Reading Room II: Remembering Vietnam, again

This exhibition provided a context for the examination of three forms of popular cultural representations of the Vietnam War: Oliver Stone’s award winning film Platoon (1986), the monthly comic strip The NAM and a corporate advocacy advertisement produced by United Technologies Corporation. The exhibition presents an understanding of these representations as examples of the eulogization of the individual veteran’s experience in the Vietnam War and its subsequent depoliticization. These popular cultural forms represent not only the provision of the necessary palliative towards the healing of the “psychic wounds on the consciousness of America”, but are subtle enjoinders to the American government, the military and the general public to “do it right next time.”