Alumnus presents war movie research

By: Kyle Christensen
Features Edtior

Stephen A. Klein, a 1991 graduate of Monmouth College and associate professor of speech communication at Augustana College, returned to the campus on Monday, April 16 to deliver a lecture on his views of war as presented in the film industry.

The thematic issue of warfare is one which has been appearing in movies from as early as the 1940s, and, according to Klein, has recently reemerged following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The topic has undergone much reformation through the mid-to-late 20th century, with events such as America’s entry into World War II and the Vietnam War igniting new attitudes in filmmaking which allowed war to be cinematically conveyed by varying extremes of virtuosity or futility.

Specifically, Klein’s presentation (based on materials compiled from a selection of his published research findings) sought to analyze the 2001 film “Black Hawk Down” and show how it displays characteristics of a “pro-solider, anti-war” interpretation of reality. In citing the works of past communication scholars, Klein noted the art of film acts as a form of “ritual play,” consisting of “structured cultural events [which] focus and guide attention and feelings.”

The four components of Klein’s critical approach, through exploring the characters and pivotal scenes and plot points in “Black Hawk Down,” include the assessment of overall military policy and its policymakers (what Klein defines as a discord of “Washington vs. the soldiers on the ground”), moral tensions between the solider and a labeled “enemy” force, a transformation of ideal military motives (from simply aiming to pulverize an opponent to eventually building a camaraderie and brotherhood with one’s fellow soldiers) and a portrayal of scenes of combat as “a hyper-real, visceral spectacle”).

From this thorough inductive investigation, Klein determined the soldiers shown in “Black Hawk Down” are highly empathetic to an audience and exemplify those fitting the description of a “public character,” Klein’s own proposed term for a figure representing “idealized norms for political agency.”

As a result of this attitude held by viewers, the perhaps more relevant issues of government procedures and regulations are nearly ignored or discarded, and pride or support of war may be initiated through connection to the thoughts and feelings of the soldiers themselves.

“The context of the conflict is marginalized and shallow,” critiqued Klein. “We’ve got a very similar pattern going on, where the soldiers are depicted as heroic, but the policies behind their motives are depicted at best as indecent and at worst as problematic.”