Myths in American War Movies: Part One of Four Articles

August 12, 2008 by EmanuelLevy Leave a Comment

Myths in American War Movies: Part One
Peaceful existence has been a major value of the American Way
of Life. The portrayal of war and peace in popular culture is an
issue of great social significance because of the strong roles that
mass media play in the socialization process. Notions of
appropriate (and inappropriate) patriotic behavior (in times of war
and peace) are transmitted not only by the family, peer group,
and schooling, but also by the mass media (fiction, film,
television).
Pop culture and mass media serve as a major source of
information about a variety of roles, including political roles, that
is, the duties and rights of citizens for their country. This
sociological function has been particularly important for children
and adolescents who have dominated the movie-going public in
recent decades. The most frequent moviegoers in the U.S. are
between 12 and 20. Young viewers often gain their first insights
into the real world through exposure to the film medium.
However, the media's images are not necessarily accurate or upto-date, and a culture lag may prevail.
The notion of culture lag is based on Ogburn's theory of social
change, which distinguishes between material and nonmaterial
culture. Ogburn claimed that because technological innovations
are more rapidly accepted than new ideas or values, there is
usually a period of time during which the symbolic elements of

culture lag behind the material ones. a may prevail between

society's material conditions (the actuality of war) and its cultural
representations, in terms of images, values, and myths.
This series of articles examine the treatment of war and peace in
the American cinema. Using a social-historical perspective, my
chief goal is to analyze the construction of war and peace images
by Hollywood. The film industry has a dual aspect. As a major
economic institution, with a strong industrial and technological
base, it produces productsstandardized and formulaic filmsfor
the consumption of large audiences. But the film industry is also a
cultural institution, a storytelling machine, to use David
Thurburn's concept, which fulfills important ideological functions
through its production and transmission of values and myths.
Unlike material products, films are symbolic creations, which
signify social values and meanings through their narratives and
characterization.
The typical Hollywood fare has always been designed to appeal to
the largest possible audiences, an examination of popular films
about war serves as an indicator of what filmmakers (producers,
writers, and directors) thought would be acceptable to the
American public. The filmmakers' concepts might have been
distorted, but their guiding assumptions have actually shaped the
contents and forms of the typical Hollywood fare.
French critic Andre Bazin has observed that Hollywood's
superiority is only incidentally technical; it lies much more in what
one might call the American cinematic genius, something which

should be analyzed by a sociological approach to its production.

The American cinema has been able in an extraordinarily
competent way to show American society just as it wanted to see
itself. For the anthropologist Emile Durkheim, a society forms
itself by bringing itself to consciousness through collective
representations, which it then externalizes and worships.
Focusing on the interplay among military screen images,
dominant ideology, and social structure, this series of essays
explore one major issue: what guidelines, prescriptions and
proscriptions, have American films provided concerning war and
peace.
Specific Questions
The above basic issue is stated in terms of four specific questions.
First, what are the main attributes of American screen heroism
Second, what guidelines American films prescribed for the
performance of military roles Third, how rigid (or flexible) have
these guidelines been And fourth, changes in the portrayal of
combat and soldiers. The advantage of analyzing commercially
successful films is that they are widely seen by the public, thus
serving as potential agents of socialization.
These articles examine films, which were acclaimed for their
artistic merits and/or winners of critics' awards, such as
Casablanca, films nominated for or winning the Oscar Awards,
such as Sergeant York and Sands of Iwo Jima, and commercially
popular films, widely seen by the public like Bataan or Mister
Roberts.

French director Francois Truffaut once said that, when a film

achieves a certain success, it become a sociological event, and
the question of its quality become secondary. And the social
historian Sigfried Kracauer observed that, the films of a nation
reflect its mentality in a more direct way than any other artistic
media. And because the film industry is vitally interested in
profit, aiming to satisfy mass desires, it is bound to adjust itself
to the change in mental climate.
My sociological approach employs both institutional and
interactional perspectives in understanding film production and
consumption. Films are mass products, conceived and created for
the immediate viewing by large and diverse audiences. However,
films often enjoy wide appeal not because they are intrinsically
interesting, but because of the historical and social timing of their
release, when they address timely issues in terms of occurrences
outside the industry.
Films are interwoven in a network of relationships with other
institutions (family, politics, religion) and are also subject to
institutional (organizational, industrial, and legal) and ideological
constraints that shape their thematics and stylistics. These
constraints operate both within and without the film industry. For
example, the kinds of films produced are determined by market
considerations, which in turn are determined by demographics
(the age of frequent filmgoers).
In its general use, the reflection theory (films reflect society) is
not adequate. One needs to be more specific, asking what

