A Phantom War: Hollywood as a Mythmaker in the Post–Vietnam War Era

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the function of entertainment media as a mythmaker in interpreting the legacy of the Vietnam war, which served not only as a flashpoint within the context of the Cold War but as a global turning point culturally as well. The United States’ foray into the conflict was broadcast each night on television, Americans saw an increasing number of veterans returning home with antiwar attitudes and/or posttraumatic stress disorder, and the United States witnessed the rise of numerous countercultural trends and saw a decreasing trust for its government. All of this served in destabilizing traditional attitudes of American exceptionalism and Western colonialism. To process the collective trauma and confusion of the Vietnam conflict and its intrinsically connected periphery, America turned to Hollywood for answers. This article argues that the simulation of war as it appeared on screen, while distinctly different from historical reality, is itself no less important in the formation of our collective memory—it has informed coverage of subsequent conflicts as well as the deep cultural gulfs present in both the U.S. and Westernized culture as a whole.