American Studies (미국학)

Seoul National University American Studies Institute (서울대학교 미국학연구소)
권호 표지

Variation of American Exceptionalism: Saving Private Ryan and We Were Soldiers

미국 예외주의의 변주: 영화 <라이언 일병 구하기>와 <위 워 솔저스>

  • Received : 2021.05.15
  • Accepted : 2021.06.15
  • Published : 2021.06.30

⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

This study explores how American war films modify or reenact American exceptionalism depending on political and social situations in the United States. To this end, it analyzes the two war films, Saving Private Ryan and We Were Soldiers that were released before and after the 9/11 attacks as a critical juncture in the twenty first century, respectively. While the former conducts a partial modification on American exceptionalism in order to restore the national identity and moral authority of the United States lost ever since the Vietnam War, the latter demonstrates a complete reenactment of American exceptionalism in accordance with the foreign policy of the Bush administration and neoconservatism. It concludes with the illumination that the examination of American war films within the framework of American exceptionalism is efficacious in understanding from a broad perspective how American exceptionalism is utilized depending on political and social situations in the United States.

Keywords

References

  1. 강선주. (2008). 미국의 20세기 전쟁에 대한 공식화된 기억: 세계대전과 베트남 전쟁을 중심으로. 미국학논집, 40(2), 5-39.
  2. 강형민. (2016). 클린트 이스트우드의 American Sniper에 나타난 제국주의 담론에 대한 탈식민주의적 연구. 현대영미드라마, 29(1), 5-33.
  3. 배영수. (2011). 미국 예외론의 대안을 찾아서. 서울: 일조각.
  4. 세이무어 마틴 립셋. (2006). 미국 예외주의: 미국에는 왜 사회주의 정당이 없는가 (문지영, 강정인, 하상복, 이지윤, 역). 서울: 도서출판 후마니타스.
  5. 유정완. (2012). 사냥꾼과 병사, 그리고 베트남 전쟁: <디어 헌터>와 「우리는 왜 베트남에 있는가?」 비교. 현대영미소설, 19(3), 105-131. https://doi.org/10.22909/SMF.2012.19.3.005
  6. 이수진, 이신화. (2020). Post-American World에서 미국 예외주의의 다양성-오바마 독트린 실패의 교훈과 바이든 행정부의 도전. 미국학논집, 52(3), 61-90.
  7. 정윤길. (2016). 포스트 9.11 시대와 이스트우드주의: <그랜 토리노>와 <아메리칸 스나이퍼>에 나타난 서부영화의 신화 내면화하기 연구. 영어권문화연구, 9(3), 227-255.
  8. 최영진, 이선화. (2019). 기억과 재현의 정치학: 미국과 한국 베트남 전쟁영화를 중심으로. 국제정치연구, 22(2), 135-164.
  9. Assmann, J. (2008). Communicative and cultural memroy. In A. Erll & A. Nunning (Eds.), Cultural memory studies: An international and interdisciplinary handbook (pp. 109-118). New York: Walter de Gruyter.
  10. Burlingame, M. (1995). New light on the Bixby Letter. Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 16(1), 59-71.
  11. Bodnar, J. (2001). Saving Private Ryan and postwar memory in America. The American Historical Review, 106(3), 805-817. https://doi.org/10.2307/2692325
  12. Brooks, S. (2012). American exceptionalism in the age of Obama. New York: Routledge.
  13. Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. Novato, CA: New World Library.
  14. Cohen, E. (1998/1999). What combat does to man: Private Ryan and its critics. The National Interest, 54, 82-88.
  15. Doherty, T. (1988/1989). Full metal genre: Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam combat movie. Film Quarterly, 42(2), 24-30. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.1988.42.2.04a00040
  16. Erll, A. (2008). Literature, film, and the mediality of cultural memory. In A. Erll & A. Nunning (Eds.), Cultural memory studies: An international and interdisciplinary handbook (pp. 389-398). New York: Walter de Gruyter.
  17. Gates, P. (2005). 'Fighting the good fight': The real and the moral in the contemporary Hollywood combat film. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 22(4), 297-310. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509200590475788
  18. Hasian, M. (2001). Nostalgic longings, memories of the "good war," and cinematic representations in Saving Private Ryan. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 18(3), 338-358. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393180128083
  19. Herring, G. C. (1981). The 'Vietnam Syndrome' and American foreign policy. The Virginia Quarterly Review, 57(4), 594-612.
  20. Hoffmann, S. (2009). American exceptionalism: The new version. In M. Ignatieff (Ed.), American exceptionalism and human rights (pp. 225-240). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  21. Holsti, K. J. (2011). Exceptionalism in American foreign policy: Is it exceptional? European Journal of International Relations, 17(3), 381-404. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066110377674
  22. Jasinski, J. (2001). Sourcebook on rhetoric: Key concepts in contemporary rhetorical studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  23. Jeffords, S. (1989). The remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  24. Johnson, B. D. (1998, July). A private world war. Maclean's, 47.
  25. Joo, J. S. (2020). Netflix and changes in the Hollywood film industry. Journal of Industrial Convergence, 18(5), 36-41. https://doi.org/10.22678/JIC.2020.18.5.036
  26. McCrisken, T. (2003). American exceptionalism and the legacy of Vietnam: US foreign policy since 1974. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  27. McCrisken, T., & Pepper, A. (2005). American history and contemporary Hollywood film. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  28. Nymalm, N., & Plagemann, J. (2019). Comparative exceptionalism: Universality and particularity in foreign policy discourses. International Studies Review, 21(1), 12-37. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viy008
  29. Owen, A. S. (2002). Memory, war and American identity: Saving Private Ryan as cinematic jeremiad. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 19(3), 249-282. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393180216565
  30. Potzsch, H. (2012). Framing narratives: Opening sequences in contemporary American and British war films. Media, War & Conflict, 5(2), 155-173. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750635212440918
  31. Ritter, K. W. (1980). American political rhetoric and the jeremiad tradition: Presidential nomination acceptance addresses, 1960-1976. Communication Studies, 31(3), 153-171.
  32. Robinson, N. (2014). Have you won the war on terror? Military videogames and the state of American exceptionalism. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 43(2), 450-470. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829814557557
  33. Slotkin, R. (1973). Regeneration through violence: The mythology of the American frontier, 1600-1860. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
  34. Spanos, W. V. (2014). Redeemer nation and apocalypse: Thinking the exceptionalism of American exceptionalism. Literature Interpretation Theory, 25(2), 174-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10436928.2014.904714
  35. Spielberg, S. (Director). (1998). Saving Private Ryan [Film]. Amblin Entertainment; Mutual Film Company.
  36. Sturken, M. (1997). Tangled memories: The Vietnam war, the AIDS epidemic, and the politics of remembering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
  37. Szpunar, P. M. (2013). The horror at Fort Hood: Disseminating American exceptionalism. Media, Culture & Society, 35(2), 182-198. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443712468607
  38. Wallace, R. (Director). (2002). We were soldiers [Film]. Icon Productions; Wheelhouse Entertainment.