Watching War in American Culture

War enters our visual field through a variety of cultural texts. But do these texts help us understand the social and political consequences of war? The purpose of this course is to determine the kind of knowledge about war is produced through visual modes of communication. However, the study of visual culture requires more than analyzing specific cultural texts like films; it demands attention to the practice of looking and our capacity to conceptualize what we see in the visual field. In the end, the array of cultural texts available in the public domain produces knowledge which either affirms or disrupts the way publics can think about American warfare.

Curricular design

Since we live in an age where information is readily available in digitally accessed archives, I turned to search algorithms and the Internet to generate a filmography for the course. A quick Google search of the best war films offered a variety of links. One of the top results linked to a Rotten Tomatoes editorial, “100 Best War Films of All Time.” So, I developed a list based on this editorial, selecting a group of films made after 2003. My strategy was not simply utilitarian. People increasingly (if not exclusively) turn to the Internet to acquire knowledge. Therefore, the filmography is representative of what most people would discover had they completed a similar search with comparable demographic and location data. What is more, the Rotten Tomatoes valuation — Tomato Meter and “Certified Fresh” — offered a cultural criteria to interrogate. If this valuation is limiting, then what criteria should we consider when analyzing a war film? The answer to this question provided a pathway to our analyses.

Course filmography

Edward Berger, dir. All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix, 2020)

Kathryn Bigelow, dir. The Hurt Locker (Summit Entertainment, 2008)

Kathryn Bigelow, dir. Zero Dark Thirty (Columbia Pictures, 2012)

Clint Eastwood, dir. American Sniper (Warner Brothers, 2014)

Clint Eastwood, dir. Flags of Our Fathers (Warner Brothers, 2006)

Clint Eastwood, dir. Letters from Iwo Jima (Warner Brothers, 2006)

Abbas Fahdel, dir. H0meland: Iraq Year Zero (Kino Lorber, 2015)

Mel Gibson, dir. Hacksaw Ridge (Summit Entertainment, 2016)

Patty Jenkins, dir. Wonder Woman (Warner Brothers, 2017)

Joe Johnston, dir. Captain America: The First Avenger (Paramount, 2011)

Museum exhibit

Throughout the semester, students were asked to complete a cultural portfolio consisting of visual texts that mediate war. To help the students contextualize the assignment, I curated an exhibit at the Ackland Art Museum featuring the works of art listed below. The exhibit was installed for the semester, and students were encouraged to choose one work from the exhibit to include in their cultural portfolios. Some students were then invited to present their analysis at the Ackland’s “Semester Revue.”