Bloodrock’s Declassification of the Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers was a political whistleblower. Bloodrock had a hit song about death. Their worlds converged in 1972.
vietnam war
Terry Nelson’s March to the Beat of the My Lai Massacre
Terry Nelson and C Company’s “Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” is a shocking narrative written in defense of Lt. William Calley and his role in the My Lai Massacre. The song sold one million copies — in less than a month.
The Terrible Force of Kim Nguyen’s ‘Saigon Story’
Kim Nguyen’s Saigon Story revisits Eddie Adams’ iconic execution photograph and follows the families still living with what the Vietnam War (aka the American War) – and that image – exposed.
Bruce Springsteen’s Vietnam War Songs Defy American Amnesia
Aspects of Bruce Springsteen have endured his many incarnations, perhaps none more significant than his refusal to allow himself, his listeners, or his country to forget the men who served in Vietnam.
Country Music Is a Political Bellwether
If politics runs downstream from culture per the “Breitbart Doctrine”, then do far-right politics run downstream from country music?
‘The Sympathizer’ Fractures Identity into a Knockout Kaleidoscopic Tale
The mini-series adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s kaleidoscopic tale The Sympathizer is a knockout account of colonialism, war, and (the loss of) identity.
Anti-Authority Film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Still Bites
Film-goers viewed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as a metaphor for ’70s era struggles against war, racism, and political corruption.
Baby Boomer Optimism and Regret in the Star Wars Trilogies
While the original Star Wars trilogy display George Lucas’ youthful optimism, the prequels reveal his dismay and regret at the world created by the Boomer generation.
Smoking Saved My Life: A Skinny Jewish Kid Comes of Age in the Haze of American Violence
As cool as Marlon Brando, James Dean, Jack Kerouac or Dalton Trumbo, rebel Max "Flaco" Greenbaum grows up in Watts Riots-Vietnam-draft-era L.A. Too smart (and smart-mouthed) for school, the violence of this world is drawn in deep and lingers like the long, slow, life-saving drag of a cigarette.
Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’ and Pedagogical Filmmaking in the Movement for Black Lives
As with Da 5 Bloods, Spike Lee's films are replete with experimental aesthetics that deconstruct the conventions of (white) Hollywood and re-frame and re-contextualize Black lives and Black history.
There’s a War Going on: Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’
Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods engages with the notion of perpetual conflict. But how well does it fit into the current social milieu of demonstrations against police violence?
‘Norman Mailer: The Sixties’: A Turbulent Decade, an Exhaustive Collection, a Divisive Writer
Despite Mailer's literary merit, his persistent fetishizing of the black body in his writing during the '60s gets tiresome. Yet we can't ignore these works.