Page 88 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

brain. They tell us a new smashing smile, tight buns and a positive attitude
is the holy trinity of life, and anyone can attain all three.
Who knows what this will lead to next: A reality show on engineering
the perfect child? Or maybe The Swan will go the way of The Mole: down-
market with cheap celebs, perhaps drug-addled rock stars who want to take
the straight-and-narrow to a happy and dry life. First round of contestants:
Tommy Lee, Axl Rose and Courtney Love. Either way, we’re a long way
from those innocent days on the island of Pulau Tiga. 12

In like fashion, the history of the war genre reveals how America’s
military experiences have affected its citizens’ attitudes toward war. The
war genre has undergone significant changes, reflecting shifts in attitudes
toward war as a result of America’s war experiences.
Although there was some dissent and antiwar attitudes surrounding
World War II, this conflict was generally supported by the public and
regarded as a just cause. This attitude was reflected in films like The
Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Flying Leathernecks (1951), and Operation
Pacific (1951), which clearly distinguished the heroic Allied forces from
the villainous Axis powers.
However, films about the Viet Nam War reflected the shift in American
attitudes toward authority in the wake of this unpopular and unsuccessful
conflict. In films like Coming Home (1978), The Deer Hunter (1978),
and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), the protagonists felt betrayed by
their leaders and were forced to fight two enemies: the Viet Cong and
their own government.
More recently, the war genre reflects American’s ambivalence toward
the war in Iraq. In 2005, Steven Bochco produced Over There, a thirteen-
episode television drama on the FX cable station, the first dramatization
of the war in Iraq on American television. This fictional series focused
attention on the war by putting the events into a personal context with
which the entire audience could identify. Unlike Viet Nam War films,
this series assumed a sympathetic view of the soldiers while graphically
showing the violence and destruction of the war. However, columnist
Eric Mink questioned the efficacy of a fictionalized account of the war,
given the ongoing drama of the Iraq war: “The middling fictional drama
of “Over There” falls drearily flat next to media’s nonfiction accounts
of the war. Not when the valor, pain, joys and tragedy of real life are so
abundantly available.” 13
Contrasting genric programs from different eras can provide insight into

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