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Inscribing the American Body Politic: Martin Sheen and Two American Decades

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14650040590946610

1557-3028

Simon Philpott, David Mutimer,

Gothic Literature and Media Analysis

Film and television have been influential in the remaking of the American self since the traumas of Vietnam. We undertake readings of class, gender, ethnicity and race focusing on the roles of Martin Sheen and his two 'crews' in Apocalypse Now Redux and in the television series The West Wing. We argue that despite the appearance of a more progressive America as represented by the Bartlet White House it remains within a long tradition that represents the US in discourses of innocence and pureness of will and is largely blind to the kind of violence perpetrated by Willard and his crew in Apocalypse Now Redux. We suggest that the capacity of the US repeatedly to 'forget' its use of certain kinds of violence marks the limits of self-sacrifice of the American self and provides the discursive possibility for the eternal return of innocence. Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was presented to the YCISS Afternoon Seminar Series, York University, 13 November 2001. The authors would like to thank the participants for their thoughtful discussion. We would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers whose insightful remarks and suggestions have helped us clarify our arguments. Notes See Michael J. Shapiro, Methods and Nations: Cultural Governance and the Indigenous Subject (New York: Routledge 2004) pp.173–4. Mark J. Lacy, 'War, Cinema and Moral Anxiety', Alternatives 28/5 (2003) p.614. Ibid. See inter alia C. Weber, International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge 2001), J. Weldes, 'Going Cultural: Star Trek, State Action, and Popular Culture', Millennium 28/1 (1999) pp.117–34, idem, 'Globalisation is Science Fiction', Millennium 30/3 (2001) pp.647–67, I. Neumann, ' "Grab a Phaser, Ambassador": Diplomacy in Star Trek', Millennium 30/3 (2001) pp.603–24, Mark J. Lacy, 'Cinema and Ecopolitics: Existence in the Jurassic Park', Millennium 30/3 (2001) pp.635–45; idem, 'War, Cinema, and Moral Anxiety', Alternatives 28/5 (2003) pp.611–36, Robert W. Gregg, International Relations on Film (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1998). P.C. Rollins, 'United States–Vietnam Reconciliation in 1994: Feature Films on the Vietnam War', National Forum 74/4 (1994). G. Kilday, 'The Two West Wings', The Advocate, 13 February 2001. Ibid. C. Lehmann, 'The Feel-Good Presidency – The Pseudo-politics of the West Wing', The Atlantic Monthly 287/3 (March 2001). See also Pamela Ezell, 'The Sincere Sorkin White House, or, the Importance of Seeming Earnest', in Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor (eds), The West Wing: The American Presidency as Television Drama (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press 2003) pp.159–60. D. Saunders, 'Hollywood, D.C.', Weekend Review, Globe and Mail, 17 November 2001. See also Shapiro (note 1) p.199, Lacy (note 2) p.614. Mark Poster, 'Theorizing Virtual Reality', in The Information Subject (Amsterdam: G+B Arts International 2001) pp.120–21. Ibid. p.121. O. Burkeman, 'Next week on The West Wing … erm', The Guardian, 5 May 2003. Shapiro (note 2) pp.1–31. See, for example, W. Safire, 'Essay: Syndrome Returns', New York Times, 30 April 2001, p.A19. See, for example, Susan Jeffords, Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 1994) p.33. See K.J. Campbell, 'Once Burned, Twice Cautious: Explaining the Weinberger–Powell Doctrine', Armed Forces & Society 24/3 (1998) pp.357–75 for an account of the development of US military doctrine following the Vietnam War. Colin Gray (see C. Gray, 'The RMA and Intervention: A Sceptical View', Contemporary Security Policy 22/3 (2001) pp.52–65.), for example, disputes the possibilities for the RMA to achieve is zero-casualty objectives, but does not contest the genealogical point. For alternative readings of the so-called revolutions in military affairs, see, inter alia, James Der Derian, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military–Industrial–Media-Entertainment Network (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 2001) and A. Latham, 'Warfare Transformed: A Braudelian Perspective on the Revolution in Military Affairs', European Journal of International Relations 8/2 (2002) pp.231–66. Interestingly, Marlon Brando's Col. Walter Kurtz in ANR also recognises the limits of technology in attaining military superiority. In Kurtz's dossier, Sheen reads: 'Commitment and Counter-Insurgency, by Col. Walter E. Kurtz. As long as our officers and troups (sic) perform tours of duty limited to one year, they will remain dilettantes in war and tourists in Vietnam. As long as cold beer, hot food, rock and roll and all the other amenities remain the expected norm, our conduct of the war will gain only impotence. (In the document, but not read aloud – The wholesale and indiscriminate use of firepower will only increase the effectiveness of the enemy and strengthen their resolve to prove the superiority of an agrarian culture against the world's greatest technocracy … The central tragedy of our effort in this conflict has been the confusion of a sophisticated technology with human commitment. Our bombs may in time destroy the geography, but they will never win the war … We need fewer men, and better; if they were committed, this war could be won with a fourth of our