We just finished the first class of the term and I wanted to capture some thoughts...
I will be posting a voiceover (Flash) PowerPoint version of today's lecture in Bb Vista by Wednesday night, and will include some of the points I make here in greater detail.
Basically, we're looking for the footprints in the sand left by our ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'll continue to stress that this is not a witch hunt to slam the government or US policies. Part of my reason for approaching the class in this manner is to help clarify my own thoughts and opinions. So think of them as footprints in the sand, or the fog on the mirror, or the echoes down the hall...
The consensus from the class is that there has been little impact on our culture from Iraq. For general readers, it would help to clarify our general demographics: college students (and one prof) in the spring of 2008, living in Philadelphia. So, East coast, urban, privileged (to the extent of being able to teach for a living and to go to school, even if that requires massive loans and sacrifice), and predominantly from the East coast.
I had prepared some slides showing Star Wars and an image of Godzilla. Those films can be used to see their respective times through very heavy-handed metaphor. In the 1970s, mutually assured destruction and a long-fought cold war with the Soviets made Star Wars (arguably) an easy sell. Of course Americans identified with the rag-tag rebels battling the pure evil ("The Evil Empire") that spawned the Death Star, capable of destroying entire planets.
We seemed to know less about Godzilla, although that might be because for 18 year olds today, the Godzilla films blur together. Didn't he fight all kinds of other monsters? Yes. Didn't Mathew Broderick make a crappy big-budget version? Yes.
But the original (as I found out, not really the original...) is a subversive take on the US use of atomic bombs on Japan. Godzilla is a sea monster made gigantic by exposure to Strontium 90 and other isotopes...He then devastates Tokyo on a regular basis. The film was made 9 years after the atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
So with Star Wars and Godzilla as a bit of a creative guide, we went looking for contemporary connections.
The class seemed unanimous that politics and music don't mix...that bands trying to get political are just doing it to gain publicity. I volunteered that country music seems to be addressing the war more directly than hip hop and rock.
Kyle made an excellent connection between the Saw movies and our collective wrestling with torture (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo). I did a (very) little checking...I didn't know there was a short film in 2003, before the 2004 feature-length film. The Abu Ghraib scandal broke in - 2004.
I wouldn't argue that Saw was a conscious response to our debate over torture, but you might easily make a case for its popularity (anyone for Saw V?) being a reflection of our moral debate over torture.
We took a look at the top grossing films of 2007 - all throwbacks to a pre-9/11, pre-Iraq world: Spiderman, Transformers, Shrek...
Ratatouille also came up - somewhat randomly, but I seized on it as a potential example. What effect might Iraq have on our consumption of animated films? Is Ratatouille a sort of detente with France (remember when we were supposed to boycott French Fries?)? Is the focus on cooking a version of 'nesting' - of our aversion to travel after 9/11, our focus on the home, our obsession with home prices? Maybe that's stretching it, and maybe it's just a great movie (Flushed Away wasn't as big of a success...even with Aardman Entertainment's golden touch)...or maybe there is more.
It was a great start to our investigation. I don't have any answers concerning the effect of our 5 years in Iraq (and 6.5 in Afghanistan), but I feel that we have to be seriously affected. We can't have 150,000 of our citizens over there, billions of our tax dollars, thousands of deaths and injuries and have zero effect. It's impossible. When we get to Melville's portrayal of the lawyer in "Bartleby the Scrivener" perhaps we will find some answers.
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Over the break I saw the movie Vantage Point. Coincidentally, the movie deals with a war (between terrorists in Spain and the United States). I thought it was a great movie, and I almost feel like this class will resemble the concept of the movie.
I interpret it like this: we are learning about the overall theme (of war) and we are piecing together all the different views from it -- through literature/plays/movies, to come up with the "ultimate" answer.
Since I can not figure out how to post a Blog ont he main page, I will post it here. "How The War Has Affected Me"
Well, I was 13 when the twin towers were hit. I grew up in the NYC suburbs so it affected my area significantly. Many of my friend's parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and even grandparents were killed in the attack. That day was when I recieved my first true "reality check" For the first time, I realized that no one is safe in this world. It does not matter who you are, how rich or poor, or what you've done your whole life. Everything can be gone in an instant and you are nothing more than a memory and a name on a stone.
For all of you "Anti-War" supporters out there, have you forgotten?
Killing thousands of lives in a cowardly "sucker-punch" attack is not good enough reason to go to war? It is a shame because you people are as cowardly as those terrorists. Defeating a faceless enemy is not an easy task when we have enough trouble identifying hispanics from middle-easterners.
Yes support our troops effort, but remember, the military is a volunteer organization, they are there by choice.
The war has opened my eyes to the reality of the world. It is unfortunate that everything is directed toward the evil in this world, but that is the struggle we all face.
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