particular aspects of the film (narrative structure, thematic

conventions, style) reflect what aspects of the social structure.
Moreover, films may express cultural norms or social trends, but
they may also reflect the personal ideology and politics of their
filmmakers. Along with other agencies, films perform a function of
social control: By stressing consensus values, they reaffirm the
status quo and exercise stabilizing effects on their viewers.
To pose the question of whether films reflect or reaffirm or shape
society is thus erroneous. Neither theory operates consistently,
and each may be partially correct. Some films (or aspects of a
film) may reflect the social structure, others reaffirm it, and still
others change their viewers' perception. This book shows that
films should be analyzed in their multiple facets, as narrative,
ideological, artistic, and commercial products, all conditioned by
their cultural settings.
Using the structuralist approach as formulated by the French
anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, movies are analyzed as
cultural myths, narratives arising from society's underlying issues
and basic structures. Levi-Strauss describes myths as
transformations of basic dilemmas or contradictions that in
reality cannot be resolved. Some of these contradictions have
been acknowledged but suppressed by the film industry.
Concerned with decoding the elementary units in culture, the goal
is to reveal, how the apparently arbitrary mythical
representations link up into systems that link up with reality,

natural as well as social, in order to reflect, obscure, or contradict

it.
Despite manifest implausibilities and apparent contradictions,
myths are coherent and logical structures. Levi Strauss's method
seeks the underlying logic of myths, how people create cognitive
order that gives meaning to cultural texts. His analysis is
important, because it breaks down the most complex myths into
logical categories of dialectical oppositions. Based on a formal use
of inversion, every category in the myth has its opposite.
Levi-Strauss's analysis of myths has been criticized for being
ahistorical, ignoring the specific conditions under which they arise
or are reactivated. But myths endure because they are at once
historical (specific) and universal (atemporal). They provide in
popular fictional form (stories) both a version of concrete history
and a vision of existence.
As collective representations, the function of myths is to preserve
and legitimize the social order. Like other forms of storytelling,
films are didactic, equivalent of old Christian morality plays. War
movies have been particularly pedagogical: They'll have derived
from strong moral origins, reflected moral conflicts, and offered
moral solutions. This article analyzes the shape of military stories
in both their generalized and particularized forms. The general
shapes, or archetypes, are the fundamental ways through which
viewers perceive the specificities of an individual work.
Archetypes determine the limits within which particular stories
and characters can be filled.

Consisting of three basic elements, narrative, values, and hidden

meanings, the survival of myths depends on two factors. First, the
ability of image-makers (writers, filmmakers) to regenerate similar
myths in fresh and topical way. And second, the ability of viewers
to forget the weakest and most mutable examples, their
willingness to suspend belief and pretend that they are seeing the
story for the first time. The durability of specific myths about war
and peace suggests their rich variability: Their ability to present
numerous variations of formulaic conventions. As Robert Ray has
observed, the influence of myths over viewers increases with the
number of incarnations they allow for.
Myths associated with the Second World War have survived for a
long time, until the images created by the Vietnam War. Myths
cannot easily be overthrown by contradictory reality, because
viewers do not perceive reality directly, but through dominant
paradigms that determine their perception of specific events.
Thus, myths canand dodistort people's perception, by
encouraging them to believe in the validity rather than reality of
the tale.
It is debatable whether Hollywood could create new national
myths. However, because of their power, films disseminate and
popularize myths more rapidly than other cultural media
(newspapers, novels, plays). Despite the fact that the origins of
cinematic myths are often in literature (books, stories) or theater
(plays), films portray the material of everyday life more
effectively than other arts. Films are able to provide an illusion, or

approximation of realism through the use of the camera in

recording reality.
As myths, war movies are experienced in specific historical
circumstances. This is
a point of convergence between structuralism and sociology of
film. The internal approach of the structuralist (the inner
attributes and underlying structure of film as a text) is
supplemented with the sociologist's external approach,
grounding these attributes in their specific cultural and political
settings.
Focusing on the structure of sign systems, semiology analyzes
verbal as well as nonverbal systems of symbols. Semiologists pay
attention to the meanings of texts and the processes through
which such meanings are conveyed to viewers. The system of
rules underlying symbolic constructions is difficult to explain
because it is easy to understand, according to French scholar
Christian Metz. The semiologist's distinction between denotative
and connotative meanings is useful, because connotation is
always symbolic, i.e. arbitrary: it establishes a relationship
between signifier and signified which is culturally motivated and
historically conditioned. We consider the objects solely in relation
to the meaning, wrote Roland Barthes, without bringing in the
other determinants (psychological, sociological, physical) of these
objects, to quote Roland Barthes.
Unlike sociologists, semiologists analyze symbolic messages for
their own sake, recognizing that the symbolic form of the

message has a privileged position in the communication

exchange, and that though only relatively autonomous in relation
to the communication process as a whole they are determinate
moments.
Myths in American War Movies: Part Two of Four Articles
August 12, 2008 by EmanuelLevy Leave a Comment
Hollywood and WWII
Historians estimate that about one third of the films produced in
Hollywood (500 out of 1700) between 1942 and 1945 were about
some aspect of the War: the battle or the home front. The
production of war film reached an all-time high in 1943, when 133
war films, or 33 percent of the total film output, were released.
The Second World War still occupies an important position in the
country's collective consciousness: it was the last American war
perceived as a good war for a noble cause. The imagery of WWII
stands in opposition to other, less positive wars, such as
Vietnam and Korea. The war film has been one of the staples and
most popular genres of the film industry, embodying some of the
nation's most enduring myths.
Focusing on war films, the article deals with the construction of
American screen heroism, a rather coherent type, characterized
by specific and recurrent themes. Indeed, the narrative structure
of combat films discloses basic, underlying conventions.
Thematic Analysis of War Films