present force…)' (see <www.filmsite.org/apoc3.htm'). It is generally supposed that the Vietnam syndrome was systematically undermined during the Reagan administration, and then comprehensively overcome in the 1991 Gulf War. For a contrary argument, which suggests that the Gulf War in fact reinforced the syndrome, see Campbell (note 15). J. O'Sullivan, 'A Sense of Dishonor? The case of Bob Kerrey', National Review 53/10, 28 May 2001. Ibid. R. Falk, '"The Vietnam Syndrome": the Kerrey Revelations Raise Anew Issues of Morality and Military Power', The Nation 273/2 (9 July 2001) pp.18–23. The destruction is untold precisely because of the unwillingness of the United States to account for that destruction, and in particular to reckon the numbers of Iraqi dead. The independent tracking project, 'Iraq Body Count', estimated as of 29 July 2004 that between 13,086 and 15,149 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the war and occupation. ( accessed 7 October 2004. Jeffords (note 15) p.38. Brando's unexpected corpulence compelled ANR director Francis Ford Coppola to film him in semi-darkness. Ibid. p.13. Ibid. pp.31–5. Lynda E. Boose, 'Techno-muscularity and the "Boy Eternal": From the Quagmire to the Gulf', in M. Cooke and A. Woolacott (eds), Gendering War Talk (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1993). Ibid., pp.80–87, 90. Jeffords (note 15) pp.25–26, 138. Ibid., pp.24–5. Boose (note 24) p.75. See Dan Glaister, 'The Governator II', The Guardian, 7 October 2004, G2, pp.2–3. Boose (note 24) p.73. Ibid. p.76. Ibid. p.81 C. Fuchs, 'I'm Next Ma'am', Poppolitics.com, , accessed 19 September 2001. Lacy (note 2) p.627. Ibid. There are blacks in senior positions in Bartlet's White House but none on his immediate staff. Admiral Percy Fitzwallace (John Amos) of the US Navy appears from time to time to advise Bartlet and is acutely conscious of his achievements as a black man. In one instance he reels off a list of accomplishments (in the context of his ethnicity) and invites those listening to 'beat that with a stick'. Nancy McNally (Anna Deavere Smith) is national security adviser to Bartlet. She is uncompromisingly tough, suggesting that an ambitious black woman cannot afford herself the luxury of Sam's and Josh's liberal moral angst. Both are listed as secondary characters at . H. Gray, 'Anxiety, Desire, and Conflict in the American Racial Imagination', in J. Lull and S. Hinerman (eds), Media Scandals: Morality and Desire in the Popular Marketplace (Cambridge: Polity Press 1997) p.96. Robert G. Lee, Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press 1999) p.150. Charlie confirms his salary in episode 19. See , accessed 19 August 2003. According to Washington Trends, the average salary for 2001 was $37,864, or about $730 per week. See accessed 19 August 2003. See E. Miller, 'The Children of Light', Christianity Today 45/1 (1 October 2001). Friedrich Nietzsche, A Nietzsche Reader, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1977) pp.250–51. Extract from The Gay Science (1882 and 1887). Christina Lane, 'The White House Culture of Gender and Race in The West Wing: Insights from the Margins', in Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor (eds), The West Wing: The American Presidency as Television Drama (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press 2003) pp.34–5. Kilday (note 6). See Bonnie Honig, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1993) p.130. Lane (note 42) p.34. These include the president's secretary, Mrs (Delores) Landingham (Kathryn Joosten) (who dies), the vivaciously intelligent young Republican, Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter), recruited by the administration to give them a heads-up on the thinking of the opposition (and who is accommodated in a basement office complete with water pipes and distant from the 'real' debates upstairs), Donna Moss, whose 'commonsense' marks her as a far more useful adviser on political pragmatics than Josh gives her credit for, first season political strategist Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly), whose grating advice and in-your-face manner alienate the male team, the deaf and politically astute Joey Lucas (Marlee Matlin) who acts as a political strategist and pollster for the Bartlet Democrats, Amy Gardner (Mary-Louise Parker), director of the Women's Leadership Coalition and latterly chief of staff to the First Lady, and Margaret (NiCole Robinson), the enigmatic secretary to Leo McGarry. L. Smith, 'Reigning Men', Pop Matters, accessed 19 September 2001. In the episode '17 People' Ainsley declares: 'A new amendment we vote on declaring that I am equal under the law to a man? I'm mortified to discover there's reason to believe I wasn't before. I'm a citizen of this country. I'm not a special subset in need of your protection. I do not have to have my rights handed down to me by a bunch of old white men. The same Article 14 that protects you protects me.' See , accessed 19 August 2003. Jeffords (note 15) pp.184–5. 50 First Dates is a more interesting representation of American forgetting than the rather better, and better known, film Memento. In the latter, Leonard (Guy Pearce) has suffered a similar brain injury to Lucy's, but the process of forgetting is much faster, and so he can forget everything in the time it takes for another character to leave a room and re-enter. Lucy retains her short term memories for the day, and so can reflect on her past, only to have the reflection wiped away by sleep. See Ezell (note 8) pp.172–3.