Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines by Gregory A. Daddis

IF 0.7 2区 历史学 Q1 HISTORY Journal of Cold War Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-01 DOI:10.1162/jcws_r_01128
J. Pitt
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Abstract

Gregory Daddis’s Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines is a fantastic book that delves into the creation, reinforcement, and perpetuation of “martial masculinity” in the Cold War and its impact on the U.S. war in Vietnam. Daddis defines martial masculinity as the idea that men must prove their manhood through military service, sexual conquests, and domination over minority populations. Men’s adventure magazines, also known as “pulps,” were a prominent channel through which American males, both young and old, established and reinvigorated martial masculinity. Daddis argues that “men’s adventure magazines from the post-World War II era crafted a particular version of martial masculinity that helped establish and then normalize GIs’ expectations and perceptions in Vietnam” (p. 5). The pulps offered a haven for the disappearing ideals of martial masculinity in the early Cold War. When the masculine conception of war—based on stoicism, independence, and strength—declined in the years after World War II, the adventure magazines perpetuated those ideals to their readers. Veterans of World War II and the Korean War often read these magazines because, in an era when domesticity and softness seemed to threaten masculinity, pulps helped veterans remember how they had earned their manhood via military service. The magazines also attracted another class of readers: working-class youth. In an interesting and important discussion, Daddis shows that publishers targeted working-class young men. As Christian Appy argued in his book Working-Class War (1993), most of the soldiers drafted during the Vietnam War came from the working-class population. Thus, the pulps found significant influence among the majority of young people who eventually fought in Vietnam (pp. 15–16). This insight is crucial in helping readers to understand the prevalence and influence the pulps had on the men actually fighting the war. Organized thematically, each chapter addresses a topic that young readers found in the pulp magazines. Daddis demonstrates how each of those subjects had negative consequences on the readers once they fought in Vietnam. The themes include the notion that war is honorable and rewarding; that war is a man-making experience; and that foreign women, especially Asian women, are savage, seductive, and ready to please American men. As young readers read their pulps, these themes created false perceptions of war that eventually caused physical and psychological harm to Vietnamese citizens and U.S. soldiers themselves. Indeed, by hiding the true costs of war, such as injury and death, the pulps reinforced the myth of the Greatest Generation from
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格雷戈里A.达迪斯的《低俗越南:冷战时期男性冒险杂志中的战争与性别》
格雷戈里·达迪斯的《低俗越南:冷战时期的战争与性别》是一本精彩的书,深入探讨了冷战时期“武侠男子气概”的创造、强化和延续,以及它对美国越战的影响。达迪斯将“军事男子气概”定义为男性必须通过服兵役、性征服和对少数民族的统治来证明自己的男子气概。男性冒险杂志,也被称为“低俗杂志”,是一个重要的渠道,通过它,美国男性,无论年轻还是年老,都建立并重新焕发了军事男子气概。达迪斯认为,“二战后时期的男性冒险杂志精心打造了一种特殊版本的军事男子气概,帮助建立并规范了美国大兵在越南的期望和看法”(第5页)。这些纸浆为冷战初期逐渐消失的军事男子气概理想提供了避风港。第二次世界大战后,以坚忍、独立和力量为基础的男性战争观念逐渐衰落,而冒险类杂志则将这些理想延续给了读者。第二次世界大战和朝鲜战争的退伍军人经常阅读这些杂志,因为在一个家庭生活和温柔似乎威胁到男子气概的时代,纸浆帮助退伍军人记住他们是如何通过服兵役赢得男子气概的。这些杂志还吸引了另一个读者群:工人阶级青年。在一场有趣而重要的讨论中,达迪斯指出,出版商的目标是工人阶级的年轻人。正如克里斯蒂安·阿皮在他的著作《工人阶级战争》(1993)中所指出的那样,在越南战争期间,大多数被征召入伍的士兵都来自工人阶级。因此,这些纸浆在最终参加越南战争的大多数年轻人中产生了重大影响(第15-16页)。这种洞察力对于帮助读者理解纸浆对实际参战的人的流行和影响至关重要。组织主题,每一章的主题,年轻的读者发现在纸浆杂志。达迪斯展示了这些主题是如何在越南战争中对读者产生负面影响的。主题包括战争是光荣和有益的观念;战争是一种人为的经历;外国女人,尤其是亚洲女人,野蛮、诱人,随时准备取悦美国男人。当年轻读者阅读他们的纸浆时,这些主题产生了对战争的错误看法,最终给越南公民和美国士兵自己造成了身体和心理上的伤害。事实上,通过隐藏战争的真实代价,如伤亡,纸浆强化了美国最伟大一代的神话
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CiteScore
1.20
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0.00%
发文量
44
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