Gender and the American Ideology of War

[1] At the huge peace demonstration in London on February 15, one of the larger signs appropriately urged, "Stop Mad Cowboy Disease!" Both liberals and leftists in the U.S. have had difficulty in believing that a much-discredited American film genre, the Western, could suddenly be structuring and mandating U.S. political rhetoric. It is -- from Bush's "Wanted Dead or Alive" Bin Laden poster, to Colin Powell's insistence that "time is running out" as we cut to the chase, to the numerous U.S. television and print media that report daily on the "Showdown" or "Standoff" with Iraq. The evocation of the Western and all its prejudices now infuses U.S. culture and underwrites U.S. militarism. It seems that Bush, initially distinctive for his inarticulateness and stupidity, has succeeded in forcing (and enforcing) that same inarticulateness and stupidity on the U.S. public.

[2] People were stunned when Bush patronizingly dismissed the massive anti-war demonstrations in his "Father Knows Best" speech on the following Monday, but that's consistent with the gender ideology of the Western. As we ought to be aware, the ideology of gender and the ideology of genocidal violence are intertwined in the Western. The parallel action that typifies the conclusion of the Western (and other U.S. 'action movies') has generally been characterized only by its racist polarization of populations, which creates an artificial binary opposition that is resolved through the physical annihilation of one side by the other. But there is another dimension to it: The polarization of gender roles that is intertwined with it. What Americans seem slow to realize is the repugnant role in which they have now been cast, that of the female victim who must be rescued and saved by the male hero, a female victim whose role is to be helpless, mute, and passive, immobilized by fear as she awaits the outcome of the chase. Such rescues are in no way about social justice. They are artificial "tempo tasks" (Sergei Eisenstein's wonderful phrase). The tempo task actively closes off ethical and political issues. That is its purpose. With the inception of the tempo task -- "time is running out" --, morality is located in the sidelined female victim, whose role is not to act morally, but to merely personify and symbolize morality. She passively awaits the outcome of the genocidal violence whose purported aim is to rescue her. This is why we are now being told to hunker down in the cabin, wrap ourselves in plastic sheeting, put duct tape over our mouths, and await the outcome of the horrific violence that is being perpetrated ostensibly to 'save us.'

[3] No wonder, then, that Bush had no difficulty relegating the anti-war demonstrations to the role of moral symbolism, the cries of the helpless victim in need of rescue. He used it as yet another occasion to display his own 'masculine heroism' with which he intends to save us from danger, first from 'evil' Iraq, and then from ourselves through the pending Domestic Security Act. Many people also seem to think this upcoming war, repulsive though it is, will be short. After all, tempo tasks end the film and impose their version of order very quickly -- it's the last part of the movie. No plans for reconstruction? Hey, that's not in the movie script.

[4] A reflexive reliance on the genre conventions of the Western has not only led to silence. It has helped to obscure the reality that this war has already been going on for many years, that the bombing of Iraq was never stopped and has already intensified again, that genocide has already been perpetrated by economic sanctions, that the much-touted weapons of mass destruction are those of the U.S., whose depleted uranium weaponry has already mutilated or killed much of the population of southern Iraq. For a reality check, see The Independent's recent "Focus:Inside Iraq -- The Tragedy of a People Betrayed."

[5] The genre conventions of the Western have mandated a deafening and ignorant silence in the U.S. in the last year. An important dimension of this silence is the de facto moratorium on gender issues. Ideologies of gender become highly coercive when they are taken for granted, when debates about gender are suppressed as unimportant, when they are dismissively cast aside as irrelevant. To be silent now about gender is to take the bait, to perceive the current political and economic crisis through the lens of socially conservative gender roles.

[6] At the same time, a crucial part of debates about gender must be about exposing the irrelevance of gender, itself, regarding many of the issues we face as human beings. Men who find the victim role to be gender-humiliating have NOT thereby understood the current political economy. They have merely -- and belatedly -- understood the Western. Women who find themselves falling silent after years of outspoken protest must recognize, yet once more, that 'feminine' victimage is fundamentally insulting and empowerment cannot be taken for granted. Nonetheless, this insight by itself does not automatically generate an alternative view of the political economy.

[7] It is important to recognize that the mad cowboy is merely a weapon of mass distraction, himself, a front for the interests of U.S. capitalism. It won't do any good to stop mad cowboy disease if we have nothing to say ourselves in its place. The mental silence, itself, must stop. Think! And speak out!

Ann Kibbey, Executive Editor
February 24, 2003
Boulder, Colorado, USA.