The End of the Shuttle Program and Popular Culture

The end of the space shuttle program symbolizes a sea change in American popular culture.  For years, the space program helped to promote and legitimize science fiction as the space race of the 1960s and the moon landing advanced an idea of the future where man traveled through the stars. It is no coincidence that the original “Star Trek” aired during the peak years of the Apollo program (1966-69).  Similarly, sci-fi franchises like “Star Wars” and “Battlestar Galactica” emerged in the 1970s when the moon landing was still more than just a distant memory.

As the space program’s popularity declined in the 1990s and early 21^st century, sci-fi movies made a move toward a dystopian earth-bound future (The “Matrix” and “Terminator” films).  Furthermore, fantasy seemed to supersede science fiction as the dominant theme of blockbuster films.   It’s no coincidence that fantasy franchises like “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” were the dominant film series of the first decade of the 21^st century.

A Brief History of War Films

Throughout the NBA Finals, ABC ran ads for a new show, “Combat Hospital.”  This got me to thinking.  No, not about watching the show, which looks like it originated when a network executive said, “What if we made “Grey’s Anatomy,” in AFGHANISTAN?  Rather, it made me think about the timing of war movies.

During World War II, there were a plethora of films regarding the war during the conflict.  These “platoon” films often featured heroic depictions of multiethnic units fighting in battle (sans African Americans, for the most part).  In Vietnam, there were very few movies directly about the war during the primary years of American involvement (1965-1973).  Hollywood addressed the war indirectly in films about other wars, such as Patton and M.A.S.H., both of which were released in 1970.  The Westerns of the time also touched on the conflict.

The film industry did not depict the Vietnam War directly until the late 1970s, with movies like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, and Apocalypse Now (1979).  Still, the biggest wave of Vietnam films did not arrive until the mid-to-late 1980s following the success of Oliver Stone’s Platoon, which won the Oscar for best picture for 1986.  Casualties of War, Bat 21, Air America, and In Country, among others, followed in the next few years.  Television also got into the act with short-lived shows like “Tour of Duty” and “China Beach.”

Interestingly, the Vietnam War films largely disappeared during the 1990s as there was a reemergence of interest in World War II coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of D-Day in 1994 and the aging of the “Greatest Generation.”  The most memorable movies of this period included, of course, Saving Private Ryan, A Thin Red Line, and HBO’s Band of Brothers.

Unlike Vietnam, Hollywood did make a number of films about the Iraq War during the peak years of the conflict, but few of them were commercially successful.  In the Valley of Elah, Stop-Loss, Green Zone, and others performed poorly at the box office, perhaps indicating a lack of interest in films about wars when they are constantly in the news.  Even the Hurt Locker, which won best picture for 2009, was the lowest grossing Oscar winner ever.

With the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, there may be more of an audience for films and TV shows about these wars.  I doubt, however, that “Combat Hospital” will provide a good test.

Sources: Andrew Huebner, The Warrior Image (UNC Press, 2007)

The Emergence of the Summer Movie

I haven’t see “Super 8” yet, but it made me think about the history of the summer blockbuster.  The reviews suggest that the film, directed by J.J. Abrams, is deeply influenced by the Steven Spielberg movies of the 1970s and 80s (Spielberg is also producing “Super 8.”)  This follows the release of “Paul” in the spring, which was a satirical look back on those films, with Spielberg making a cameo.  These films reveal that the Gen X filmmakers that grew up on these movies are now in position to make their own tributes to the classics of their childhoods.

Directors like Abrams and Bryan Singer (X1, X2, Superman Returns) are part of the first generation to grow up with the summer blockbuster.  Before the 1970s, Hollywood did not really target young people as an audience and summer grosses were not the driving force behind the film industry’s bottom line.  The studios, however, fell into serious financial trouble in the late 1960s as movie attendance gradually declined from its post-World War II peak, largely because of the rise of television.   Seeing the emergence of the youth culture in the late 1960s, Hollywood handed over control to young filmmakers who were supposed to be in touch with the cultural revolution of the previous decade.

As a result, directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, and Spielberg got opportunities to make films with relatively little interference.   Because of this freedom, many film scholars see the 1970s as the golden age of film.  It is remarkable to think about the best picture nominees for 1976: “All the President’s Men,” “Taxi Driver,” “Network,” “Bound for Glory,” and “Rocky.”  Unbelievably, “Rocky” won.