War films are analyzed thematically, in terms of unit-ideas that

deal with basic issues: individual versus community, community
versus society, stability versus change, integration versus
anomie, the sacred versus the profane, and the public versus the
private domain. These core ideas, stated as conceptual opposites
(theses and anti-theses), have recurred in many war films.
The following taxonomy provides a partial but useful way of
analyzing the narrative apparatus of war films.
Individual Vs. Community
The first core idea, individual versus community, is the most
important one. War films deal with such questions as: What
should be the desirable relationship between individuals and the
Army What should be their level of involvement and participation
in political affairs (in war and in peace) What should be the basis
of individuals' motivation: self or collective interests. How much
sacrifice should society demandand getfrom its individual
members The tension between individuals and their larger units
has persisted because each unit is associated with opposing
values. The individual is associated with freedom, integrity, and
self-interest, whereas the organization is associated with
restriction, compromise, and responsibility.
Community Vs. Society
The second dichotomy, community versus society, is based on
Toennis's
distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesselschaft, drawing on
Weber's theory of

rationalization and bureaucratization, Simmel's Metropolis, and

Durkheim's anomie. In war films, this conceptual dichotomy takes
the classical form of the combat unit (platoon) versus the military
organization. The ideal combat unit represents a primary group:
intimate, face-to-face, personal interaction. By contrast, the
military institution is based on networks of secondary
relationships, signifying the all the ills of bureaucratic
organizations: Magnitude, specificity, formality, impersonality,
and anonymity.
The issue of stability versus change also features prominently in
war films. Here the tension is between individuals' holding onto
their civilian life, never wanting to change, and their acute
awareness that change is inevitable. In many war films, there is
tension between individuals' fight to maintain their own values
and the military's insistence to embrace and dominate them.
Using sociologist Robert Merton's typology of modes of adaptation
to society's prescribed goals and its legitimate means to achieve
them, the analysis distinguishes among individuals who are
conformists, innovative, ritualistic, retreatist, and rebellious.
Sacred Vs. Profane
Emile Durkheim's distinction between the sacred and the profane
serves as another useful dichotomy. Every society distinguishes
between these two domains and their activities. The sacred
represent the less rational, more emotional values, which assume
religious or ritualistic meanings. By contrast, the profane
represents secular attitudes or objects that gain their value from

their utilitarianism or pragmatism. The narrative analysis of war

films stresses the values, sentiments, objects, and places
considered to be sacred by the individual and the military
organization. For example, up to the late l960s, the military
service and the American flag were collectively deemed sacred.
But during the Vietnam War, these objects were no longer
perceived as such.
Most narratives distinguish between the public and the private
domains, a distinction which may parallel, but not always equal,
the sacred and the profane. It is often manifested in the conflict
between professionalism or careerism (regarded as selfish
pursuit) and selfless commitment to the military.
Self Vs. Collective Orientation
The American screen hero is a man of action, not of ideas. He is
pragmatic, commonsensical, and down-to-earth in his way of
thinking and actual behavior. Committed to the solution of social
or political problems, he is guided by an inner code of ethics, his
conscience, which often stands in opposition to societal norms.
The American hero is inner-directed, not tradition-directed or
other-directed, to use David Riesman's typology of social
characters. Endowed with moral strength, the inner-directed hero
enjoys a good deal of freedom from societal constraints. There is
a streak of rebelliousness and non-conformity in his nature, often
willing to violate norms and to sacrifice himself in order to attain
collective goals.

The inner-directed hero differs from the tradition-directed,

typically a conformist who uncritically accepts society's tradition,
religious or secular, and resists any kind of change. But he
diverges even more radically from the other-directed, who is
concerned with adjusting and adapting to the demands and
expectations of others. Unlike the inner-directed, whose source of
control is internal, that of the other-directed is external: the
family, peer group, work organization and community. The
American war hero is mission-oriented, mobilizing all available
resources for fulfilling collective, not personal, tasks. In the
American cinema, heroes have been tough, rational,
commonsensical, and goal-oriented; a romantic or sexual affair
have never stood in their commitment to collective causes or
missions.
In Flying Tigers (1942), Jim Gordon (John Wayne) is the squadron
leader of the
American volunteer group, fighting for China's freedom against
the Japanese. A competent leader, and tough as nails on his men,
Gordon is contrasted with a new recruit, Woody Jason, who signs
up because he needs the money to pay off a Breach-of-promise
suit. Jason makes no secret of his eagerness to get the $500
dollars reward for every Japanese plane knocked down. Gordon
despises him for his selfishness, especially after his failure to be
at the base when needed; another flier takes over and finds his
death.

