I created the following social media images to discuss myths about the postpartum body in efforts to improve postpartum body image among women. This project was completed as part of my final MSW practicum at the Center for Body Image Research & Policy in collaboration with Harmony Birth Services.
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.
Last week I attended a panel on sexual assault sponsored by Louisiana Tech’s chapter of AAUW. In light of recent discussions on feminism and women’s liberation in my History 467 class, I found myself wondering what rape statistics might look like before and after the sexual revolution or each wave of feminism.
I expected to find an increase in sexual assault during/after women’s liberation and the sexual revolution. I am struggling to find these statistics. I should have expected this. So few rapes are reported now we can only get a vague idea of estimates. I found no records from the early 20th century. The charts and statistics I found only dated as far back as the mid-1960s, which was not very helpful since I needed information before and after the 60s in particular. (If you happen to find any such information, please let me know!)
So I considered another problem. Consent was an issue discussed. The people speaking on the panel were imperative about being extremely clear in agreeing or refusing to have sex with someone. “Yes means yes” should not be an unfamiliar phrase on college campuses. The “Yes Means Yes” campaign has been promoting awareness of sexual assault and consent issues and advocating for legislature to be written to define sexual consent. The campaign has been growing and last year California was the first state to enact a “yes means yes” law.
But what are we really being taught about consent? Media of all types seem to be counteracting the message of “Yes Means Yes.” The one most obvious cases to me is in the first trailer to the film Pitch Perfect 2. In this trailer our favorite comic character, Fat Amy, verbally refuses to have sex with Bumper but winks at him after saying “no.” Her wink confuses Bumper and he is not sure if she really means no since her wink would seem to imply “yes.” This scene is at the 2:10 mark.
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 20th century just as it continues to work in the 21st. 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?:
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.
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.
“That reminds me of a song!” is a frequently used phrase in my family. Sometimes the phrase becomes “that reminds me of a movie.” We enjoy relating everyday things and life events to pop culture. Since everyday life for me is school, school, and more school, I will often think of such little things as they relate to my studies.
For example: The early chapters of Von Drehle’s Triangle were significantly focused on feminism as it affected the labor movement. As middle-class women (primarily focused on women’s suffrage) became involved in the labor movement in Triangle, I kept thinking of Disney’s Mary Poppins with Mrs. Banks chanting “Votes for women!” and her song “Sister Suffragette”. I did go to YouTube and listen to the song.
However, another suffrage video that automatically played after it was far more amusing to me as it combines a little education and a little pop culture (even though it wasn’t a “that reminds me of a song!” moment). Maybe the video is really an example of entertainment prompting education and learning (I suggest this because I actually want to learn more about women’s suffrage after watching the video). But I think it shows that education can be entertaining (which may have been a tiny debate in my early 20th century America class this week). Anyway, I hope you find it equally as brilliant and hilarious as I find it.
Entertainment can be educational. Education can be entertaining.
Academy of Michaella 