Brothers in Arms: Masculinity and the Vietnam War Movie

The general perception of Hollywood at this time is that studios were reluctant to make films about Vietnam because the war was so publicly contentious. Furthermore, the industry itself was still in economic crisis and attempting to appeal to younger viewers, many of whom were largely opposed to America’s involvement in the war. Drawing on Tom Englehardt to explain the impact of the Vietnam War on the American public, Steve Neale notes that the ‘defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam in the early 1970s challenged the tenets of America’s “victory culture” [and] ensured that its participation in the war remained deeply controversial’. It was, therefore, a complex task to find effective ways in which to portray this conflict. The first solution was found in the mode of allegory. At this time, a number of successful films made attempts at portraying the underlying anxieties about the conflict through allegorical depiction and indirect association.