I was a kid, Jason laments, It took somebody to die to make a

man out of me. But he begs for another chance and his heroics
even save Gordon's life: bombing a Japanese supply train, his
plane catches fire but he pushes Gordon out, thus redeeming
himself, paying for his errors with his own life.
Gordon's commander nurtures his soldiers to manhood by
teaching them to accept military discipline, but he is also a
sensitive leader, aware of the anguish of sending innocent
soldiers out to die. In one scene, he regrets having allowed a
young soldier to fly on a deadly mission: Should have stayed in
college where he came from, but he begged me for a chance and
I gave it to him!
In a typical James Cagney war picture, he is cast as a selfish
recruit who learns the hard way the importance of military order.
For example, in Here Comes the Navy (1934), Cagney plays a
hot-tempered, undisciplined soldier, whose selfish individualism
upsets the Navy tradition and alientaes him from his fellowmen.
But at the end, after a court martial, he redeems himself with a
heroic rescue, and his reputation is restored.
In Ceiling Zero (1935), Cagney, a devil-may-care pilot who enjoys
his escapades, irresponsibly causes the death of a fellow pilot.
Flamboyant and loose fibered, his major hobby is women. But
during the course of the story, he reforms and, regretting his
behavior, he volunteers to test a newly invented aircraft, an
action that costs him his life.

The Fighting 69th (1940), produced as Warners' contribution to

the recruitment campaign and Cagney's most popular war movie,
is a fictionalized account of New York's famed the Fighting Irish
regiment, which started during the Civil War and in 19l7 was
incorporated into the Army. Private Jerry Plunkette, a despicable
tough Irishman from Brooklyn, sneers at the regiment's traditions
and jeers at his chaplain. When his unit is sent to the European
front, he gets hysterical at the very first sight of a dead body. His
cowardice and irresponsibility, revealing to the enemy his unit's
position, bring death to many of his fellowmen. At the end,
however, he dies heroically, proving himself a worthy soldier. The
transformation of the Cagney character is always from a cocky
and obnoxious recruit to a disciplined soldier. In their war films,
the Cagney and the Wayne screen persona complemented each
other.
Commitment Vs. Neutrality
In a typical Humphrey Bogart war film, Bogart wears civilian
clothes, usually a trench coat, and is placed in a foreign country.
At times, he is the only one or one of the few Americans on the
scene. Across the Atlantic, for example, takes place in Panama,
and To Have and Have Not, on the island of Martinique. The titles
of his films often reveal their locales: Action Across the North
Atlantic, Sahara, Casablanca, Passage to Marseilles.
Bogart's heroes usually start as cynical, sophisticated, and
uninvolved men who are reluctantly drawn into the conflicts. The
transformation is gradual, though at the end Bogart's heroes are

fully committed to the cause. Indeed, at the start of Casablanca

(1943), Bogart's Rick Blain, the former soldier and now a cafe
owner, declares, I stick my neck out for nobody, and I'm the
only cause I'm interested in. By the end, however, he gives up
the woman he passionately loves, to help her husband, an antiFascist leader, escape to freedom. Blain's cynicism derives from
his disillusionment with the world's apathy to the Civil War in
Spain and to Ethiopia; he himself smuggled arms to Ethiopia and
fought with the Loyalists in Spain.
American mythology makes important distinctions between
ideological and professional commitment. The genuine American
hero is not the professional soldier, but the converted civilian.
Ideological or moral commitment (based on the belief in the
cause) is favored over the strictly competent and relatively
narrow commitment of the craftsman. The Bogart version of
commitment has prevailed from the late 1960s on, because it
suited better the cynicism that characterized American society
during the Vietnam War, the political assassinations, and the
Watergate scandal, all of which resulted in an increasing lack of
trust of the government and any form of institutional authority.
Though most films preach for greater political involvement,
commitment is not without costs or a price. Humphrey Bogart in
Casablanca loses the only woman he ever loved.
Most of James Cagney's protagonists die in action in his war films,
including the eponymous hero of Mister Roberts. The form of
commitment in the American cinema is individualistic. The heroes

