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Megan Leavey and the Popular Visual Culture of the War-on-Terror

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The Palgrave Handbook of Artistic and Cultural Responses to War since 1914

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Abstract

Drawing upon earlier critiques of what Takacs calls post-9/11 “fictional militainment,” this chapter examines the popular 2017 film Megan Leavey. Cultural responses to the war-on-terror have come, and continue to come, in many forms. They include film, television programs, video games, comic books, graphic novels, memorials, T-shirts, and toys. The perspectives offered range from gung-ho support for military action to scathing criticism of military and political ineptitude. Although their narratives and visual rhetoric are often complex, multilayered, and contradictory, they have been overwhelmingly supportive of military intervention. Yet the film ably demonstrates, first, how the now popular, post-sentimental, post-heroic visual culture of the war-on-terror is different from the popular visual culture of past military conflicts and, secondly, how after 16 years these visual strategies are perpetuated to the point where they are now normalized.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Stacey Takas. Terror TV: Popular Entertainment in Post 9/11 America (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012).

  2. 2.

    Liddell, Mickey, Monroe, Jennifer and Shilaimon, Pete, Megan Leavey, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite (2017, New York: Bleecker Street). Movie.

  3. 3.

    24. (Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox, 2001–2004). Television Drama Series.

  4. 4.

    Homeland. (Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox, 2011–2017). Television Drama Series.

  5. 5.

    Insurgency, Video Game (Denver, CO: New World Interactive, 2014).

  6. 6.

    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Video Game, directed by Jason Ward (Santa Monica, CA: Activision, 2007).

  7. 7.

    Lucy Bond. Frames of Memory After 9/11: Culture, Criticism Politics, and Law (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

  8. 8.

    Thomas, Emma, Nolan, Christopher and Roven, Charles. Batman: The Dark Night Rises, Movie, directed by Christopher Nolan (2008, Los Angeles, CA: Warner Brothers). Movie.

  9. 9.

    The Hurt Locker, Movie, directed by Kathryn Bigelow (2008, Santa Monica: Summit Entertainment).

  10. 10.

    Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Bond Frames of Memory; Christine Muller, September 11, 2001 as Cultural Trauma: A Case Study through Popular Culture (London, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Stephen Prince, Firestorm: American Film in the Age of Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); Rodger Stahl, Militainment Inc: War, Media, and Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 2010); Marita Sturken, Tourists of Memory (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007).

  11. 11.

    Karen Randell, “‘It was Like a Movie.’ The Impossibly of Representation in Oliver Stone’s World Trade Centre,” in, Reframing 9/11 Film, Popular Culture, and the “War on Terror.” ed. Jeff Brikenstien, Anna Froula, & Karen Randell (New York: Continuum, 2010), 141–152.

  12. 12.

    Sturken, Tourists of Memory, 157.

  13. 13.

    Sturken, Tourists of Memory, 172.

  14. 14.

    Muller, September 11, 1.

  15. 15.

    Bond, Frames of Memory.

  16. 16.

    Bond Frames of Memory; Stahl, Militainment Inc.

  17. 17.

    Takas. Terror TV, 122.

  18. 18.

    Bacevich, The New American Militarism.

  19. 19.

    Takas. Terror TV.

  20. 20.

    Top Gun, Movie, directed by Tony Scott (1986; Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures).

  21. 21.

    Saving Private Ryan, Movie, directed by Steven Spielberg (1998; Universal City: Dreamworks Pictures).

  22. 22.

    Takas. Terror TV.

  23. 23.

    Kevin McDonald, “Grammars of Violence, Modes of Embodiment and Frontiers of the Subject,” in War and the Body: Militarization, Practice and Experience, ed. Kevin McSorely (London: Routledge, 2013), 138–151.

  24. 24.

    Stahl, Militainment Inc. 42.

  25. 25.

    McDonald, “Grammars of Violence.”

  26. 26.

