80s Action Men and Vietnam

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80s Action Men and Vietnam

• FS344American Film Since 69

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This weekend is Ring Fest Nov 5
7pm Fellowship of the Ring (extended) Nov
6 7pm The Two Towers
(extended) Nov 7 7pm Return of the
King Screenings in BA 201 Free
Prizes from GenX, Princess Cinema, WLU Bookstore
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Just for fun
www.somethingawful.com
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If you take into account inflation

• The most profitable films of all time are
• Gone With the Wind (1939)
• Star Wars (1977)
• The Sound of Music (1965)
• E.T. (1982)
• Titanic (1997)
• The Ten Commandments (1956)
• Jaws (1975)
• Ben-Hur (1959)
• Doctor Zhivago (1965)
• Snow White the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

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Comments on Short Analyses

• Take the following into consideration for the
  essay
• Focus on significant elements not everything
• What is important or significant and how these
  elements communicate meaning to the viewer -
  theme, plot, character
• Review definitions and make sure your facts are
  straight
• mise-en-scene, cinematography, pan, jump cut,
  black cinema
• Shaft is not a cop (this is very important)
• Avoid plot summary or listing shots instead of
  analysis
• This time forgave late papers (1 day)
• This wont be true for the essay
• Write everything out in full (MLS, film title)
• Review possession vs plural, its/its,
  contractions
• A films conclusion films that came out this
  week
• NO contractions (therefore you will never see
  its)
• Come see me if you want to discuss this paper or
  the essay

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Introduction

• Hollywood public to personal
• Action movies
• War and Masculinity
• Vietnam
• Reagan
• Feminism and New Man
• Die Hard (McTiernan 1988)

Images from www.allposters.com
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Public to Personal

• Hollywood film is protagonist/star centred
• Public social anxieties are thus expressed at
  the level of the personal through the hero
• Contemplation of national and global events from
  an individuals perspective
• Tying event to a individual protagonist
• gives audience a personal connection
• transforms social event to an emotional one
• Question can you think of examples?

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Social to Personal

• War
• Vietnam
• Platoon 1986
• We were Soldiers 2002
• WWII
• Saving Private Ryan 1998
• Windtalkers 2002
• Somalia
• Black Hawk Down 2001
• Persian Gulf War
• Three Kings 1999

• Natural disasters and ripped from the headlines
• Deep Rising 1998 Armageddon 1998
• Outbreak 1995 Virus TV-movie 1995
• Twister 1996
• Volcano 1997 Dantes Peak 1997
• Day after Tomorrow 2004
• This tie to the emotional can obscure the
  political

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80s Action Films and Stars

• Die Hard
• Terminator
• Conan the Barbarian
• Rambo
• Missing in Action
• Under Siege
• Top Gun
• Lethal Weapon
• Universal Soldier

• Bruce Willis
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Sylvester Stallone
• Chuck Norris
• Steven Seagal
• Tom Cruise
• Mel Gibson
• Jean-Claude van Damme

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Action Movies

• Simplistic morals
• Good vs bad
• Good guys
• Patriotic
• conservative Americans
• Bad guys
• criminals
• foreign agents
• communists
• High concept
• Plot/themes easily summed up in one sentence
• Ie. tagline

• Taglines
• 1. What film is this?
• He's the only chance anyone has got.
• 40 Storeys High - with Suspense, Excitement and
  Adventure on every level!
• 2.
• The thing that won't die, in the nightmare that
  won't end.
• Your future is in his hands.
• 3.
• No man, no law, no war can stop him.
• What you call hell, he calls home.

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Generic Conventions (contd)

• In action films
• Often institutions military or police
• Are presented as incompetent or made impotent
• Legacy from vigilante cop films 1970s Dirty
  Harry
• Stereotypical conflict between hero and his
  superior
• Big budget special f/x stunt work
• Mainly an American genre
• Female characters are nothing more than
• objects of desire or damsels in distress to save
• 1990s changeaction women!
• thats Week 10

Answers from previous slide Die Hard, T2, and
Rambo
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War and Masculinity

• Dramatic effect of war on masculinity
• in real life not just the movies
• Social critics (like Susan Faludi) argue that
• men prove their masculinity (to themselves and
  others) through wartime fighting and patriotism
• With end of war
• men expected to reject their roles as servicemen
• accept new role as domesticated
• The contradiction leads to discontentment,
  confusion, resentment
• Explored or denied in cultural texts like films
• Even more acute with Vietnam War
• Because America was not victorious

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Tyler (Pitt) Fight Club

• Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and
  smartest men who ever lived. I see all this
  potentialand I see squander. Goddammit, an
  entire generation pumping gas, waiting
  tablesslaves with white collars. Advertising has
  us chasing cars and clothes working jobs we hate
  so we can buy shit we dont need. Were the
  middle children of history, man. No purpose, or
  place. We have no Great War no Great Depression.
  Our Great War is a spiritual war our Great
  Depression is our lives. Weve all been raised by
  television to believe that one day wed all be
  millionaires and movie gods and rock starsbut we
  wont. Were slowly learning that fact. And were
  very, very pissed off.