often operate on their own against all odds. In classic Hollywood

texts, the narratives focus almost exclusively on an individual
(usually a white male), a loner (often outsider) in search of
identity and redemption.
As Richard Maltby has observed, social problems were skirted by
invariably couching them in individual terms. In this way, the
seemingly contradictory values of individualism and commitment
are reconciled. In American films, self-fulfillment and self
actualization are achieved through commitment to collective
goals and communal affairs.
Myths in American War Films: Part Three of Four Articles
August 12, 2008 by EmanuelLevy Leave a Comment
Charismatic Vs. Legal Authority
Anti-institutional authority has been another defining element of
American war heroes. The authority of screen heroes is
charismatic to use Max Weber's typology of authority models.
Charismatic authority rests on the leader's personal appeal and
his exceptional abilities, perceived by his followers as a gift of
grace. Charismatic heroes possess extraordinary virtues, on the
basis of which they demand and get personal devotion from their
followers. This type of leader differs substantially from the legal
rational leader, whose authority is based on explicit laws and
regulations, which define and confine his use of power.
The quintessential screen heroes of John Wayne, Gary Cooper,
Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart and later, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester
Stallone, and Eddie Murphy have been charismatic because they

gain and maintain authority by proving their extraordinary

physical and emotional strengths. The heroes played by
Eastwood, Stallone, and Murphy are more cynical and ambiguous
in their attitude toward the law than their predecessors, in tune
with the times in which these actor became a star. In each case,
however, their personal strength and efficiency are far more
important than the official positions they occupy in the hierarchy
of their organizations (be it the military or the police force).
However, being critical, or at the margins of the social system, by
no means implies operating outside the legitimate order.
No performer has become a major star if he specialized in playing
deviants or criminals, operating outside the frame of the law.
Actors who began their careers in crime gangster films, became
stars only after they transformed their screen image into more
legitimate, mainstream heroes. The best example for this trend is
still James Cagney who became a major star, not in his crime
gangster films (The Public Enemy, 1931), but rather when he
played mainstream figures, such as patriotic showman George M.
Cohan (Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942).
Similarly, Humphrey Bogart became popular with the public when
he ceased playing villains (in most of his 1930s Warner movies)
and began to be cast in heroic roles, such as The Maltese Falcon
(1941) and Casablanca (1943).
Elitism Vs. Democracy
In The Flying Leathernecks (1951), Major Dan Kirby (John
Wayne), commander of the Marine fighting squadron in the South

Pacific, is resented by his men because the wanted executive

officer Carl Griffin, a more popular and amiable man, to get the
command. They also dislike Kirby for his rugged ways and strict
discipline. The film, however, makes it clear that it is Kirby, who is
more suited for command, particularly under pressure. Griffin
defends Kirby's tactic in front of the men but in private criticizes
him, No man is an island. When he takes over the command,
however, he models his leadership after Kirby. Furthermore, as in
other war films, the soldiers learn to respect and even like Wayne
for the kind of leader he is.
In John Ford's They Were Expendable (1945), Lieutenant Rusty
Ryan (John Wayne) insists that the PT boats, equipped with guns
and torpedo tubes, could slip into the Japanese harbors. His
temperament stands in sharp opposition to Lieutenant John
Brickley, a calm, rational, and efficient commander. Ryan gets
increasingly frustrated: the disbelief in the boats' potential and
the lack of action bore him to death. Challenged by Brickley,
What are you aiming at, building a reputation, or playing for the
team Ryan replies, for years, I've been taking your fatherly
advice and it's never been very good. From now on, I'm a oneman band. He become even more frustrated upon learning that
the boats are assigned to messenger duty, claiming he is bored
to death running messages.
Later on, when the boats are assigned to destroy a Japanese
cruiser, he is eager to go out, but instead is rushed to the hospital
for treatment of an infected arm. He arrives at the hospital

screaming and when the nurse suggests to calm him down,

perhaps even go dancing, he yells, Listen, sister, I don't dance
and I can't take the time out now to learn. All I want is to get out
of here. After his boat had been sunked, Ryan is ordered to fly
back to Washington to organize new PT Boat squadrons, but he
loathes leaving. He tries to get off the plane, offering his place to
another officer. When the latter asks him to call his wife, Ryan
explodes, Phone her. I got business here and you got business
back in the States. All he wants is to be at the battle zone. But
once again, it is Brickley who brings him into line, Rusty, who're
you working for Yourself
Stratification Vs. Integration
Of all film genres, narratives of war films demonstrated best the
ideology of American society as a melting pot, a pluralistic society
consisting of various ethnic minorities. This film genre has also
been the most optimistic concerning issues of ethnic and racial
integration. Used as a microcosm of the society at large, social
integration is achieved in the military through commitment to the
value of equality.
Bataan (1943), a tale of 13 battered soldiers, depicts the heroic
efforts of a rear-guard suicide mission to protect the American
retreat down the peninsula to Corregidor. It is a classic example of
the platoon with cross-section personality types and ethnic
groups, all banded together to fight the enemy. The group
includes a conscientious objector, an immature adolescent, and a

