Towards Just War-Film Theory: A Critical Analysis of Propagandistic Elements in US War Film

An evaluation of whether, and in what instances, war can contribute to peace is, at best, an elusive undertaking. There are a divergent series of theories regarding the relationship of war to peace, although most views of wars are rooted in ethics that do not require an evaluation of this particular causal mechanism. Additionally, "peace" is a state of being that can hardly be operationalized. Nevertheless, there are some standout intellectual traditions regarding war which attempt to offer a moral framework for the evaluation of war or a given war—namely justwar theory.1

While the premises of just war theory may be a point of contention within certain circles focused on the development of just war theory, they are widely enough acknowledged to serve as a point of departure for what is a tangential investigation. At the foundation of this investigation lies the question: can, and how do, war films contribute to peace? Throughout the 20th century, war films have been as prevalent war itself. The mediums of film and television, with all of their journalism and documentarianism, came of age in a century of ever-present global conflict and, more often than not, military conflict. It is no surprise that as societies we would seek to understand and evaluate war using the familiar mediums with which we seek to understand and evaluate life as a whole. Likewise, it is no surprise that war films, and films cast upon the backdrop of war, have been so prevalent as to shape to medium itself.2

The capacity for a war film to contribute to peace is as elusive of a concept (if not more so) than analyzing the capacity of a given war itself to contribute to the basic peace of humanity. It is in this spirit, that this investigation will utilize just war theory as a hermeneutical framework through which to analyze the moral evaluation coded into war films. If just war theory can be understood as a framework for the evaluation of a given war based on its capacity to contribute to peace and therefore be considered a moral undertaking, then there may exist simultaneously a "just war film theory" which can serve as a framework to evaluate a war film and its contribution to the state of peace. This will in part be done, but underscoring the function through which moral evaluations which are coded into war film, can then be transcoded into the constitution of a public which applies that coding to historic war events or agents. As the moral evaluation of wars using just war theory can be highly convoluted and often contentious, it is evident that moral evaluation of war film will be no less labyrinthine.

The goal of this investigation is to discuss neither the morality of war, nor the morality of war film as a general phenomenon which may as well be considered by many as propagandistic and immoral as a whole, but to use just war theory as a realistic framework which can aid in the development of a theory of war film that explicates its positive or negative contribution to peace. This will be accomplished first, by explicating the mechanism with which media can constitute a public, and influence political discourse and engagement. With this groundwork laid, it is then possible to analyze film and interact with the literature on war film vis-à-vis contemporary media studies, in order to identify phenomenons within film studies and their correlation (or lack there of) with the traditional criterion of just war theory.3

Through the analysis and reference to multiple films explicitly depicting war, we will see how the use of mythologizing, dehumanization, and othering in war film are examples of media apparatuses which are capable of coding the traditional moral evaluations of just war theory into media. The terminology of "apparatus" is appropriate because it connotes a mechanism utilized by media (in this case film) for the particular purpose of creating a truth which catalyzes the viewer's capacity for transcoding a coded moral evaluation into their own framework and serves to enhance the narrative or simplify interpretation of the plot devices. With this being said, the potential for exploration of media apparatuses beyond the three investigated here is limitless as well as its combination with any number of premises from just war theory. While a comprehensive framework for the moral evaluation of film cannot be achieved here, this analysis will offer a possible trajectory for the blending of media and political studies of war film by positing the potency of a "just war-film theory." The goal being, to lay the groundwork for this type of inquiry into the war film genre, and provide some poignant examples of the linkages between narrative apparatuses and their influence on the public's moral evaluation of historic wars.

footnotes

  1. Cf. James F Childress, “Just-War Theories: The Bases, Interrelations, Priorities, and Functions of Their Criteria,” Theological Studies 39, no. 3 (1978), 427: Childress appropriately identifies the popular modes of moral consideration vis-à-vis just war: "One is to start from basic ethical principles and to ask what criteria of just wars can be derived from them. The other is to start from the just-war criteria that we have inherited and to criticize them in terms of consistency, coherence, and fidelity to fundamental ethical principles and values. Within either approach we move back and forth between our practices, including our ordinary judgments, and ethical principles and theories; Catholic Church, “Safeguarding Peace: Avoiding War,” in The Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2012)., 2309: "The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy" (emphasis own); National Conference of Bishops, “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response,” (1984); Childress, (1978); "The traditional criterion of just war theory" are not only debated, but have a long history of development and change across cultures and thinkers. Since comprehensive consideration of this theory and its history is outside the scope of this investigation, the analysis will defer to the theory as articulated in the catechism of the Catholic Church (which is primarily limited to the four principles commonly considered as just cause, last resort, probability of success and proportionality) and the US Conference of Bishops encyclical, in tandem with the prescient overview and analysis found in Childress. The goal of this analysis is not critique just war theory, but to use it in its most basic form as articulated in these highly regarded sources as an exploratory framework with which to build a framework for the criticism of media elements within war film. ↩

  2. What constitutes a "war film" is obviously a debatable subject within genre studies but it is immaterial to the subject of this analysis in the sense that any film, so long as it makes any reference to, or depicts anything related to war could be potentially understood through the lens of this framework as offering a coded moral evaluation of a historic war vis-à-vis just war theory; cf. Tim Blackmore, “Eyeless in America, the Sequel: Hollywood and Indiewood’s Iraq War on Film,” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 32, no. 4 (2012a), 322: Additionally, as Blackmore shows, moral evaluations of war (or coded political statements that may bear on a public in general) are hardly limited war films. More often than not, filmmakers can be more nuanced in their criticism of a given reality because they opt for narratives which rely heavily on fictionalization and distance themselves from the real historical events they may be evaluation. ↩

  3. Cf. Church, “Safeguarding Peace: Avoiding War.”; ↩