societal spirit in the 1980s. The threats of nuclear war and devastation due to the Cold War and the threats of rising crime rates and muddled morality corrupting the American dream resurrected superheroes and the comic industry. The comic book industry, dwindling due to an aging customer base, decided to use these new realities of the 1980s as the new backdrop for their existing superheroes to make comics more appealing to an adult audience. By “adding more nihilism, violence, and moral ambiguity to their house styles,” the aging customer base of comics were able to remain “attach[ed] to children’s fiction characters from the ’60s” with its new relevance to life in the 1980s. For example, modern and reinvented superheroes were born in response to the Cold War as a way to address and combat the fears of nuclear war and catastrophe characterizing the 1980s. Fear of a nuclear attack is seen clearly in The Dark Knight Returns before and after the nuclear event the sends Gotham into mayhem. Batman’s success in quelling the crime and chaos demonstrates the ability of a non-police vigilante to fix and take care of his city or country, a nod toward the major political figure of the 1980s being Ronald Reagan.

Comic writer and artist Frank Miller reinvented the Batman in the mid-late 1980s to be loosely modeled after then-president Ronald Reagan, making Reaganism into vigilantism. President Reagan was perceived by liberals and conservatives alike to be a type of renegade or vigilante against fear and crime. While most liberals would have defined Reagan as an “uncivilized vigilante,” conservatives, like Miller, viewed Reagan as the hero America needed. Miller and other pop culture producers essentially revealed “how Reaganism emphasized a system of law and order based on politics as opposed to a system of justice based on morality” by employing these methods in their writing.[4] Throughout The Dark Knight Returns the media, government, and society fight to determine whether Batman’s vigilante acts are criminal, because his actions are technically criminal despite his targets also being criminals, or just, because he is basically a rogue police officer getting rid of Gotham’s criminals.

Reaganism and the conservatism of the 1980s are just as inescapable in Stone’s Wall Street as they are in Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. The conservative approach to the crime and moral ambiguity of the 1980s also has an emphasis on family values. The emphasis on family values is seen in Wall Street when Bud realizes that a family “represented by a strong father figure [is] the rock that one can always rely on” in the morally blurred postmodern society.[5]

Being mislead by Gekko’s own sense of morality, or lack thereof, Bud Fox’s character is the perfect propaganda for conservatives who wish to spread the belief that ambiguous morality leads to criminal activity. Bud becomes the common-man hero who commits a simple act of vigilantism to save his father’s job and, in turn, his own morality. Everyday vigilantism rescuing the morals of a single man as in Bud’s case and police vigilantism rescuing a city from rampant crime caused by lacking distinction between right and wrong as in Batman’s case, vigilantism and morality are important factors in understanding the relationship between heroism and postmodernism in the 1980s. Batman, like Reagan being a sort of moral police, was the hero America needed to manage postmodernist growth more than the hero Gotham deserved.

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[1] John Stone, “Evil in the Early Cinema of Oliver Stone: Platoon and Wall Street as Modern Morality Plays,” Journal of Popular Film & Television 28 no. 2 (2000): 83.

[2] Ibid., 82

[3] Ibid., 84.

[4] Mike Dubose, “Holding Out for a Hero: Reaganism, Comic Book Vigilantes, and Captain America,” Journal of Popular Culture 40 no. 6 (2007), 918.

[5] Elena Oliete, “Images of Love and Money in Hollywood Cinema: Changing Patterns in the Last Decade,” International Journal of the Image 2 no. 2 (2012), 114.

Klan Ideology in the Conservative Party

MacLean’s descriptions of Klan ideology could easily be read as descriptions of modern conservative ideology

Though Nancy MacLean does not suggest the potential rise of a fourth Ku Klux Klan in her book Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan, the “right conditions” or symptoms of social change that she describes as bringing about the rise of the second Klan are also found with some variations in the twenty-first century indicating the potentiality of a fourth Klan. MacLean provides extensive explanation for the resurgence and prevalence of the Klan in the early twentieth-century, which are also applicable to twenty-first century society. According to MacLean, the Klan’s return in the 1920s was the result of a rapidly emerging new social order and its prevalence the result of masses of white, middle-class Protestants fearing changes in society. The “right conditions” for the second Klan’s emergence are a combination of economic trouble or changes, “the rise of divorce, feminism, black radicalism, white racial liberalism, and the postwar strike wave,” most of which are similar to the current conditions (MacLean 33).