black studying for the ministry, a lovable Hispanic, a humorous

and talkative Jew.
The film describes the ethnic traditions of the diversified platoon;
the prayer of the Hispanic as he dies of malaria, the prayer of the
black over the jungle grave of the captain. It shows that despite
initial antagonism, based on lack of knowledge and/or awareness
of other ethnic groups, the soldier are capable of communicating
and socializing on equal bases. Equality and integration are
endorsed as crucial conditions for the morale of the unit as well as
its effective fulfillment of military functions.
Unique Vs. Ordinary
Howard Hawks's Sergeant York (1941) is one of the most popular
American movies of all time. Gary Cooper is cast as Alvin York, the
pacifist Tennessee farmer who became the country's greatest
hero of World War I, after capturing and destroying an entire
German battalion single-handedly. As in the typical Bogart or
Cagney war film a transformation of character is at the center of
the story.
Drafted for service in WWI, York registers as a conscientious
objector. Major Buxton gives him an American history book, which
evokes the name of Daniel Boone. Isolated in Nature, he absorbs
its contents, coming to terms with his own feelings about defense
and freedom. This scene has similar effect to the one in Young Mr.
Lincoln, wherein Lincoln discovers the meaning of the law. In
both, the hero must understand the new principles for himself
and from within.

The film stresses York's great conscience struggle before joining

the army. Obey your God, says the Pastor's voice, countered by
Major Baxton's dictate, Defend your Country. A reconciliation of
the two symbols, God and Country, is required, and York reaches
the conclusion that the two are in harmony because they mean
the same thing. In Young Mr. Lincoln too, the two symbols, the
Bible and the Farmer's Almanac, both sacred (standing for God
and Nature) provide the base for Lincoln's authority because they
mean the same thing. Moreover, York's anger and willingness to
kill are actually caused by the death of a close friend on the
battlefront.
Tracing its hero's life from 19l6 in the Valley of the Three Forks
to the end of WWI, Sergeant York is a tale of transformation of a
Tennessee mountaineer farmer, from an obscure hillbilly to a
great national hero. As such, it belongs to genre of films about
ordinary protagonists who become extraordinary, as a result of
charismatic personality and social circumstances.
The film demonstrates the democratic credo that heroes are not
born, but made, and that they could come from the most remote
and unlikely places. Indeed, at the end of the War, after showers
of praise for his heroics, York returns to his former simple life on
his Tennessee farm, where the movie begins. The film's wide
appeal rested on its timely release, in July 1941, just months prior
to the country's entry into the war. The transformation of York
articulated the feelings of millions of Americans who initially were
reluctant to fight.

John Wayne, possibly the most popular screen war hero,

specialized in playing commanders, not the rank-and-file fighters.
However, Wayne's commanders were ordinary, hard-working,
upwardly mobile Americans, who became leaders for their
strength and commitment to the causenot because of their social
backgrounds or elitist education. Wayne's most significant screen
function, as was mentioned, was to provide exemplary leadership
and to unite a diversified group of soldiers, from all walks of life
and with different motives and different fighting skills.
Wayne's war films stressed strong individual and charismatic
leadership, but they also emphasized collectively democratic
values, such as mutual responsibility, group discipline, and
concerted action. They showed that, under conditions of pressure
and crisis, a genuine leader can bring about the best in
everybody, and what better conditions for that than actual war
and fighting.
Myths in American War Films: Part Four of Four Articles
August 12, 2008 by EmanuelLevy Leave a Comment
Masculinity Vs. Femininity
American War movies have been obsessed with defining the
parameters of masculine behavior, repeatedly using two devices:
comparing masculine leaders with women on the one hand, and
weak men (and children) on the other. The pressures of being a
real man, as Vito Russo observed, were absolute and unyielding in
the American cinema, and the norms describing screen
masculinity have not changed much over the years.

Reel (and real) men have been depicted as strong, silent, and
contentiously unemotional. They act quickly and never
intellectualize; in short, they do not behave as women. To be like
a woman is not only invaluable, but also an insult, a stigma. War
movies have been replete with comparisons with weak and
effeminate men whose inferiority provided the yardstick for
measuring genuine virility. The cinematic function of war heroes
has been saving weakling youths and restoring their manhood.
In American films, real men never let their personal frustrations or
emotions interfere with their duties. In Back to Bataan, Colonel
Madden (John Wayne) is contrasted with the leader of the
Philippino guerrillas (Anthony Quinn), who moons over his
sweetheart, believing she has been collaborating with the
Japanese. Quinn is so frustrated and embittered over his
emotional life that it affects his leadership. It is only after Madden,
disobeying orders, tells him she is actually assisting the
resistance movement that he pulls himself together and turns to
be a courageous fighter. Madden connsoles him, sometimes, it's
not easy to forget, but it's clear that he is the role model for how
men should behave, particularly in war times.
War heroes are also hard drinking, but their drinking is
normatively prescribed and favorably depicted because it is
restrained, controlled, and doesn't interfere with their official
duties. Drinking is indeed integral to the Wayne screen persona,
but is never harmful. His heroes usually drink in solitude, to
overcome their despair; they drink to console themselves, but