Reversing the nearly three-decade decline in attendance, the success of Spielberg’s “Jaws” in the summer of 1975 and Lucas’ “Star Wars” in the summer of 1977 heralded a shift in the industry.  The studios saw that they could get not only get young people to go to the movies, but they could get young people to go to the same film multiple times.  By the 1980s, summer became the prime time for big-budget movies and the 16-24 age group became the primary move audience.   It has remained that way ever since.

X-Men, First Class

“X-Men: First Class” was a fun movie and the best X-Men film since X2.  With its historical setting, it also provides a lot of grist for the blog.  The film, like the first X-Men movie, starts with a scene showing the young Magneto at a concentration camp in Poland.  We then see (SPOILERS) Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) experimenting on Magneto, as Nazi doctors like Josef Mengele did on twins and others in the camps.  The movie seems to draw inspiration from the 2009 Star Trek reboot, opening with scenes of the young Magneto as well as the young Charles Xavier.

Most of the film is set in 1962, during the early years of the civil rights movement.  As I mentioned in the previous posting, Professor X/Magneto clearly reflect the Martin Luther King/Malcolm X divide from that period.  This is perhaps unconsciously accentuated by the fact that the film shows Xavier growing up wealthy and comfortable, a condition somewhat akin to King’s middle-class upbringing as the son of a minster in Atlanta, while Magneto ‘s life in the camps and loss of his mother is closer to the more difficult upbringing experienced by Malcolm X, whose family was broken up after the death of his father. 

The film refernces a number of historical phenomenon.   We see Magneto's post-Holocaust revenge campaign,  pursuing Swiss bankers, whom were discovered to have kept money deposited by survivors.  He follows German war criminals to Argentina, which was the real-life hiding place for a number of prominent Nazis, including Adolf Eichmann.

The backdrop for the movie is the Cold War of the Kennedy years and the film clearly reflects the sensibilities of the early Bond films (The first film, “Dr. No”, premiered in 1962,).  Shaw, who is the films’ villain, is the prototypical Bond villain who uses the US/Soviet conflict to promote his own megalomaniacal plan.  He comes complete with the kinds of gadgets and technologies that Bond baddies from "Goldinger" to the Daniel Craig films have had.

Shaw’s plan is to get the world to destroy itself by manipulating the world into the Cuban Missile Crisis, which occured in October 1962.   Besides the fact that mutants were not actually involved, the film does get at the basic essence of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War (and one could argue, of all human history).  The U.S. placement of Jupiter missiles in Turkey, which is depicted in the film, was one of the provocations for the standoff.  JFK did order a blockade of Soviet ships going to Cuba, as a middle ground between accepting the missiles or ordering an invasion of Cuba(all depicted well in Kevin Costner’ s 2001 film “Thirteen Days”).  The film shows the Russian and U.S. ships meeting “eyeball-eyeball” as they did before the Russians withdrew.  

Some of the historical analogies became heavy-handed as Xavier pleads with Magneto not to destroy all the ships that are firing upon them because there  are "thousands of good men on them following orders" (a common refrain from the Nuremberg trials). Of course, Magneto responds that he has been at the whim of men following orders his whole life, declaring "Never again."

Still, I'll definitely see the sequels.

The History of the "X-Men"

The new X-Men movie, which opens on Friday, is a prequel that takes place around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and will recalls the origins of the comic book from the early 1960s.  Indeed, the X-Men first appeared as a Marvel Comic in 1963, during the peak years of the civil rights movement.  The book would have debuted within a year of key events, such as the integration of the University of Mississippi, Bull Connor’s unleashing of police dogs on protestors in Birmingham, as well as JFK’s speech calling for a major civil rights bill. As a result, the “mutants” seem very clearly designed to serve as a metaphor for black Americans in this time.  Charles Xavier (Professor X) and the X-Men, who want to work with humanity, represents Martin Luther King, Jr. and the integrationist wing of the movement.  On the other hand, Magneto’s Brotherhood, with its doctrine of mutant supremacy, seems to represent Malcolm X and other black nationalists.  Malcolm X’s profile was particularly high at this time as he appeared on TV more than anyone but President Kennedy in 1963.  The connection between Malcolm and Magneto is again made in the final scene of the first X-Men film in 2000, when an imprisoned Magneto tells Xavier that he still intends to fight a war against humanity, “by any means necessary,” a famous line of Malcolm X’s.