MacLean explains early in the book that communism was one of the greatest fears after World War I among Americans who would later join to become the second Ku Klux Klan. Likely a lingering sentiment of the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, politically conservative Americans in the twenty-first century still fear communism and socialism, which can be seen in their propaganda claiming Obamacare is socialized medicine. Conservatives are more irrational and radical than their political counterparts in their fear-based actions and beliefs during wartime or terrorist events. Just as the 1920s Klan “sought to deny political rights to those whom they perceived as threats to [American capitalist power],” conservatives, who are most often Christian, seek to prevent Islam from becoming a well-established religion in the United States because they perceive Muslims as a threat after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The second Klan and twenty-first century conservatives both believe that they have a “right [or] obligation to patrol the moral standards” of society (MacLean 112). The Klan feared the growing resources for African-Americans as well as the lawlessness of their children and children not their own. Conservatives’ protests against equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is the twenty-first century example of the belief in their right to control the morality of society. According to MacLean, the Klan believed that a “hierarchical family was the basis and guarantor of ordered society” and anyone opposed to the traditional family is an enemy of Klan society (MacLean 118). Conservative protest against LGBT equality is the modern equivalent of the Klan attempting to control societal morality. Conservative reactions to LGBT activism often dehumanize members of the LGBT community, a tactic used by the Klan to “loosen inhibitions against aggression” (MacLean 117).

Propaganda from a Conservative webpage on 24 April 2015 shows conservatives aversion to immigrants

MacLean’s vivid and exhaustive descriptions of Klan ideology and contradictions are reminiscent of modern right-wing ideology and its contradictions. Xenophobia is still a common characteristic of politically conservative people, though primarily now a fear of homosexuals, immigrant Hispanics, and Muslims rather than Jews and African Americans like the second Klan. Ironically, conservatives have accused Islam as being “as racist as the Ku Klux Klan” and thus “incompatible with American values” while themselves dehumanizing gays and determining Hispanics to be unworthy of American citizenship.

The way MacLean phrases her descriptions of Klan ideology could easily be read as descriptions of modern conservative ideology. The similarities are so obvious that it seems MacLean’s purpose for writing the book is associating modern conservative ideology with the Klan. MacLean is not alone in making the association between conservatives and the Klan. The New Haven Register has likened Fox News Channel, the typical choice news channel among conservatives and republicans, to the Klan. Other reporters have called out Louisiana politicians and the general Republican population for adopting the Klannish attitudes and principles of previous State Representative David Duke. Because of the shameful stigma surrounding the Klan, such accusations are quickly refuted.

Though very small Klaverns continue to exist today, their attempts to adapt their ideologies to attract other right-wing extremist groups have not been very successful due to the stigma. For the same stigma-related reason, conservatives are more likely to join non-Klan affiliated right-wing extremists. The Klan’s stigma is currently the only thing hindering a fourth Klan from emerging as a powerful political or terrorist force in the twenty-first century.

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***Due to the nature of this assignment, significant information regarding the Klan/Conservative Party similarities and relations has been left out. The following links are for further reading if you are interested in other information I researched: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/ku-klux-klan,

http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/19981-obama-tax-policy-shows-bias-against-stay-at-home-moms,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/anti-gay-groups/,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/hurricane-sandy-gays-same-sex-marriage-obama-romney_n_2038781.html,

https://thatdevilhistory.wordpress.com/tag/ku-klux-klan/

Generation Gap, Apathy, and Life in the 1970s

The biggest problem in understanding American experience in the 1970s is that there is no real overarching theme, according to some scholars. Anticlimactic is the best way to describe the decade. Irving Howe explains that memories of the Seventies “crumble in one’s hand, nothing keeps its shape,” which he claims ultimately proves, “the decade itself lacks a distinctive historical flavor.”[1] When analyzing film and literature from and about the 1970s, it appears small themes of the decade ultimately create an overarching theme, particularly the relationship between identity crises or lacking sense of purpose in average Americans and the widening generation gap feeding such crises.

