Recreating American Mythology. Vietnam Veterans in Oliver Stone's 'Born on the Fourth of July' and 'Heaven & Earth'

Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 5,5 (Schweiz), University of Zurich (Englisches Seminar), course: Seminar: «From Disneyland to Da Nang», language: English, abstract: The myth of the United States was that they are invincible, and this was also reflected in the war movies and westerns during and after World War II. When the US entered the Vietnam War the experience of the soldiers proved to be different from the representations of war they had witnessed in movies. The traditional combat films were unable to adapt the new signifiers of the Vietnam war and the genre was abandoned for a while. Rejecting the notion of invincibility, directors after the Vietnam War depicted the horror and madness of the conflict and, indeed, rebuilt a new myth. One of the directors who decided to craft a new combat film was Oliver Stone. While he received critical praise for «Platoon» (1986) and his depiction of the Vietnam War was confirmed by many veterans, he was publicly denounced as a traitor and attacked for the representation of the war in «Born on the Fourth of July» (1989). Although his most hostile critics chose to attack the alternation of facts, Stone was - and still is - criticized or applauded for debunking old myths and creating new ones. For an investigation of Oliver Stone's technique of creating new myths, this essay analyzes his films «Born on the Fourth of July» and «Heaven & Earth» (1993).