471A3--Week 11 Questions/Comments--Thursday

I thought it was interesting to read Gallagher's point that history, especially war history needs to be remembered not only as military history but also nonmilitary topics such as social and political. I really saw this point hit home as I was writing my blog post on the movie Gettysburg. Although the movie gives a great illusion that it's covering multiple angles, when I attempted to watch it for purely social and political matters, I found that it fell short of my expectations and what I remembered when I was younger. Although it is true that many military battles shaped political battles, the same could be said of political battles shaping military battles. -Meg O

In the Cullen chapter, I thought it was interesting to see the progression of the war film. This is something I had never really considered before and thought that it was interesting to see the role Glory played in film history by being the first to tackle racism and also showing "soldiering as an affirming experience" but also the "horrors of combat." -Meg O

I think that the comparisons that Cullen makes between Glory and Born on the 4th of July are pretty accurate. Both of these movies, while about different wars, would were meant to leave the audience feeling something. I think that both of these movies do a great job at depicting public memory of these time periods. The public is able to relate to them and like Cullen said the audience walks out of the theater thinking about the war, and shaping the public memory. –Kayle P.

I recently saw Born on the 4th of July and it actually sat with me for a few days after watching it. Cullen is definitely right when saying that the film leaves the audience with something to think about. When making a movie about a war, I feel that it is important to understand the content of the war, but also how it affected individuals as well. The movie made you feel terrible for Tom Cruise's character and got to really understand some of the horrors of war even off of the battlefield.-- George H

Gallagher seemed unreasonable. While I completely respect and understand where he’s coming from, I can’t imagine adding even more to his already long series. He does suggest changing some sections of Burns’s series—fixing “missed opportunities.” But what Gallagher doesn’t really address is that Burns is telling a story! Of course he’s going to have some bias! I remember hearing him in that “how to make a documentary” thing we watched. You have to find the story, he said. Okay, so the facts need to be updated…. But like Gallagher says, “Burns’s greatest achievement lay in his ability to fire the imaginations of millions of Americans, sending them in large numbers to libraries and bookstores in search of more information” (248). -- Brooke

To me it sounded like Gallagher wanted more details about all aspects of the war in documentary (battles, home front, political battles). I agree with Brooke, I think if historians have that big a problem with it, it can and should be updated. As we have seen, film has the power of reaching a wider audience but at what point is too much information to include? Burns already tried to create an “end” and that was unsatisfactory so how does he find a way to include all the information that people feel is relevant? –Kayle P

The Cullen chapter was, for me, both interesting and kind of disappointing. I've never seen Glory, so I was looking forward to Cullen's argument about its importance in telling an aspect of war that had only been explored academically. I understand his need to explain how it needed to fit into the "war movie context," but I almost feel like it was more of a focus on war movies prior to it and the very end focused more on Glory. I do find it interesting that it was Glory that revived the post-WWII movie style. The aspects that were left out of the movie and the themes that were used, honestly, didn't really surprise me--it was a film targeting public audiences, so the aspects had to keep the interests of the public. --Carly W.

I liked Cullen’s attention to the fact that the draft riots of 1863 were left out of the movie. (p. 163) I agree with Cullen that they could have been included and would have provided important background racial tensions that would have served to highlight the service of Shaw and the blacks within the regiment. For what it’s worth - Didn’t quite understand Cullen taking the opportunity to bash the Reagan/Bush presidencies (with no mention of the disaster that was Jimmy Carter) by attributing some sort of latent animosity toward them that helped fuel the creation of Glory and the election of Bill Clinton. “The movie evoked a restless mood that anticipated the political rejection of Bush in favor of Bill Clinton in 1992.” (p. 144) Or his shot at the celebration of the Gulf War victory “…witness the almost obsessive parading in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.” (p. 143) He then, near the end, reiterates his ideological bent “[Glory] suggests a yearning for moral, collective commitments in the twilight of the Reagan era.” (p. 171) He obviously doesn’t think highly of the Reagan/Bush era and I didn’t quite get the connection that he was trying to make. I understood the post-Vietnam progression of films and the progression of war films in general, but couldn’t make the connection to politics. - Jason

I agree with Cullen’s assessment that the watered down version of Shaw’s taking command was a disservice to the story. (p. 161) This moment was critical to who Shaw was. The internal struggle that Shaw had to be fighting is a part of the story that has to be told. The historical aspect of a white officer taking command of a black unit is extremely important given the racial animosity, North and South. This was an opportunity missed. The staunch abolitionist views of his family, particularly his mother should have been revealed as part of his decision-making process. - Jason

I found it interesting that during WWII, over 400 movies were released and that during Vietnam, only one was released. It wasn’t for a while where Vietnam film became popular. I think this shows the perfect example of how closely Americans want to portray their pride in film. I also think that it shows how reluctant we are to showing a non-victory to the public. I know not many people like to show that even in other circumstances, but I believe that pride “speaks louder” through film. – Ana Y.

“Much of the scholarly criticism reflected changes in the historical profession that have brought attention to people and issues previously slighted. The desire to make American history more inclusive and to reveal its ambiguities and tensions is certainly laudable, but it is important to remember that the subject of Burns's documentary was a mammoth war that unfolded chronologically.” (247) According to Ghallagher, a lot of Burns’ critics overlooked so many aspects regarding the battlefield. I wonder where this bias comes from. Although I think it is absolutely necessary for historians to have questioned Burns, I think that because soldiers and battles were overlooked, many of their arguments are a little incomplete. – Ana Y.

