Page 305 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Nat onal sm and the Med a

battleship poteMKin (1 )
Whereas American films often sing love songs to democracy and capitalism, other nations
have offered their own filmic narratives of national ideology. Director and early innovator of
film Sergei Eisenstein’s famous Battleship Potemkin, for instance, acted as powerful propa-
ganda for Soviet communism. The film tells the story of a peasant massacre by Cossack
troops at Odessa in 1905, and of the mutiny on a Tsarist navy battleship that led to the crew
coming to the peasants’ assistance. The film casts dispersion on individuals who act as in-
dividuals, instead focusing on the peasants and the crew as a unified force. In this way, the
villainous ship captain and doctor, who try to serve rancid meat to the crew, are contrasted
with the revolutionary power of the sailors as a mass. Thus, Eisenstein depicted an incident
from Russian history in a way intended to evoke pride in and admiration of the power of the
group. Just as, for instance, the lone hero figures of American Westerns romanticize Ameri-
can capitalist and libertarian individualism, Battleship Potemkin romanticizes the proletarian
unity and camaraderie of Soviet communism.

Blockbusters with megalomaniacal villains and plots often pose a threat to the
“American way of life,” and hence define what that way of life entails. Stars such
as Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hanks, and Will Smith are marketed
as and become national illustrations of the “all-American,” from the way they
look and dress to their mannerisms and character. And “American values” are
embodied particularly in the nostalgic dream-worlds of Leave It to Beaver, The
Waltons, and other earlier family sitcoms and dramas.
Meanwhile, the news constantly draws lines around the nation, telling us
where and what to care about as “our own,” whether this be through coverage
of disasters and tragedies that focus most attention on dead Americans and
their stories, or whether this be as simple and mundane an act as reporting on
“American” weather, business, or sports news. More prominently, in times of
war or crisis, much news coverage eschews the rest of the world’s news to offer
more in-depth coverage of the ongoing conflict. Behind newsroom editors’ and
producers’ decisions here is the belief that we care more (or only) about those
of our own nationality than about others—but their decisions perpetuate such
patterns of caring, by imploring us to care about such issues more than about
others. In other words, on a daily basis, the news reinforces the borders between
the “us” of our nation, and the “them” of the rest.

making ThE naTion

Far from just demarcating the borders of the nation, though, the media plays
a key role in filling it with meaning. As literature and history instructors have
long complained of, many people are introduced to national literature and his-
tory though the media, whether this be filmic adaptations of American novels,
or blockbuster recreations of history, as with, for example, Pearl Harbor, Titanic,
and Saving Private Ryan. Many young people now “know” the 1950s, 1960s, or