The strenuous relationship between parents and grown children in John Updike’s novel Rabbit is Rich and Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate makes it appear the generation gap between parents and young adult or teenaged children is more prominent in the late 1960s-late 1970s than in previous decades. When The Graduate was released, film critics praised it for actively pointing out the generation gap in the late 1960s. Mike Nichols, director of the film, did not believe that the film is about the generation gap, however the unintentional theme points to the inescapability of the political and social upheaval of the 1970s.[2] It seems the gap was made more prominent by the political and social unrest, the same environment in which Nichols and Updike were writing.

The expansion of the generation gap came from middle-aged men of the Seventies struggling to grasp and understand the new ways of life of their children and America’s youth and vice versa. Teens and young adults in the 1970s struggled to understand their parents, whose values were formed in a more conservative America during the 1930s-50s. Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate and Nelson Angstrom in Rabbit is Rich are the teen and young adult representatives for the strenuous relationship and misunderstanding between parents and children in the 70s. The Graduate focuses more on the grown child’s situation and perspective with Benjamin struggling to quickly decide, at his parents’ wishes, what to do with his life. Rabbit is Rich focuses primarily on the average, middle class white man whose financial situation did not deteriorate in the oil and economic crises of the 1970s. Middle-aged angst was the common man’s problem, like Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, with issues such as dealing with a college dropout son, containing envy of a friend’s young wife, a dwindling sex drive, and realizing death is imminent.[3] Rabbit’s expression of his frustrations varies from angry to apathetic about these issues in his life. The particular issues causing their angst were caused by the extreme societal, political, and economic changes in American society occurring primarily in the 1960s. The Civil Rights, women’s, and gay movements in the 1960s seem to have produced both terror and impotence among average, middle class white men like Rabbit and perhaps even Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate that ultimately causes identity crisis and their apathy. The social movements that began in the 1960s challenged the social and political power of the middle class white man, which was the source of their collective identity.

“Beginning with the shot of Benjamin viewed through his boyhood aquarium, we have the feeling of someone cut off, suffocating.” -Sam Kashner, “Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of the Graduate”

The identity crisis resulting from the challenge to the average man’s power is really men suddenly lacking sense of purpose, which appears to be one thing both generations have in common despite the gap. Both Braddock and Rabbit are caught in an interrupted transition stage in their respective stories that leaves them lacking purpose. Braddock is transitioning, or failing to transition, from college to the working world where he has no real goals or intentions to make goals, something his parents do not understand. Perhaps Braddock can’t figure out his role in society and chooses to drown his uncertainty with sex and swimming. Rabbit is transitioning into a middle-aged empty nester when Nelson, his son, moves back into the Angstrom home. Being interrupted in this transition creates an atmosphere of frustration as he tries to figure out his new purpose in his household and his life. It seems it because Rabbit is secure financially during the economic and oil crises of the 1970s that he finds life to be bland. Because he does not have to worry about his financial future like most people in his community, Rabbit is bored and becomes frustrated with his purposeless position and middle age angst. His lack of purpose makes life bland for Rabbit, which then produces existential crisis. Rabbit’s ramblings about how the individual blades of grass will have served no purpose when they die is his reflection of his own life.

The changes in women’s roles in the household and in society also particularly challenge Braddock and Rabbit. The sexual relationship between Braddock and Mrs. Robinson is essentially one of predator and prey with Mrs. Robinson being the new sexual predator, a result from the women’s and sexual movements in the 1960s caused by and expanding the generation gap. With women changing roles in the household and society, men’s power was even more threatened. Braddock’s difficulty in deciding his future could be caused by the sexual power of Mrs. Robinson threatening his masculine power. Melanie, Nelson’s platonic friend in Rabbit is Rich, mystifies Rabbit because she is a new type of American girl, with which Rabbit is unfamiliar. Women are a source of impotence and obsession for Rabbit. It seems his wife’s newfound power is a turn-off for Rabbit and thus causes his impotence. Rabbit still obsesses over women but is more concerned with mystery. Melanie’s general mystique and the girl he believes to be his illegitimate daughter become Rabbit’s obsessions likely as a result of his impotence and otherwise bland life.

