&quote;The Deer Hunter&quote;

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Department of English and Linguistics), course: Framing the "e;Enemy"e;: Political Typology in American Cinema from the 1950s to the Present, language: English, abstract: The movie The Deer Hunter was released in 1978; three years after the end ofthe Vietnam War. During the war, the American public had received censoredinformation by the mass media concerning the war. The American sense ofmission and patriotism hovered above and disguised uncomfortable topics suchas the cruelties inflicted on Vietnamese civilians by GIs or less palatable thejustifications for the U.S. intervention in the war. It therefore left no space forany respect towards the Vietnamese as an individual being part of an ethnicgroup with its own culture. Although stereotypes about the Vietnamese areadopted and developed in The Deer Hunter so much so that even critics stoodup for the former enemy and condemned the depiction as racist theenemy is not, unlike in several other movies produced at that time, simply anexcuse for demonizing particularly the Vietnamese; it serves as a rathersymbolical threat to a community of war buddies and could be replaced byany other enemy. In this paper I will argue that labeling The Deer Hunter as racist ismisconceived, since the adoption of the Vietnamese as an enemy image has tobe reduced to the threat itself. The first two chapters will explain how theattitude of the American public towards the Vietnamese as their enemy wasshaped and why the issue of Vietnam became a central to the plot. This willshow that the emphasis is laid on something else: human relationships withinthe group and not, as it at first seems to be, on the enemy itself. Therefore, Iwill explore the significance of community in this particular case and comparethe relationships within the group before, during and after the war. It willbecome clear that the original hierarchy of the group dissolves when the groupis threatened. The group s war experiences lead further to an inability to takepart in the social life at home. Since the original group is shattered, the newgroup is challenged to refer to the former bonds that have always kept themtogether in order to establish a new identity. Ironically, this new identity isbased on the patriotic phrase God bless America .