American War Films- we’ve been watching the same movie about America’s Wars for 75 years- Office of War Information partnered with Hollywood to portray American War with a positive bias - Our basic American values get pitted against brutal barbaric enemies- General Formula for all war films: Us vs. Them- We’re the good guys- Racism allowed toward the enemy- Moral free-fire zone for American characters - God country and something worth dying for- No time spent on why the savages are going after us - Sargent yelling/training montage- Weird drama where the leading officer is idolized as a war dad - one guy gets some moxie trying to impress Sargent, gets everyone in trouble and then redeems himself through sacrificed himself- group cohesion is paramount to war - During the war itself the film can’t be critical - In sum: Gritty, brave, selfless men, stoic women waiting at home, noble wounded warriors Imagined Communities- nations developed conceptually as a product of romanticism when prideful groups want to identify themselves- nations become a modular concept and nations can exist anywhere - nationalism “arouses deep attachments”- this is an imagined political community and imagined as inherently limited and sovereign- members of the nation do not have intimate dealings with everyone therefore our intimacy is imagined - nations are bound by elastic borders - also imagined as sovereign- the sovereign is always sleeping - deep fraternal
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