Both The Graduate and Rabbit is Rich initially seem dry and purposeless, however their apparent lack of purpose reflects and represents the sentiments of Braddock, Rabbit, and all average, middle-class men and women in the 1970s. The authors of these literature pieces have not only written their characters to have the lackadaisical spirit of the 1970s but also have styled their writing with that same seemingly pointless spirit as if to force readers and viewers to experience the typical aimlessness of the decade. The Graduate, being released at the beginning of the complex decade, shows viewers the common middle-class sentiment in 1967-1979 as it was happening. Because it was written after the time period discussed, Rabbit is Rich more accurately describes an average man’s typical memory of the 1970s. Rabbit could be viewed as Updike’s incarnation of himself as a fictional character considering the framework of Rabbit’s life is centered around the same geographical location as Updike’s own home and that Updike’s fame flourished from his emphasis on the passions and concerns of average Americans. Most importantly, Updike continued to view those years as bleak and senseless when writing the novel though it was two years distanced from the difficulties of the decade.

Modern viewers can still recognize the significance of the generation gap and lacking sense of purpose in the 1970s. Rabbit’s character in particular, with his frustrations about his son and his own purpose in life, is reminiscent of Red Foreman from That 70’s Show. Though it is a sitcom television series and should not be readily perceived as truth, That 70’s Show does provide the 1998-2006 general society’s perception of life in the 1970s. Remarkably, That 70’s Show, The Graduate, and Rabbit is Rich do not differ greatly in their interpretations of life in the 1970s despite their extremely varied publication dates. Their continuity suggests that the decade was indeed characterized by an apathetic view toward life caused by the changing roles of women and the changing parent-child relationship deepening the generation gap.

[1] George Packer, “The Decade Nobody Knows,” The New York Times, (10 June 2001): https://www.nytimes.com/books/01/06/10/reviews/010610.10packert.html.

[2] Sam Kashner, “Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of The Graduate,” Vanity Fair News, (March 2008): http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/03/graduate200803.

[3] Sally Robinson, “Unyoung, Unpoor, Unblack: John Updike and the Construction of Middle America Masculinity,” Modern Fiction Studies vol. 44 no. 2 (1998): 351.

A Century Long “Sexual Revolution”

Beth Bailey’s article “Sexual Revolution(s)” featured in A History of Our Time makes an intriguing argument that the sexual revolution of the 1960s was not a revolution at all but rather an evolution of sexual understanding and practice over many decades. Bailey mentions that the sexualization of American culture “pick[ed] up speed in the 1920s, the 1940s, and the 1960s” as if sexualizing American culture had been a slow process beginning much earlier than the 1960s, particularly with using sex in the marketplace. “Sex sells” is still a phrase and practice used by marketing professionals today. It worked throughout the 20^th century just as it continues to work in the 21^st. According to Bailey, selling sex through marketing gradually wore down the traditional understanding of sex (so slowly that red flags were not raised among most Americans until the 1960s).

Proof of sexual evolution: It is 2015…and society is still concerned about the sexual practices of the youth, particularly the “virtue” of young women

Bailey even claims it was the grandparents and parents of the sixties generation that “chipped away the system of sexual controls” or the socially acceptable sexual practices of unmarried youth. The so-called “sexual revolution” in the sixties could not be a revolution then if the previous generations were participating in the same sexual activities. The public rejection of fundamental or traditional sexual morality is the true controversial issue of the sexual evolution occurring in the 1960s.

Proof of sexual evolution over revolution: It is 2015, nearly a century from the first period of rapid sexualization of America according to Bailey, and society is still concerned about the sexual practices of the youth, particularly the “virtue” of young women. “Easy” or “loose” women are still judged as sluts, whores, and any other of the many terms for such women. In 2015 it isn’t that you should remain a virgin until marriage, unless you are in certain religious circles, but more that you shouldn’t have sex with every single person you are attracted to. There’s a lot of emphasis on your “number” lately. The 2011 film What’s Your Number? is not about getting someone’s phone number but about the number of sexual partners you have had. BuzzFeed also did a recent study of sorts (I mean it’s not like BuzzFeed is a reputable source of academic research) about this too. They asked several couples to share their “numbers” with their now-monogamous respective partners. A double standard can be seen with both of these films. Both films address and challenge the popular idea that it is more acceptable for men to have had 20+ sexual partners while a woman whose number is even close to 20 is considered to have loose morals (see What’s Your Number?).

