The Korean War on Film and US Society and Culture from the 1950s to the 1970s

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the evolution of the most significant social and racial changes in the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s through the perspective of Hollywood production on the Korean War released from the 1950s to the present day. In its fight against communism, the United States preached values of Democracy and Freedom both inside and outside its borders. At the same time, the American society suffered from different social issues, the most prominent being the fight for equality and civil rights for both women and people of color, the use of patriotic propaganda and the excuse of humanitarianism to support wars outside American borders, showing discrepancies between the professed values and its war actions. This thesis will analyze a targeted selection of films on the conflict to demonstrate how film productions reflected these issues through veiled criticism to the American society of the time and its hypocritical attitude. While in the 1950s cinema mostly reflected a fervent patriotism and a positive view of the US intervention, in line with the Cold War context, in subsequent decades, with the emergence of the Civil Rights movement and growing social protests, the representations became more critical, displaying the injustices of war and internal tensions. As a further denunciation of the attitude of the United States in the conflict, the Korean film A Little Pond (2009) will be examined in order to offer another perspective on the subject.