English homework

Question

so I have an English assignment that’s due at 11:59 today and I’m really stuck, we were asked to write a 200-300 word response with this question..

Can you think of any movies that seem to have a pro-USA vibe to them? Perhaps a movie that is meant to persuade you to think or feel a certain way about this country? Explain. (I picked the movie the patriot)

Answer 1

Top Gun is absolutely a film that could stir deep emotions that express the way we feel about our country.

The combination of action, comedy, drama, patriotism, honor, loyalty, and love created a story of many different people and combined them all for a film that had everyone walking away feeling like a better American than ever before.

Even the speech by the fictional President, played by Bill Pullman, was so inspirational that it is still used today to motivate people and make them walk around with their heads held high.

It's the type of movie that inspired people in so many different ways. They even cheered in the theaters when they saw it for the first time, I for one had tears in my eyes when I watched it and I have to admit that I still get very emotional every time I see it.

That is exactly what this country loves to see. A sense of pride and that we all need to be reminded of every once in a while.

Answer 2

Okay, so, you picked The Patriot, which is an excellent example of a pro-USA/American mythologizing movie.

Let's break down how you would write about this in an essay:

Why did you go with The Patriot? What aspects of it stand out to you as being particularly "American"? Does this movie engage in any criticism of the United States? Does this movie make everything the United States does seem not only rational, but completely justified? How are other countries portrayed in this film? Is there any sympathy for characters from other countries? Is there any ambivalence to any actions taken by the American characters? Does the movie persuade you to feel a certain way about the American Revolution?

The Patriot is an intensely jingoistic movie: it portrays atrocities committed by the British that never happened and ignores atrocities committed by Americans that did happen. It portrays the Americans as being completely in the right for rebelling against the corrupt autocrats of England, who are both ruthless and effete (which is a whole other can of worms in cinematic language and critical theory). It chooses to portray the Americans as all fighting purely for home and family, while the British are fighting for money and for sheer love of oppressing other people. It even takes the very strange route of having an adult son killed (in a blasphemous way) and a father going on a rampage of revenge to imbue a sort of holiness to Gibson's unhinged rage. The movie is uninterested in exploring the humanity and the depravities of both sides: it is as simple as "America GOOD, British BAD".