It seems the current sexual movement has a goal of destroying of the whorish stigma of women with high “numbers.” Both videos imply this is the goal of the ongoing sexual movement and proves the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s is truly sexual evolution in society. BuzzFeed’s couples remark that they “don’t care about the number.” The insignificance of number is essentially the lesson learned in BuzzFeed’s study and in What’s Your Number? Watch BuzzFeed’s video for yourself.

The trailer for What’s Your Number?: 

Final Closure for the Triangle Fire

As I was reading Von Drehle’s book Triangle: The Fire that Changed America and doing research for the essay on it, I found some rather recent news concerning the fire. The book goes into great detail describing the funeral procession through New York City for the 6 remaining unidentified bodies from the fire. (Apparently there were more than 6 bodies remaining, but some were identified in the last moments before the funeral) The recent news piece about the fire described the scene, “Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers turned out in a driving rain for [the] symbolic funeral procession sponsored by labor unions and other organizations, while hundreds of thousands more watched from the sidewalks.” 

In 2011, the 6 unidentified bodies from the fire were finally identified. The process of identifying the bodies This recent news concerning the Triangle fire conveniently surfaced around the centennial anniversary of the fire. You can read the full New York Times article here.

From left, Max Florin, Fannie Rosen, Dora Evans and Josephine Cammarata were among the final six unidentified victims of the Triangle Waist Company factory fire of 1911, which killed 146 and influenced building codes, labor laws and politics in the years that followed. Source: “100 Years Later, the Roll of the Dead in a Factory Fire Is Complete,” Joseph Berger, New York Times, 20 Feb. 2011

“Crime of Carelessness”

I found this while doing research on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and thought it was interesting and rather entertaining. “Crime of Carelessness” is a 1912 silent film from Thomas Edison Inc. that is supposedly a response to the tragedy of the Triangle fire in 1911.

Flames of Feminism in the Triangle Fire

The Triangle fire was the dramatic event the feminist and labor movements needed to bring about reform

Throughout his book Triangle: The Fire that Changed America, David Von Drehle uses personal stories from notable female activists as well as victims and survivors of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City to explain that multiple events worked collectively to bring about women’s suffrage and workers’ safety reform. As suggested by Von Drehle, the fire, workers’ strikes preceding it, and the involvement of young progressive politicians and women activists in the investigation and ensuing trial were together the catalyst for the “rethinking of the place of women in society” and “a new model for worker safety in American mills and workshops” (Von Drehle 267). Workers’ strikes and women’s protests gained participants quickly for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century labor and feminist movements respectively, however both movements were slow to be effective in bringing about social and political reform. The Triangle fire was the dramatic event the feminist and labor movements needed to bring about reform. Von Drehle uses Alva Belmont, an activist in one of his strike stories, to question the effectiveness of both social movements.

Suffrage propaganda / Alva Belmont reported in newspaper

If women stressed the goals of the feminist movement more than those of the labor movement both movements could have gained success more quickly