One thing that seems to be a common theme is the fact that people argue over whether or not blacks fought for their own freedom or they were “given” their freedom by the whites that fought for it for them. For that reason I found this quote on page 145 of Cullen’s chapter very interesting. It stated, “One of the most important themes of the Civil War and reconstruction historiography since the 1960s has been an effort to recover the lost contributions of black people fighting for their freedom.” --Kelly F.

I have to agree with Brooke about the Gallagher chapter. It's important to keep in mind that Burns's main goal was to tell the most complete story to people with what he had accessible at the time. So yeah, he may have been more vague on certain aspects, but as everyone knows, sometimes having too much information can take away from the story. Yes, some parts of Burns's series could be updated, but that aside, he was targeting a public audience--he had to provide what he thought would most appeal to them. --Carly W.

First: I was not aware that “the war has a reputation as box-office poison” (153). I had never heard that before. It makes sense since I chose a movie (like most of us) which has NOTHING of the actual battles in it. Second, a quote on page 156 kind of opened my eyes, so I’m going to post it here just in case other people missed it: “In the form of an entertainment vehicle, we tell a love story about the camaraderie between black and white men who learned and grew together.” I couldn’t believe I missed that in the movie. But the most striking part of the Cullen article was his explanation that “These frames…suggest an allegory of emancipation as a necessary but tortuous struggle..” (159). This is what the movie was about. This is what I was left with. -- Brooke

Brooke just said it. I never thought of the Civil War in that light, either. You hear about it being "romantic," but more in the sense of dashing soldiers roughing it, and not as looking at the war as a romance. - Carly B.

“The common denominator for most of my criticisms lies in Bums's failure to sift carefully through the best literature on the war. Much of his material comes from highly quotable but problematic postwar memoirs and reminiscences such as Sam Watkins's "Co. Aytch" and John B. Gordon's Reminiscences of the Civil War.” I can’t say that I blame Burns for taking this approach. While Gallagher points out these as flaws, I see Burns trying to take such a broad subject of the Civil War and make it relatable to the general viewer. By taking some of the more quotable works, it makes it easier for Burns to connect with his audience. I also have a problem with Gallagher claiming that Burns doesn’t carefully sift through the best literature on the war. That argument is a little weak because it assumes that Gallagher knows what all the best literature on the war is and it is subject to opinion.-- George H

I appreciated Gallagher's reality-take with regard to scholarly versus popular perceptions of the war. I think we can sometimes get a little heady about history, and while there certainly is value in scholarly standards and expectations, I do think that history has to be approached with an eye for the public. - Carly B.

I appreciated how Cullen explained Glory's position in the realm of American war movies, but like Carly, I think he dwelt on these other movies more than on his analysis of Glory. Until the last couple of pages, I forgot that his argument was based on Glory. However, he does a good job of connecting the changing political landscape with the production and reception of Glory. I think this article does a better job of explaining the evolution of war movies than anything it says about Glory. -Cameron F.

First of all I usually enjoy readings from Gary Gallagher, but seriously who pissed in his Wheaties before he wrote this? Not to mention he completely ruined Ken Burns The Civil War for me, I never really paid attention to what was left out or what he did incorrectly until now. . . Thanks Gary. . . While most of his arguments are fair in regard to the documentary, I feel at times he was grasping to make a point. Burns created the documentary for a mass audience of people whom he assumed (as I’m assuming) knew nothing or little about the Civil War, so in his defense he focused on the more well-known figures and battles of the war. Burns documentary aired on PBS, I highly doubt most scholars care about what airs on a TV network famous for shows like Reading Rainbow or Antiques Roadshow. Cullen’s reading did a fair job assessing Glory and how it fit into popular culture and historiography of the war. I must say that if W. E. Woodward’s biography of Grant wasn’t written in 1928, I would have sworn he was watching Deliverance after reading this quote “They twanged banjos around the railroad stations, sang melodious spirituals, and believed some Yankee would soon come along and give each of them forty acres and mule.” (145) –Mary O.

"The America negroes are the only people in the world, as far as I know, that ever became free without any effort of their own" (145). This quote resonated with me most during the "Glory" reading. Preserving the memory of blacks fighting for their freedom through film is a necessity for future remembrance of what they did and sacrificed. The film "Glory," helped put an identity on those black Americans who enlisted and fought for the of equality and their eventual freedom. Film is a tool we need to preserve the memory of past events, such as black soldiers during the Civil War. I feel film transcends time and forces people to remember and think about past events that shaped our country. -- Donald P.

In the "Glory" article, black soldiers who enlisted were led solely by white officers. I understand blacks were viewed as inferior, especially in the military. However, the memory of blacks fighting throughout American conflicts have been limited to more recent memory. Between after the Civil War until the Vietnam War, black soldiers were underused and put into positions of support rather than actual fighting. It is interesting to see the limitedness of enlisted blacks during American conflicts from that time span, where America was involved in many wars, such as WWI, WWII. -- Donald Phelps

Glory happens to be one of my favorite movies and as such I was happy that the author brought up one of the best scenes in the movie: when their around the fire before battle and trip asks them if they are men. The author rightly points to this questions as important to the men as they were moving from boys to men as a result of battle but I have always interpreted it as being a question pointed t whether they were men in the same way white men were. They had been taught most of their lives that they were less than white men, and so I've always thought that trip is asking them if they are men equal to whites. Sean

I did not know previous to this reading that in film history the heroic image of war had not been attempted since the Vietnam war and Glory was the first to attempt it since that time. Sean