American Studies Works-In-Progress Series

March 18, 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Moore Hall 323

Robyn Blanpied, who recently received her PhD from the department, will speak about her dissertation. Please join us in the presentation and discussion.

Reading John Ford's December 7th: The Influence of Cultural Context on the Visual Remembering of the Pearl Harbor Attack

More and more, public memory is built on shared images presented through mass media. CNN, the internet and other global sources make it possible for the entire world to share a uniform narrative of world events, a narrative driven by the emotion of images. The ability to establish and maintain an emotional rather than historically accurate narrative of an event can have serious consequences for society. An example of this is the impact of the Pearl Harbor attack narrative on America's response to 9/11.

American films about the attack on Pearl Harbor are almost unique in their consistency of message and narrative. In scores of documentaries and two major motion pictures, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and Pearl Harbor (2001), the images, massage and unread contexts remain as they was first defined by director John Ford's 1943 Navy film December 7th.

December 7th's authority to define the attack is in large part due to the ability of John Ford's images and coding to offer a mythic, religiously resonant model for explaining the attack and viewing the subsequent war. They establish the attack as a sacred ritual of sacrifice and redemption. In the film, Ford places the attack in the American mythic tradition of the Alamo, Custer's Last Stand and pioneer Indian wars, and argues for the use of unrestrained violence as a well-trod path to both sacred and national redemption.

These manipulations and propagandistic slants were openly acknowledged during World War II, but their context and codings have been unread by modern audiences, who tend to see the films as authoritative and representative of the society of the time. However, their context of censorship and government control remains unread but influential. Their authenticity is undeniable, their images and voices are exactly what played in theaters during the war. As these images are repeatedly used, they become icons, particularly as their authority is repeatedly validated by eyewitnesses. Once established, these "historically authentic" icons can then force newer films and documentaries to conform to their messages in attempts to establish their own authenticity and authority. Pearl Harbor's symbol drenched narrative is an example of this problem.

After September 11, 2001, the Pearl Harbor attack was invoked as a model for American responses to terrorist attacks. However, it seems that Ford's December 7th construct, with its religiously grounded model of sacrifice and redemptive violence, was the pattern for response, and the nuances and complexities of a politically driven interpretation, were shunted aside. By judging current conflicts against the censored, emotionally manipulative icons of World War II newsreel and war short footage, and in using them as a standard for behavior and pattern for response, the United States seems to rely on emotionally driven myth rather than reasoned analysis.


Ticket Information
Free

Event Sponsor
American Studies, Manoa

More Information
Mari Yoshihara, 956-8542, myoshiha@hawaii.edu

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