After giving up her house to pay the bail of several young women strikers who were arrested for their strike activities, Alva Belmont once claimed to a reporter, “There will be a different order of things when we have women judges on the bench. Let me assure you, too, that the time is not far away when we will have women judges” (Von Drehle 77) Perhaps if women stressed the goals of the feminist movement more than those of the labor movement both movements could have gained success more quickly. The feminist movement’s primary goal being women’s political representation through suffrage was more important to middle-class women than the working-class women who were dually concerned with labor rights. Still, as Von Drehle makes clear with his extensive use of personal accounts from women, women’s involvement in the labor movement was essential for its success since women made up a significant portion of the workforce in early twentieth century New York City. The presence of women’s labor unions, such as the WTUL and ILGWU, and women activists, such as Alva Belmont, in protests and strikes “brought gender visually into the communal response.” Both movements were ultimately successful because the two social movements had similar goals (ultimately the protection of women and all citizens whether it be political protection through representation in voting or physical protection in workplace safety). Women involved in the labor movement would acknowledge women’s particular vulnerability but specifically “stressed the need to protect all workers from the potentially hazardous environment of the shops.”
Though the initial aftermath of the Triangle fire focused more on labor issues rather than gender issues, women were still the central focus as they made up the majority of witnesses in the trial of factory owners Blanck and Harris. Women gained equally as much political recognition as labor activists as women’s labor and feminist organizations began flourishing and growing in numbers in the aftermath of the fire and trial.

The Triangle Factory fire became a significant event in women’s history as women were the primary actors in the events surrounding the fire. Modern women have recognized the fire’s significance in women’s history and continue to be the primary sponsors of public remembrance of the event. Recent poetry published concerning the Triangle fire recognizes the importance the fire had on women’s history. The modern poets writing about the fire have very little in common with the ethnic women garment workers of New York who experienced the historic fire except that they are working women. Perhaps it is women’s experiences from second-wave feminism in the 1960s-80s and the current third-wave feminism that make them sympathetic toward the women affected by the Triangle fire and its preceding strikes. The collective memory of injustice and oppression of women workers surrounding the events of the Triangle fire is a testament to the strength of feminist identity.

Soldier Without a Cause? Troubles in Understanding the Vietnam War

When comparing any Vietnam War stories, differing perspectives about the Vietnam War are easily found due to Hollywood’s involvement in the production of the tale and the problem of relative truth. Stanley Kubrick’s film Full Metal Jacket and Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried both address, how ever so slightly, Hollywood’s perspective of the war versus soldiers’ perspective of the war. However, it cannot be denied that, being a Hollywood production, Full Metal Jacket still maintains some false elements of war. By using O’Brien’s arguments about relative truth in wartime experience found throughout The Things They Carried, it could be suggested that Full Metal Jacket is more accurate than many other film portrayals of the Vietnam War. O’Brien particularly challenges the Hollywood perspective of the war in his novel.

O’Brien implies that Hollywood films glamorize war in his story about Kiowa witnessing Lavender’s death, which depicts the misconceptions the young soldiers had about war and death. Kiowa’s description of Lavender’s death as “like watching a rock fall…just boom, then down – not like in the movies where the dead guy rolls around and does fancy spins” is one way that O’Brien shows death in the Vietnam War being far from glamorous.[1] The lack of emotional response to death also shows a lack of glamor. By specifically referencing Kiowa’s inability to feel sad or angry and his desire to continue talking about the plainness of Lavender’s death, O’Brien is effectively describing genuine traumatic experience. When considering Hollywood’s idea of war as seen in film, rarely is there accurate portrayals of traumatic experience and trauma’s lasting effects.

However, Full Metal Jacket may be an exception in Hollywood by showing the harsh realities of being drafted and enduring basic military training even before addressing the experience in Vietnam. In the film, Kubrick implies that being drafted and going through basic training can be a traumatic experience for some young men. While most of the recruits in the film do not begin to present effects of trauma experience until later in the film when they are on the front lines of the war, Private Pyle undergoes a clearly traumatic experience in basic training. The extra harsh treatment from Sargent Hartman and being beaten repeatedly by his fellow recruits is a traumatic experience for Pyle and effectively changed him, much the same as the traumas other soldiers experienced while in Vietnam.