Changing times meant that others could adjust the intolerance metaphor for new realities.  In the last decade, director Bryan Singer used X1 and X2 to make the mutants a metaphor for discrimination against gays.  The first film stresses the difficulties that mutants who have come forward have faced, while showing politicians trying to exploit the fear of mutants.   In the second film, we see Bobby Drake (Iceman) have to “come out” to his family as a mutant, only to have his mom ask “Have you ever tried not being a mutant?” While Singer did not direct the final film, X3 revolves around a “cure” for mutancy and debates about whether the mutants should take it or not.

Looking forward to the movie this week and will have more to say afterward.

"The Event" and the Death of Bin Laden

The cancellation of the lowly-rated “The Event” and the killing of Osama Bin Laden may not seem related, but they may symbolize the end of the post-9/11 era in pop culture.  In the decade since the September 11^th attacks, television and movies have been consumed with real and metaphorical terrorist  attacks.  “24”, which debuted two months after the attack on the Trade Center,  provided the clearest illustration of this phenomenon, with seasons revolving around real nuclear and biological attacks(2002-2004).  Jack Bauer, the show’s protagonist, routinely used torture, causing some to see it as propaganda for the Bush/Cheney administration. 

Other programs used a less direct approach.  “Heroes’” first season dealt with the possibility of a nuclear bomb going off in the form of a “nuclear man” who is predicted to explode in New York City.  Following the “24” formula, its second season then featured a bioterror threat.  The reboot of “Battlestar Galactica” moved the show from the original’s Cold War roots to a war on terror metaphor with debates over how to maintain one’s ideals in the face of lethal threats to human civilization.  “Lost” frequently dealt with the issue of torture, seen through the character of Sayyid, a former Iraqi torturer..

As the decade since the attacks continued, however, these kind of shows seemed to have less and less success.  Programs like “Flash Forward” and “V” that dealt with 9/11 style events garnered weak ratings.  The same went for “Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles” and now, “The Event.”  Clearly, these shows were weaker than some of the ones mentioned above and viewers seem to have less an d less patience for the serialized format.

Still, as memories fade, it may be that the resonance of 9/11 will dissipate and Bin Laden’s death will only accelerate this process

Superman's History

With the series finale of Smallville this week, one reader asked me to give some historical context to Superman, a character now entering his ninth decade in American cultural life.  Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel, two Jewish-American teenagers from Cleveland, created Superman during the Great Depression, with DC Comics publishing Action Comics 1, the first comic book to feature Superman, in 1938. Many have interpreted Kal-El’s (Superman’s given name) flight from war-torn Krypton as a metaphor for the American immigrant experience in general, or perhaps for Jews trying to escape Europe during the 1930s.  Clark Kent’s sense of otherness  as an “alien” in Middle-American Kansas can also be seen as an expression of the challenge of assimilation for the immigrants who arrived through Ellis Island between 1882-1924 and their children. During the depression, Superman reflected the politics of the time, acting as a proto-New Dealer, taking on corrupt landlords and businessman.

During the 1950s, Superman again reflected the ethos of his era, emerging as a champion of “truth, justice, and the American way,” during the Cold War conflict with the Soviet Union.  This phrase, now closely linked to the character, first became central during this time (though it had been used briefly during World War II.)  The first Superman television show, the Adventures of Superman, premiered during this decade, starring George Reeves, from 1952-1958.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Superman re-emerged with the Christopher Reeve films, which became the most famous and influential depiction of the superhero.  The success of the films can partly be attributable to the fact that Superman is portrayed as an incorruptible hero in the aftermath of the cynicism wrought by Vietnam and Watergate.  The film also served as a template for most of the comic book movies since then, clearly influencing Tim Burton’s and Christopher Nolan’s  Batman films, as well as Sam Raimi’s Spider Man series.

Indeed, Smallville, which premiered in 2001, can be seen as a 10-year prequel to the Christopher Reeve films and has become the primary representation of the Superman myth for Generation Y.  With the arrival of yet another Superman film in 2012, it seems likely that the character will continue to endure in popular culture.

Sources: Bradford Wright, Comic Book Nation, (Baltimore, 2001)
Erik Lunegrad, "Truth, Justice and (Fill in the Blank), New York Times, June 30, 2006