Real Violence Vietnam War Essay

Society has been subjected to many violent acts over the course of its history. Although violence is immoral and wrong, somehow people everyday condone and commit violence for countless reasons. Many Hollywood films glorify mindless violence to their advantage and captivate audiences through its entertaining shock value and rake large box office profits. Car chases, crashes and glorified gladiator sword fights are all familiar scenes in which violence is portrayed in an unrealistic glamorised manner.

The 1960s was a period of immense change in America. The decade brought about various social changes such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement. These movements would forever change the landscape of America. However, the discussion of the Vietnam War was never far from people’s minds. This war would serve as an introduction to what war was to the home front. It was in the homes of America where so many had been previously sheltered from the realities of war. During previous conflicts, there had been a military censorship on all media that pertained to war. This would not be the case in Vietnam, it would be completely uncensored. The ability for reporters to provide a commentary on the war without censorship would change the all-American, Captain America view that Americans had in previous wars. The lack of censorship would be a major factor in the overall soldier experience in the Vietnam war.

In the article, “Violent Media Is Good for Kids”, the author, Gerard Jones, begins by providing background information about himself. As a child, Jones was taught that violence was wrong, and as he grew up, he learned that violent comics and stories aided him to become an action movies and comic book writer. In his article, the author addresses why violent media are good for children. He points out that it helps them transform better socially, explore and conquer their feelings, and improves self-knowledge. Jones purpose is to inform readers about the positive use of violent media on children. The author uses rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos, and stylistic techniques such as allusions and repetitions to create his argument.

“The war in vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.” Martin Luther King, Jr. once said. The Vietnam War was considered one of America’s greatest defeats of all time. Not only did the US failed to stop the spread of communism, but they also embarrassed this country as a whole with the outcome of this war. The overall outcome from this war will be remembered for years to come. In this essay, I will be talking about how the United States would have won the Vietnam war if the home front was for the war, if the the US was more familiar with the land, and the U.S.’s goal was not successful.

The Vietnam War (1954-75) was an introduction of the true horrors of war to many of the American people. Journalist showed some of the most gruesome live footage in the history of war. This changed the idea of war meant for many Americans, who went from, almost jingoism, patriotic support to utter mortification and disgust for war. Families were seeing cities being bombed and people die while eating at the dinner table. Death coverage was then rethought of, after much of the support of the American people for the Vietnam War was lost. “There is perhaps only one thing worse than losing a war, and that is fighting a war that people at home have forgotten or have no interest in.” said Tim Hsla in his article for the New York Times, “The Uneasy Media-Military

The Vietnam War was a war of mass destruction, leaving Vietnam to become bitterly divided and claiming the many lives of Vietnamese civilians as well as American soldiers. Out of all the wars in American history, the Vietnam War was the first war to be broadly televised and covered by the media. It came to be known as the first “Television War”. Journalists began to pour into Vietnam from all over the nation, to cover the lives of the American Soldiers as well as Vietnamese civilians. As television brought horrendous images of the war into American living rooms, the perception of an American solider as a hero slowly became the image of the American enemy. Thus, the media is a major factor that

The artists and creators of violence in various forms of media have the ability to shape how people perceive violence as an art. While most people that art is used as a form of aestheticism, often the creators attempt to send a message through their work. Maggie Nelson explains in her work, “Great to Watch,” that the art of cruelty aestheticizes violence in order to invoke a feeling of guilt as they watch others suffering. People use violence as an art of expression to create a moral or idea of through their story. Nelson points out that violence is complex and she demonstrates this with her mentioning of Abu Ghraib which she implies that she wishes violence was true and simple. She also mentions that the reason violence is used to send messages is because people often find that being bad and committing malice acts is an easy way of life. She explains that people find that the dark side and dark emotions take over and being good is difficult. She explains that there is a pleasure and desire through violence. Nelson reflects on the idea that people admire the idea of violence and its’ explicitness and its’ ability to show that not everything is as perfect as seems. In her quote, “The moral of this dichotomoy is that distraction by banal obviates a necessary focus on the all-too-real-calamitous”, she explains that the beauty of violence that people create in their stories shows that the duality of people when dealing with moral issues, shows that people have both a dark and