The postmodern notion of relative truth is important to consider when trying to comprehend the Vietnam War. It may be impossible to find absolute truths in the war. Individual experiences provide truths relative to a particular person’s experience. In The Things They Carried, O’Brien, a Vietnam veteran, writes individuals’ tales to explain the experience of American soldiers in Vietnam. For anyone having previously read or heard tales from Vietnam veterans, these stories may not seem foreign. O’Brien’s personal approach to the stories and frequent first-person narrative make it easy for readers to experience Vietnam alongside the novel’s characters. The individualistic nature of each tale raises a question about the existence of a collective experience among American soldiers. O’Brien’s makes an important point in the novel that addresses and explains a lack of collective experience or narrative stating that “in any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way.”[2] Another student studying the Vietnam War, Michael Clarke explains this passage claiming that “O’Brien emphasizes the way individual consciousness…shapes events and the memories of events and helps us define what we come to regard as truth.”[3] Because the way each soldier perceived and mentally processed the experience so often differ, it is near impossible to determine a single collective narrative that would be unequivocal truth about the Vietnam War even though many Vietnam veterans have similar experiences. The multiple, contradictory truths could make understanding the American experience in Vietnam difficult, but more likely these multiple truths exemplify the conflicted and convoluted nature of the war.

The first half of Full Metal Jacket initially appears to be a collective experience for the Marine recruits in basic military training. Director Kubrick seems to strengthen the idea of collectivity with scenes focused on all recruits marching in formation and pairs of recruits running the obstacle courses in unison.[4] However, even in an environment forcing conformity each individual has a different experience. With Private Pyle’s psychotic break resulting in his own death and the death of his commanding officer, Sargent Hartman, we can clearly see that every man handled the brutality of basic training differently.

Both texts discuss the problems of sending boys into war instead of men. War certainly turns a boy into a man, but that does not mean it is the best method. In being drafted, boys are not only subject to traditional basic military training but also training meant to rapidly prepare recruits for war. Kubrick addresses the problem of taking boys with no notion or desire for war and quickly turning them into killers. Private Pyle’s assimilation into the wartime mindset of the Marine Corps is too rapid for him to reconcile war with his own individuality, which effectively makes him an unstable and flawed Marine. Perhaps given enough time and resources or proper motivation Pyle might have found a way to serve that complimented his individuality, such as choosing food service specialist as his preferred job rather than infantry. Kubrick later tells us it is “the sorry consequences of extreme military obsession and blindness” that transformed Pyle from innocent and naive boy into murderer.[5] The way Kubrick frames Pyle’s transformation seems to question both the ideology of the Marine Corps and the adequacy of basic military training for those drafted during the Vietnam War. Kubrick’s depiction of their training shows better success in turning boys into killers rather than traditional soldiers. O’Brien also gives us the impression that many soldiers in Vietnam were just boys given guns without understanding the purpose of the war or the ready responsibility of a well-trained traditional soldier.

Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket and O’Brien’s self-named character in The Things They Carried also struggled with ideas of war. The difference these characters have from Private Pyle is only that they possessed the ability to make sense of the Marine Corps teachings. Both Private Joker and O’Brien initially present themselves as pacifists, with Joker choosing journalism over direct combat and O’Brien refusing to look at dead bodies or participate in the hand-shaking ritual. But, just as trauma changed Private Pyle into a murderer in training, the traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War altered Joker and O’Brien. Through Private Falsetto Kubrick provides an explanation for this, “given enough time, training and ideological conditioning, everyone contains the potential for extreme violence, no matter how unsuited or inept.”[6]

Both Kubrick and O’Brien use a single person narrative to explain how young, drafted soldiers experienced the Vietnam War. While an individual’s experience is more likely to be relatable for readers and viewers, they likely took this individualized approach because of the lack of an existing collective experience among all Vietnam veterans. From the lack of collective experience, the most we can determine is that the Vietnam War was complex and misunderstood by the soldiers fighting it. With individual experiences told by veterans and sympathizing filmmakers, like Tim O’Brien and Stanley Kubrick respectively, we can understand why the war was misunderstood and often scorned by soldiers and citizens.

[1] Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction, (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), 6.
[2] Ibid, 78.
[3] Michael Tavel Clarke. “’I Feel Close to Myself’: Solipsism and US Imperialism in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.” College Literature 40, no. 2 (2013), 133.
[4] Perel, Zivah. “Pyle and Joker’s Dual Narratives: Individuality and Group Identity in Stanley Kubrick’s Marine Corps.” Literature Film Quarterly 36, no. 3 (2008), 224.
[5] Stanley Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket, film, performed by Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, (Distributed by Warner Home Video, 1987).
[6] Ibid.