Visual consumption, collective memory and the representation of war

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to ongoing discussions that turn around the connections between visual representations, war and the military, and collective memory. Conceiving of the visual as a significant force in the production and dissemination of collective memory, we argue that a new genre of World War Two films has recently emerged that form part of a new discursive "regime of memory" about the war and those that fought and lived through it, constituting a commemoration as much about reflecting on the present as it is about remembering the past. In particular we consider three explicit mediated memories that contribute to this project. First, we argue that these films seek to reaffirm a (particular conception of a) US national identity and military patriotism in the post-Cold War era by importing World War Two as the key meta-narrative of America"s relationship to war in order to "correct" and help "erase" Vietnam"s more negative discursive rendering. Second, we argue that these films attempt to rewrite the history of World War Two by elevating and illuminating the role of the US at the expense of the Allies, further serving to reaffirm America"s position of political and military dominance in the current age. And third, that these films form part of a celebration of the generation that fought World War Two that may accord them a position of nostalgic and sentimental greatness, as their collective spirit and notions of duty and service shines against the foil of what might frequently be seen as our own present moral ambivalence.

Changing the Memory of Suffering: An Organizational Aesthetics of the Dark Side

“…Majoritarian narratives must be broken up and opened up through the construction of what Barthes (1977) terms ‘counter-narratives’. Similar to Barthes, Rowlinson and Carter (2002, p. 524) refer to the Foucauldian notion counter-memory, and for them, counter-memory becomes ‘a way of explicating the possibilities of the present’; it emerges, in Godfrey and Lilley’s (2009, p. 279) phrasing, as ‘a force against dominant representations of the past. Counter-memories are the memories of the marginalized, the repressed, the unheard.’ As Colwell (1997) argues, such minoritarian memory is realized through the re-composition of the same elements that comprise the verkitsched , majoritarian history, but are now repeated and arranged in a different manner, juxtaposed as it were, in new ways so as to witness (see also Borgerson, 2010).…”

The politics of consuming war: video games, the military-entertainment complex and the spectacle of violence

“…games in the Call of Duty franchise and over 300 million copies have been sold worldwide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty). The series, like many others in this genre, originally focused its gameplay on World War 2 settings, capitalising at the time of its release on a wider turn to a celebratory discourse on World War 2 and its greatest generation (Godfrey and Lilley, 2009). More recent titles have moved to the near future, setting their stories against a backdrop of terrorism, organised crime, the fight for scarce natural resources, and even nuclear war.…”

Death of buildings in consumer culture: natural death, architectural murder and cultural rape

“…For example, Chronis, Arnould and Hampton (2012, 269) demonstrate how Gettysburg is staged as a place that is characterised by death, sacrifice, defeat and loss. As such, drawing on Godfrey and Lilley (2009), Gettysburg may become a regime of memory rather than a regime of truth.…”