The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Re-envisioning the Post-War Exchange of Culture

I was interested in Klein’s reflection that much of American Cold War diplomacy, cultural objects, and attitudes about Asia relied on the notion of a “Sentimental Education” primarily from American producers and the government towards the American people.

In these products of state agenda, movies, and map making comes the cultural exchange between the “us and them” that is meant to produce understanding through feeling. This mode reminded me of many of the director Clint Eastwood’s recent projects (Flags of Our Fathers/ Iwo Jima, Gran Torino, and Invictus.) Eastwood would have been in his 20s during the 1950s and many of his films reflect a need to come to terms with the American military relationship to the East. This dilemma is presented always as two conflicting peoples and cultures coming together in a cultural and emotional transaction. The intellectual or the factual realities are often cast aside in order to explore the emotional similarities of disparate people. A Klein presents it as “the pleasure of turning strangers into friends,” so too does Eastwood attempt to evolve the racist character of Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino with his interactions with his Hmong neighbors (in his case he sees all Asian peoples as one and thus refers to them as the people he fought in the Korean war). Yet as the film progresses and Walt and the Neighbors exchange cultural objects and values (Walt teaches the youngest son in the family, Thao Vang Lor, the American values of manliness and work ethic while the Lors teach Walt about community, family, and spirituality). At one point Walt claims, “I have more in common with them (insert one of many of Walt’s racist terms) then I do my own family.” Thus post cold war animosity of one group (the staunch War veteran) to another (but quite dissimilar group) is resolved through exchange and integration between the two groups.

Similarly, Eastwood’s joint project films Flags of Our Fathers and the later released Iwo Jima attempt a visual mediation (of the present looking back to resolve the past). While the two films each feature only short scenes of personal interaction between the Japanese and the American soldiers, the films are meant to compliment each other by producing an image of men in war as similar more disparate. Eastwood’s attempt to make human and personal the military and cultural other as his protagonist might see it, seems to fit in with these cold war projects despite that Eastwood’s projects exist in the now and not in the post-war era. Perhaps Eastwood’s exposure to these sorts of messages and his political involvement in the Republican party is still concerned with this very American activity of “democratic exchange” through “structures of feeling.” As Klein notes on this cold war global imaginary imagery, “It constructed a world in which differences could be bridged and transcended” (44). As in Eastwood’s recent film, Invictus, the complications of apartheid are put to the test of Rugby where Freeman’s Nelson Mandela and Damon’s Francois Pienaar come to know each other through cultural exchanges of feeling (Damon visits Mandela’s prison cell, reads Henley poetry) and Mandela learns about and supports the Springbok Rugby Uniform and team. While some fears are expressed, the political and social demonstrations and national upheaval are not revealed in the film. The emphasis is once again that difference can be overcome by sentimental connections.