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During the 1980s the spectre of the Vietnam War haunted the sites of cinema and popular culture in various forms. Whereas a rich body of scholarly research exists on cinematic iterations of the Vietnam war as trauma, the discursive dynamics between memory, ideology and genre in relation to enemy image construction are somewhat underdeveloped. This article utilises genre studies, conflict studies and trauma theory in analysing how the representations of film villains interact with the construction of cultural trauma and national identity. Considering the American action thriller to be an important site for processes of commemoration and memorialisation, the discursive construction and formal articulation of national trauma are theorised within the genre. Additionally, a thematic and textual analysis was conducted of a sample of forty American action thriller films. The analysis illustrates how the genre operates through a structure of violent traumatisation and heroic vindication, offering a logic built on the necessity and legitimacy of revenge against a series of enemy-others.
On first glance, M*A*S*H (1972–83) might not be the ideal text for Gothic analysis. Aesthetically, the traditional dark castles surrounded by black forests in the moonlight are replaced by muted khaki and green canvas Army tents, and the tinny canned laughter punctuating the sardonic jokes echo longer than the terrified screams in the night. Gothic and war are uneasy bedfellows; it is the inclusion of comedy, however, that determines just how horrific the result can be. Using M*A*S*H as a primary example to explore what I refer to as Khaki Gothic this paper will explore how, utilising Gothic tropes, comedy can disguise, diffuse and intensify the horrors of war.
’ personnel bearing that same emblem, based on the Swiss flag, in homage to the country hosting the conference. The Geneva Conventions have evolved, filling out with each successive conference, and their scope has been broadened to include the shipwrecked (1906), prisoners (1929) and civilian populations (1949). ‘Additional protocols’ were adopted in 1977, in the wake of the wars of decolonisation and the Vietnam War, to cover ‘irregular’ forces in domestic conflicts. The original
aspirations of the casualties of the attempt to create one world in the image of liberal freedom. Resistance was often futile or at least hugely costly (think of Vietnam). Wars were waged for decades to ensure no part of the system could harbour an economic model or an ideological commitment that was antithetical to the liberal capitalist consensus or refuse to open up its resources to the needs of the international market ( Robinson, 1996 ). Take, for example, Henri Dunant, the patron saint of modern humanitarianism, who was actually at Solferino
, these references also lead us into the global 1960s. It is only partly true that Biafra was the first postcolonial conflict that was discussed as a genocide – but the way these references worked changed with Biafra. Already before the American war in South East Asia, what is usually called the Vietnam War was then described as possibly genocidal. This was something that many New Leftists at least were concerned about. Some of their leading figures and intellectuals associated