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During Vietnam

• Vietnam Conflict 1965-1975
• Huge divide over the morality/immorality of
  involvement
• Imperialism overseas US v communism
• Cold War attitude to national security
• deep split in US sentiment ie. campus protests
• Gradual consensus about national error of
  judgment
• The most controversial issue of the 1960s and
  early 1970s
• YET the conflict was strikingly absent from the
  screen at the time
• Only a single film dealing with VietnamJohn
  Waynes The Green Berets
• Americas active participation in Vietnam ended
  in 1973, but controversy raged on
• Much of the controversy centered on the returning
  veterans hostile reception on return home

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Reflected in Film

• 1970s a collective amnesia took hold
• that forgetfulness gave way in the early 1980s to
  a renewed interest in the war
• Vietnam rerun through the public psyche
• Not just in war films set in Nam like
• Platoon (1986)
• Full Metal Jacket (1987)
• Hamburger Hill (1987)
• But in films that symbolically re-fight win Nam
• Top Gun (1986) and First Blood (1982)
• Directly Platoon (1986)
• Indirectly Lethal Weapon (1987)
• Somewhere in between Rambo (1985) MIA (1984)

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Reaganite Film

• Political climate
• studios response was some of their most
  jingoistic films
• Vietnam was re-fought and often won in Hwood
  action films of 80s
• Top GunA Reaganite wet dream
• Encoded Reaganite military ethos
• Advocated a strong military
• While celebrating
• conservative military values
• conservative US values
• Individualistic heroism
• Military vigilantism
• a binary universe
• B/W sense of goodevil

• Ronald Reagan
• Former President of the Screen Actors Guild
  (from 1947-1952)
• Former governor of California
• 1st movie-star US President in 1981
• Conservative reign
• Hard approach to Soviet Union
• Proactive military attitude
• reflected in Rambos/Rockys
• but not realist combat films
• Seemed to supply an iconography for President
  Reagans real-life acts
• Grenada and Libya
• 1st Bush Admincontinuation of many of these
  themes

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Cultural emphasis of the physical

• Visual spectacle of He-Men vs f/x of sci-fi
• Rambo back to basics
• goes native uses simple weapon bow and
  arrow, fists, guns
• Similarly Arnold
• Conan with a sword unarmed cyborg in Terminator
• Fetishization of the male body
• New conservatism of 80s
• elevates biology to the status of destiny muscle
  hero
• Success and survival depend on physical might
  rather than political/social/economic right
• Why this focus on hyper-masculinity?
• Failure of Vietnam
• Womens movement of late 60s/70s

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The New Man

• Impact of feminism
• the New Man in magazines
• Image-conscious, vain, romantic, vulnerable
• concession to female empowerment
• men more feminized
• women more masculinized
• Music
• New romantics, Glam Rock
• TV
• Magnum P.I. Miami Vice
• Mullet

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In Film? The Retributive Man

• Male rampage hero
• struggle to reassert a traditional image of
  masculinity
• destructive machismo as the solution for mens
  problems
• violence, firepower, muscles, male bonding, NO
  women
• TV and toys He-Man, Transformers, G.I. Joe

• These heroes as antithesis of New Man
• backlash v feminism
• respond to perceived deterioration in masculine
  power
• Feminism eradicate sexual difference
• Response Retributive man as excess of manliness
  and differentiation

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Die Hard (McTiernan 1988)

• Work through threats to masculinity
• Vietnam and female empowerment
• Through heros crisis of masculinity
• Displaced factors onto a crisis incited by the
  enemy
• McClane
• NYC cop comes to L.A. to resolve differences with
  wife Holly
• Resolution of personal issue is interrupted by
  terrorist threat
• must prove himself by defeating villains that
  threaten Holly
• own personal crisis national crisis
• Nakatomi Corp globalisation and infiltration of
  Japanese
• Hans Gruber terrorism and German take-over
• Vietnamcommunism displaced onto WWII enemies

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Die Hard (contd)

• McClane/Willis
• must bear weight of U.S. international interests
• Presented as an all-American hero
• White, male, working-class
• Aligned with traditional figures
• Gruber calls him
• John Wayne - Rambo - Roy Rogers - Mr.
  Cowboy
• Saviour or Jesus
• He is also a wise-cracking hero
• plays adolescent games with the bad guys
• Imp that action hero to be able to laugh in the
  face of danger
• McClane not dutiful officer but plays game
• Pleasure of the hunt for McClane pursuit of the
  enemy not killing them
• Pleasure for the audience the games the heroes
  plays with enemy
• McClane plays and the witty commentary directed
  at the enemy

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Lethal Weapon (1987)

• Your Mission
• I want you to perform a similar reading of
• Lethal Weapon
• Personal crisis and national crisis
• Enemies of America v American hero
• Vietnam
• Issues of race and gender