Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 58

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Popular Culture Review

highlight the important function these films serve, analyze the
transformation of values which is depicted in Born on the Fourth of
July, and finally, consider how the film uniquely reflects the value
transformation of some Vietnam veterans for viewing audiences.
The Origin of Contemporary Vietnam War Films
John Wayne's 1968 film The Green Berets was designed to
convince Americans that our soldiers were needed in Vietnam.^
Produced with the cooperation of the U.S. Defense Department, it
depicted a distinctly partisan view of the war. The film's "mania for
technology, complete with helicopters, gunships, napalm
experts...carries echoes of the missile-gap space race and James Bond
crazes," according to film analysts A1 Auster and Leonard Quart.^
The hawkish approach illustrated U.S. military "might" which
dominated early depictions of Vietnam. Following the release of The
Green Berets the Vietnam War theme was avoi ded by the major
studios, in part out of fear that such films would not sell. Peter
Mclnemey explains the sentiments shared in Hollywood:
A war that traumatized and divided American
society was not a logical topic for popular
entertainment. How could films succeed which
reminded audiences of military stalemate if not
outright defeat, generated guilt about suffering
inflicted on Vietnamese and American^ or caused
bandaged cultural wounds to bleed afresh?^
Americans became desensitized to the graphic violence of
war during Vietnam as they viewed nightly television broadcasts of
casualty reports. As the war progressed and American sentiment
became more anti-war in nature, Hollywood studios hesitated to
produce any films about such a controversial topic. The concern over
box office success led Auster and Quart to conclude: "The war
obviously was too much of a hot potato for an industry which knows
that controversy and profits don't nux well."^ Beyond the sheer
profit orientation of film production, a more fundamental explanation
for ignoring Vietnam was posited by Lance Morrow: "During a long
period in the 70's, the nation indulged in a remarkable exercise of
recoil and denial and amnesia about Vietnam. Americans do not want