Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T13:56:35.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lines of Sight: Watching War in Jarhead and My War: Killing Time in Iraq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Stacey Peebles
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Jarhead, Anthony Swofford's 2003 memoir of the Persian Gulf War, and My War: Killing Time in Iraq, Colby Buzzell's 2005 memoir of the Iraq War, emphasize the authors' voyeuristic delight in watching war movies before and during their military service. What follows their enthusiastic consumption of “military pornography,” however, is a crisis of nonidentification and a lingering uncertainty about the significance of war in their own lives. Swofford and Buzzell find that the gaze they initially wielded is turned on them, and in response Swofford roils with sexually coded anger and frustration while Buzzell chooses to amplify his exposure by starting a blog. The two memoirs, then, provide a compelling account of the relation between changing technologies of representation and the experience of postmodern war. These lines of sight, all targeting the spectacle of combat, reveal the contemporary intersections among war, media, and agency.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 124 , Issue 5: Special Topic War , October 2009 , pp. 1662 - 1676
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Jean, Baudrillard. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Trans. Patton, Paul. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Jean, Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Glaser, Sheila Faria. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994. Print.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. Lance, and Paletz, David L., eds. Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1994. Print.Google Scholar
“Bomb in the Garden.” Generation Kill. Dir. Susanna White, Simon Cellan Jones, and Patrick Norris. Perf. Alexander Skarsgård and James Ransone. HBO. 24 Aug. 2008. Television.Google Scholar
William, Broyles. “Why Men Love War.” Esquire Nov. 1984: 55–65. Print.Google Scholar
Colby, Buzzell. My War: Killing Time in Iraq. New York: Berkeley Caliber, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Colby, Buzzell. “Welcome Back.” Esquire Sept. 2008: 172–212. Print.Google Scholar
Gail, Caldwell. “Memoirs Show War's Paradoxes: Jarhead Captures Complex Truths.” Boston Globe 19 Mar. 2003: D1+. Print.Google Scholar
Wendy, Chun. “Screening Pornography.” Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics. Cambridge: MIT P, 2006: 77–127. Print.Google Scholar
Christopher, Cooper. “Army Blogger's Tales Attract Censor's Eyes.” Wall Street Journal 9 Sept. 2004: B1. Print.Google Scholar
Barton, Gellman. “U.S. Bombs Missed Seventy Percent of Time.” Washington Post 16 Mar. 1991: A1. Print.Google Scholar
Michael, Gilbert. “Stryker Brigade Slammed by Insurgents.” Tacoma News Tribune 10 Aug. 2004: A1. Print.Google Scholar
Dave, Grossman. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Lev, Grossman. “Meet Joe Blog.” Time 21 June 2004: 65–68. Print.Google Scholar
Donna, Haraway. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991. 149–81. Print.Google Scholar
Michael, Herr. Dispatches. New York: Vintage, 1991. Print.Google Scholar
John, Hockenberry. “The Blogs of War.” Wired 13.8 (2005): n. pag. Web. 7 May 2009.Google Scholar
Richard, Holmes. Acts of War: The Behavior of Men in Battle. New York: Free, 1985. Print.Google Scholar
In the Valley of Elah. Dir. Paul Haggis. Perf. Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron. Warner Independent Pictures, 2007. Film.Google Scholar
David, James. “Rock and Roll in Representations of the Invasion of Vietnam.” Representations 29 (1990): 78–98. Print.Google Scholar
Jarhead. Dir. Sam Mendes. Perf. Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard. Universal, 2005. Film.Google Scholar
Jeffords, Susan, and Rabinovitz, Lauren, eds. Seeing through the Media: The Persian Gulf War. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1994. Print.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Jones. “That Other Gulf War.” Newsweek 3 Mar. 2003: 59. Print.Google Scholar
Michiko, Kakutani. “A Warrior Haunted by Ghosts of Battle.” Rev. of Jarhead, by Anthony Swofford. New York Times 19 Feb. 2003: E1+. Print.Google Scholar
Tania, Modleski. “The Terror of Pleasure: The Contemporary Horror Film and Postmodern Theory.” Film Theory and Criticism. Ed. Braudy, Leo and Cohen, Marshall. 6th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. 764–73. Print.Google Scholar
Laura, Mulvey. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16.3 (1975): 6–18. Print.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Tim. “How To Tell a True War Story.” The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway, 1990. 67–85. Print.Google Scholar
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience. America at a Crossroads. Dir. Richard Robbins. Perf. Robert Duvall and Beau Bridges. Public Broadcasting Service. 9 Feb. 2007. Television.Google Scholar
Wilfred, Owen. “Dulce Et Decorum Est.” The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen. New York: New Directions, 1963. 55. Print.Google Scholar
Pilkington, ed. “Iraq Veteran Wins Blog Prize as US Military Cuts Web Access.” Guardian 15 May 2007: 3+. Print.Google Scholar
Redacted. Dir. Brian De Palma. Perf. Kel O'Neill and Daniel Steward Sherman. Magnolia Pictures, 2007. Film.Google Scholar
Joel, Rudinow. “Representation, Voyeurism, and the Vacant Point of View.” Philosophy and Literature 3.2 (1979): 173–86. Print.Google Scholar
Elaine, Scarry. The Body in Pain. New York: Oxford UP, 1985. Print.Google Scholar
Shulman, Holly Cowan. “The International Media and the Persian Gulf War: The Importance of the Flow of News.” Jeffords and Rabinovitz 107–20.Google Scholar
“Soldiers' Iraq Blogs Face Military Scrutiny.” National Public Radio. Natl. Public Radio, 24 Aug. 2004. Web. 17 July 2009.Google Scholar
Mike, Spector. “Soldiers' Online Journals Come under Increased Scrutiny.” Columbia News Service. Stryker Brigade News 11 May 2006. Web. 16 June 2009.Google Scholar
Standard Operating Procedure. Dir. Errol Morris. Sony Pictures Classics, 2008. Film.Google Scholar
Anthony, Swofford. Jarhead. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Philip, Taylor. War and the Media: Propaganda and Persuasion in the Gulf War. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
United States. Dept. of the Army. Operations and Signal Security. Army Regulation 530-1. Washington: Dept. of the Army, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Weschler. “Valkyries over Iraq.” Harper's Magazine Nov. 2005. 65–77. Print.Google Scholar