Essay on Hollywood and the Vietnam War

Write an essay that offers a critical examination of the concept of the ‘guilty media’ thesis in respect of any war of your choice

This essay will discuss to what degree the media can be blamed for the United States’ loss in the Vietnam conflict ending 1975. It will be based predominantly on key written resources on the subject, but it will also contain - by means of an interview - certain first-hand observations from a Vietnam War veteran.

Film has revolutionized the world as we know it. In the current day and age film is quite advanced. You can watch movies with special effects and insane resolution there were never thought possible before. But film has not always been this way. Over the decades since around the 1900s when the first film was made there been amazing advances in technology and in acting. An examination of the past hundred or so years will show the amazing advances film has taken to come to what we know of it today.

During the Vietnam War, Americans were greatly influenced by the extensive media coverage of the war. Before the 1960’s and the intensification of the war, public news coverage of military action was constrained heavily by the government and was directed by Government policy. The Vietnam War uniquely altered the perception of war in the eyes of American citizens by bringing the war into their homes. The Vietnam War was the first U.S uncensored war resulting in the release of graphic images and unaltered accounts of horrific events that helped to change public opinion of the war like nothing it had ever been. This depiction by the media led to a separation between the United States government and the press; much of what was reported flouted

The 1970s is known for being the decade for changing the American values and culture and Hollywood played a major part in this change. It all began with president Nixon being elected in 1969. He ordered bombing in the neutral Cambodia, which he though would help end Vietnam war, but it did not. The 1970s were a very turbulent time due to the tragedy of Vietnam and the trauma caused by the Watergate Scandal. Due to this, People were losing faith in the government and many riots occurred during this time. While the People went through many changes in the 1970s, the Hollywood industry also went through many changes during this time.

The Vietnam War started in 1945, resulting in almost 60,000 American deaths and nearly two million Vietnamese deaths, according to Mintze. Years after combat countless Vietnam veterans suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder in every aspect of their lives (Price). Posttraumatic stress disorder is an illness that can happen to anyone who has gone through a horrifying experience. It has been documented in all forms of literature and films the brutality of the war and the side effects it came with. The history of Vietnam is quite long and winding and leaves one to question its purpose (Mintze).

“For the first time in modern history the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield but on the printed page and, above all, on the television screen”

This allowed Americans to witness the fighting on their home televisions. Many families would worry that they would see their son, brother, or father die on camera. In the film, Two Days in October, the soldiers experience some of the most intense fighting. A huge number of North Vietnamese troops ambushed two companies in the jungle. Both the companies experienced many causalities. Showing these images affected peoples’ thoughts of signing up for the war and even supporting the

This paper will be discussing the two movies The Green Berets (1968) and Apocalypse Now (1978), and argue how The Green Berets is a propagandist pro-war film depicting the unrealities of the Vietnam War while Apocalypse Now is an ambiguous anti-war film that shows the social and political absurdities of the Vietnam War.

war the enemy would be in uniform and it was clear who to kill who not

Vietnam was a country divided into two by communism in the North and capitalism in the South. The Vietnam War, fought between the years 1959 and 1975, was, in essence, a struggle by nationalists in the north to unify the nation under a communist government. This was a long standing conflict between the two sides that had been occurring for years. It wasn’t until 1959 when the USA, stepped in, on the side of southern Vietnamese, to stop the spread of communism. It was a war that did not capture the hearts and minds of the American people as it was viewed as a war that the US army couldn’t win and so the government lost the peoples support for the war. This ultimately led to the withdrawal of the US army from Vietnam. Some people, like

Since 1968, there have been at least 25 films made that portray the events of the Vietnam War. Historians have to ask themselves when watching these films, "Did the fictional character represent historical figures accurately? Is this how a soldier would react in this situation?" The point of view of the director of the film can change with simple alterations in camera angles. For example, a view from the ground of a battle seen can show how the innocent people had the war in their own backyards. The view from a helicopter can show Viet Cong firing rounds at American troops and the troops can't tell the difference between the innocent and the enemy. The audience feels empathy and sympathy for the person from whose point of view the

The Vietnam film is a specific sub-genre of the conventional Hollywood war film that arose as a result of the 1960s counter culture. According to Elliot Stegall’s article Ideological, Dystopic, and Antimythopoetic Formations of Masculinity in the Vietnam War Film many American war films depicted the glorification of war and emphasized the concept of American masculinity (Stegall). Previous to the Vietnam period, Hollywood war films stuck to contemporary tropes. These films often re-enact the idea of good versus evil in which the male hero of the film triumphantly fights for their country against a vilified enemy; thus reinforcing the American ideology of conquering the frontier (Schweitzer 67). The hollywood war films are often enjoyable

War has been present since the beginning of human history. Likewise, war movies have been present since the movie industry began. Just like most other genres of film, war films have been created as a form of entertainment to profit a person or organization. More people are willing to spend their money and time on a feeling of action, excitement, heroism, and patriotism than gruesome and horrid images of real and common human destruction. Propaganda has been used by governments for a very long time and when motion pictures came into existence, governments almost immediately saw the new medium as an opportunity to influence the public. Governments such as the United States of America, cooperate with the movie industry to

Fifty-eight thousand were killed, a pair of thousand captured, and three hundred fifty thousand; maimed and wounded, just about everyone throughout this country still feels the results of this conflict. Today, the kids in the country rest uneasy in response to the senselessness of this struggle. A different generation of school students, staff and young parents bring a singular perspective to the analysis of the implications of this specific war. These square measure the sons and daughters of the boys that fought to their death inside the jungles of South East Asia..