The Vietnam War, is widely regarded as a conflict that divided public opinion in the United States and influenced civilian perceptions on international relations. The conflict lasted for over twenty years and began after a policy of communism was introduced in the North after the withdrawal of French imperialists. The American government was highly concerned with the spread of communism in Asia (known as the Domino Theory) and wanted to end the possible political threat. Over time, the war has became a part of American social memory and is especially known for its distribution of iconic imagery of civilian atrocities. Through these images, varying tales have been told and have brought into question American values, as well as possible hidden motivations of both the government and the press. Over the course of several decades, a popular myth has formed that photojournalism was a critical hallmark to the effectiveness of the anti-war movement, however the public perception of the imagery was commonly not out of sympathy for the Vietnamese people who were victims, but dissatisfaction with the influx of internal confusion and misinformation. This essay will argue the Vietnam War 's use of photojournalism, ultimately contributed to the questioning of American values, as well as the hidden motives of government and media outlets that remains a concern in modern America.

Violence has a tendency to attract people's attentions and produce a strong emotional reaction (Getting par. 4).

Insurgency in the Revolution and Vietnam Evaluating the strategy used by both the British and the United Stated during the Vietnam War, one can pin the underlying failure for both superior countries on the fact that neither fully understood the true nature of the conflict at hand. This led to unclear political objectives and an ensuing military strategy that relied upon limited use of force to quell each rebellion respectively. To paraphrase LtCol Daly, “military force” should only be advocated for “when the political situation” supports a “decisive military campaign.” This paper will discuss a few examples to compare and contrast the insurgency and counter-insurgency efforts in both conflicts using Mao Tse-tung’s three phases of insurgency. Both the British and the United States were considered the “superpower”, stronger in all facets of national power during each war as compared to the adversary.

Meanwhile, one of the most difficult issues with Vietnam was that the American public was against the war because it was not a just war; so, upon their return home soldiers were treated not with a hero’s welcome but with hate-filled shouts of “baby killer” (Newman 6). As a result, it was hard for a soldier to find peace with the acts of war he/she had committed, whether morally right or wrong, when the public viewed the war as totally meaningless. General Westmoreland makes the same observation, “I recognized that it was not the job of the military to defend American commitment and policy. Yet it was difficult to differentiate between pursuit of a military task and such related matters as public and congressional support and the morale of the fighting man, who must be convinced that he is risking death for a worthy cause. The military thus was caught in between” (Summers 29). Vietnam was also the first time television crews were allowed access to all aspects of war leading to the loss of innocence with a nation itself.

The Vietnam War introduced many new forms of technology on and off of the battlefield. Increased weaponry helped shape the outcome of the war, but media coverage also played a large role in representing the news and opinions of the war. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer helps illustrate how the media influences and spreads the opinions of the people during the Vietnam War. The war media, which includes newspapers, movies, and most importantly television, caters towards its audience. What the media publishes shapes the public opinion, and the media creates their stance based on the profit they receive.

This essay aims to discuss whether violence in media contributes to the violence in the society. The essay will first define who the society is and what constitutes as violence in both the media and in society. It will then discuss audience reception studies and the uses and gratifications theory as to how the audiences receive the media and what they do with it. With evidence from supporting articles and a survey done, this essay will argue that violence in the media does not contribute to the violence in society.

It explains the impact of violence in our society and how that could bring to a person or their memory the image of physical or emotional assault. In most circumstances, the person affected with the violence is more aware that violence is an action that can have impact on people. There is also another form of violence where individual that is being affected in most cases are unaware of the violence inflicted upon them. For example, we have television seen as a source of the most broadly shared images and messages in history; it is the mainstream of the common symbolic environment into which children are born and which has a major part to play in our lives. One can argue that media violence contribute towards social violence where the effects place a huge impact in ones being. Television violence is not only a form of media violence; there are other significant forms of media that contribute to media violence which are computer games, comic books, and

This article from the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism describes the controversy surrounding violent art and the effect it has on people who view them. The author points out that skepticism of brutal art has gone back to the time of the ancient Greeks, so the debate surrounding violence in art is nothing new. However, he feels that it is futile to protest against the prevalence of violence in art; but, rather important to protest against gratuitous violence that has no aesthetic or literary point. This article is a strong source as it explores the issue from both standpoints and is in no way biased. Numerous researches and studies are cited to back up the argument. This article is going to be used to support my argument that brutal art promotes violence among people and hence censorship is important to curb it.