    Joann Guidoccio, “Movie Review: Megan Leavey.” July 4, 2017, https://joanneguidoccio.com/2017/07/04/movie-review-megan-leavey.

  27. 27.

    MovieFone. “Megan Leavey.” July 2017. https://www.moviefone.com/movie/megan-leavey/b70YyiY0a7wJ8eGHwFtQD4/main/.

  28. 28.

    Elizabeth Bronfen. Specters of War: Hollywood’s Engagement with Military Conflict (Chapel Hill, NC: Rutgers University Press, 2012).

  29. 29.

    Bronfen, Specters of War, 6.

  30. 30.

    Muller, September 11.

  31. 31.

    David Kravats, “Former CIA Chief: Obamas’s War On Terror Same as Bush, But with More Killing.” Wired, 2012, https://www.wired.com/2012/09/bush-obama-war-on-terror/.

  32. 32.

    Robert Burgoyne, “Embodiment in the War Film: Paradise Now and The Hurt Locker” Journal of War & Cultural Studies 5, no. 1 (2012): 7–19.

  33. 33.

    Bronfen. Specters of War.

  34. 34.

    Burgoyne, “Embodiment in the War Film.”

  35. 35.

    Bacevich, The New American Militarism.

  36. 36.

    Bronfen, Specters of War.

  37. 37.

    Bronfen, Specters of War.

  38. 38.

    George Amberg, The New York Times Film Reviews: A One Volume Selection (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1971), 439.

  39. 39.

    Roger Ebert, “Kill Bill Vol 2.” Chicago-Sun Times. April 16, 2004. https://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2004/04/041604.html.

  40. 40.

    Joseph H. Kupfer, Experience as Art: Aesthetics in Everyday Life (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 52.

  41. 41.

    Kupfer, Experience as Art, 52.

  42. 42.

    Muller, September 11, 34.

  43. 43.

    Burgoyne, “Embodiment in the War Film,” 16.

  44. 44.

    Bronfen, Specters of War.

  45. 45.

    Burgoyne, “Embodiment in the War Film,” 14.

  46. 46.

    Burgoyne, “Embodiment in the War Film,” 114.

  47. 47.

    Burgoyne, “Embodiment in the War Film,” 3.

  48. 48.

    Bronfen, Specters of War, 8.

  49. 49.

    Bronfen, Specters of War, 20.

  50. 50.

    Bronfen, Specters of War, 13, 132.

  51. 51.

    McDonald, “Grammars of Violence.”

  52. 52.

    Henrike Lehnguth, “Into the Dark Chamber of Terror: The ‘War on Terror’ Visual Culture” (PhD diss., University of Maryland, 2011).

  53. 53.

    Paradise Now, Movie, directed by Hany Abu-Assad (Los Angeles: Warner Independent Pictures, 2005).

  54. 54.

    Burgoyne, “Embodiment in the War Film.”

  55. 55.

    Farhard Khosrokhavor, Suicide bombers: Allah’s New Martyrs (London, England: Pluto Press, 2005), 133.

  56. 56.

    Burgoyne, “Embodiment in the War Film.”

  57. 57.

    Cecilia Feilla, The Sentimental Theatre of the French Revolution (London: Routledge, 2016), 76.

  58. 58.

    David Campbell, “The Elusive Enemy: Looking Back at the ‘War on Terror’s’ Visual Culture,” Blog. November, 2011. https://www.david-campbell.org/…/the-elusive-enemy-war-on-terror-visual-culture/.

  59. 59.

    Bond, Frames of Memory.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

    Paul Duncum

  2. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    Paul Duncum

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Correspondence to Paul Duncum .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

    Martin Kerby , Margaret Baguley  & Janet McDonald ,  & 

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Duncum, P. (2019). Megan Leavey and the Popular Visual Culture of the War-on-Terror. In: Kerby, M., Baguley, M., McDonald, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Artistic and Cultural Responses to War since 1914. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96986-2_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96986-2_3

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