Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Goff, Brendan

Area of Concentration

History

Abstract

This thesis examines three mediums—national magazines, Hollywood films, and war correspondent memoirs—to explore the creation of American memory and narrative of the Vietnam War. Throughout this thesis, I explore the different ways each medium created and maintained a different type of narrative and memory, and the different ways Americans approached each medium. Although these national magazine covers, films, and memoirs were produced during and after the war, and contained varying levels of hard news and historical accounts, each medium maintained a similar narrative of the war, and created a specific type of memory for the American people. Throughout their descriptions of the Vietnam War and its aftermath, these three mediums focused on portrayals of the soldier and the veteran to convey the nation’s collective loss and trauma. In this way, through the covers of national magazines, Hollywood Vietnam films, and war correspondent memoirs, the war would be remembered by many for the soldiers’ suffering and the veterans’ trauma. Thus, the American public was forced to confront their government only in its treatment of the troops, and never in its reasoning for and conduct in the war. This collective memory of the war, fostered by magazines, films, and memoirs, provided room for collective mourning and grief, but rarely for discussion of blame, responsibility, or wrongdoing. In the conclusion, I interrogate how this constructed American memory of the Vietnam War has allowed the nation to continue to wage wars in faraway lands for years to come, and only question the consequences of said wars on their own citizens and soldiers.

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