they don't let other people catch them drinking. In Sands of Iwo
Jima, Sergeant Stryker drinks over his frustrations and strains as
a commander, but his drinking is not visible to his soldiers.
The contrast between real and feminized men is most explicit in
Sands of Iwo Jima. Disliked by his men because of his ruthless
training, Stryker's major critic is a new recruit, Peter Conway, who
hates rigid discipline. Stryker trains his novices, ruthlessly
whipping them into shape. The animosity between Stryker and
Conway has other sources: Wayne had served under Conway's
father, who had been killed in action in Gaudalcanal. Conway,
however, does not share Wayne's respect for his father, because
the latter used to poke fun at him for being too soft. In the film's
climax, Conway tells Stryker how he will bring up his newly born
son: I won't insist he read the Marine Corps Manual. Instead, I'll
get him a set of Shakespeare. In short, I don't want him to be a
Sergeant John M. StrykerI want him to be intelligent, considerate,
cultured, and a gentleman.
Later in the picture, however, Stryker saves Conway's like, when a
live grenade falls at his feet while he dreamily reads a letter from
his wife. But Conway gets the opportunity to save Wayne's life
and even apologizes for getting out of line. In this movie too,
Wayne is the sensitive commander who does not let it show,
believing in hard discipline. Shot by a sniper, an unfinished letter
is found on his body in which he concedes of being a failure in
many ways. At the end, however, Conway becomes the fighter
Stryker and his father has always wanted him to be: Killing the

Japanese sniper, he takes over the command and adopts Wayne's

style of leadership.
The generational conflict between leaders and their immature
and/or feminine soldiers is most explicitly developed in In Harm's
Way (1965). Captain Rockwell Torrey, a commander of a ship
cruiser, is described by one of his officers as All Navy. We also
learn that his commitment to his career resulted in a broken
marriage.
Moreover, he believes that his wife's Bostonian origins have had a
negative influence on their son Jere, whom he has not seen for
eighteen years. Jere is an opportunistic officer, preferring a soft
job over a fighting assignment. Torrey is ashamed of his son and
their first meeting is bitter and awkward. Addressed by Jere as
Sir, he resents the manner in which his son talks about the war,
referring to it as Mr. Roosevelt's War. He also despises him for
revealing a top secret out of negligence. Later, when Jere is
assigned to the same aperation and is placed under Wayne's
command, he does not get any special treatment. I'm not going
to act like a father now, states Torrey, I threw that opportunity
18 years ago. However, father and son become closer when
Torrey has to break the tragic news that his boy's girlfriend has
been raped and committed suicide. At the end, they are reunited
when Jere models himself after his fatherbut not before
committing himself to the War's ideals.
Jere redeems himself, becoming a better soldier and dying
heroically. Now his father can really accept his son and be proud

of him. In In Harm's Way, the divorced Torrey has buried his

marital disappointments beneath a cool and reserved exterior. By
contrast, his executive officer, has turned to alcoholism and selfpity because he cannot accept his wife's promiscuity. Torrey
always acts honorably, whereas his colleague is impulsive,
temperamental, and eventually self-destructive. Torrey is gentle
with women. His officer, by contrast, is a selfish and lusty
womanizer. He rapes Torrey son's girlfriend and, upon learning
that she committed suicide, volunteers for a deadly mission,
unable to live with his conscience.
One of the genre's recurrent themes is for the heroes to be
unburdened by family life and free from domestic obligations.
Soldiers often preferred the company of men, enjoying intimate
relationships with their male buddies. Indeed, in many war films,
there are no women in the heroes' lives (due to separations,
divorces), and their friendships are confined to male partners.
Male camaraderie has been prominent in the war film, though
male friendships and bonds have been perennial themes in the
American cinema, not just in war films.
Operation Pacific (1951), a typical movie of the l950s concerning
men's relationship with women, casts John Wayne as a submarine
officer, divorced from his wife, a Navy nurse for fourteen years,
following the death of their son in infancy. It's clear, though, that
he still loves her and wants to resume their relationship. He takes
the blame for their split on himself, We had something. I guess I
kicked it around.

His ex-wife apparently did not mind his absences from home, but
she did mind that she could not cry with him or comfort him when
their son died: You went off into some corner alone, never
realizing that by comforting you I could have helped my own
grief. She also spurns him for his love with the navy, You don't
need anybody but yourself. But as in most of his films, she is the
one who has to compromise and accept him on his own terms as
her superior at the hospital reminds her: You married him for
what he is, and then tried to make something else out of him, but
you couldn't. Sergeant Stryker's private life in Sands of Iwo Jima
is in ruins and he is tormented by past mistakes; his wife left him,
taking their little son with her.
In most war movies, however, the hero's roughness is more of a
facade. In Flying Leathernecks, he is frustrated when he does not
get mail from his family and he is the one to write letters of
condolences to the victims' families. His leaders are by no means
insensitive, especially when it comes to respect for soldiers who
have died in duty. In They Were Expendable, he states firmly, a
service man is supposed to have a funeralthat's a tribute to the
way he's spent his life. Escort, firing squad, wrapped in the flag he
served under and died for. Wayne even recites poetryawkwardly
in honor of one of the casualties who was always quotin' verse.
Man of Ideas Vs. Man of Action
Another dominant myth in the war movies is the hero's rebellious
or independent streak. Leaders are willing to disobey orders if
they think their decision is right and action is needed. They want

to fight on the front, hating desk work. In this respect, the war
hero stands in diametric opposition to William Whyte's
organization man, the conformist who goes by the book and
adjusts himself to the organization's rule, doing all things the
company way.
Construction engineer Wedge Donovan in The Fighting Seabees
(1944) helps to organize the Fighting Seabees, special fighting
units of civilian workers. He is told by Lieutenant Commander Bob
Yarrow to ignore the Japanese snipers and to focus on
construction. Compared with Yarrow, Donovan is hot-tempered
and impatient with the enemy. He continues to obey orders until
his friend is killed, then in defiance of the rules, he orders his men
to fight back. However, his stubbornness causes the death of
many people for which he is held responsible. In the end, guiltridden, he redeems himself in a one-man action which costs him
his life, but saves the important oil tanks.
Henry Fonda first played the title role of Mister Roberts on the
Broadway stage for three years, winning acclaim and awards,
then recreated it, with equal success on screen. The story has had
many incarnations, starting as a book by Thomas Heggen, then a
stage play by him and Joshua Logan, and finally a screenplay by
Logan and Frank Nugent. Fonda is cast as the first officer on the
Reluctant, a cargo ship miles away from the battle zone, whose
route is described by him as from Tedium to Apathy and back
again, with an occasional side trip to Monotony. The War is close
to an end, and Roberts is anxious to get into combat before it is

too late. His numerous requests for transfer, however, are turned
down by his tyrannical captain. But with the assistance of the
sympathetic crew, his wish is finally fulfilled. Mister Roberts ends
on a sad note when the audience is informed that its hero has
been killed in action.
The source of conflict between Torrey and his wife in In Harm's
Way is his career: she wanted him to do something useful, like
working for the stock market. Torrey, however, refuses, I don't fit
behind a desk. I'll dry. But he is also reluctant to sit behind a
desk, and suffers under the indecisive leadership of Admiral
Broderick. Indeed, leading the remnants of a Japanese attack, he
deliberately violates the orders, charting a straight course for the
enemy, instead of the required zigzag. As a result, a torpedo splits
his ship and he is injured. Brought before a court, the punishment
for his violation is desk work. Frustrated, he watches forlornly as
the American counter-offensive is formulated but without him. But
later, his case is reexamined by the higher command and,
elevated to Rear Admiral, Wayne is placed in command of
Operation Skyhook. His ship is struck by the Japanese and he is
injured again; this time, his left leg is amputated. He is promised,
however, an artificial leg and the command of a new task force, to
carry on the fight.
Conclusion
Analyzing war films, this series of articles used elements of three
theoretical orientations: sociology, structuralism, and semiology,
showing points of convergence and divergence among them. The

key concepts are context in sociology, text in structuralism, and

subtext in semiology. From a sociological standpoint, cinema, like
other institutions (science, politics, economy) does not operate in
a social or political void. Rather, it is interrelated with the
historical, cultural, and political settings in which it operates.
Using structuralism, films are analyzed as cultural texts and
narrative structures. And the semiological approach emphasizes
that films are constructions or systems of meanings, which signify
symbols (and messages) in specifically and uniquely cinematic
ways.
This series of articles shows, that despite some variability, there
have been many similarities in the narratives of American war
films. It is therefore possible to describe the portrayal of war
heroism in terms of broad clusters of values, which have gone
beyond specific historical and political contexts. The most
important myths in the war genre, as expressed in combat films,
have been: the individual versus the military organization (selforientation versus collective orientation); democracy versus
elitism (the significance of team work versus one-man
operations); American society as a Melting Pot (the ethnic
integration of combat units), commitment versus neutrality
(active involvement versus isolationism or apathy); military career
versus peaceful domestic life (militarism as a way of life and
military service as a necessary civilian duty); masculinity versus
sensitivity (action versus ideas); and heroism as extraordinary
behavior by ordinary men. These cultural orientations have been

basic American values, characterizing dominant culture, not just

film and screen heroism.
From a sociological standpoint, durable film stars (John Wayne,
Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda) have functioned as
much more than actors playing parts. They are cultural icons,
whose screen roles signify attitudes that are collectively
meaningful and desirable. Movie stars, marked by long-lasting
appeals, have functioned as folk heroes and heroines, cultural
points of reference for large and diverse audiences, despite
dramatic changes in society's dominant ideology and politics. The
striking survival of these stars is attributable to their embodiment
of basic American values, which have remained relevant despite
structural and political changes in the society at large. These
myths dominated American films until the Vietnam War, an
experience that had challenged and changed many of these
myths.