Author: ORID

Abstract: »The memorialisations of gendered violence in war continue to be marginal, especially in cinematic texts. While most of the representations fall into mainstream canonical portrayals, they also provide entry points to confront the violent memories of wars. One such retelling of a real event of a Vietnamese woman facing unimaginable violence at the hands of U.S. soldiers is Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War. The film memorialises the violent rape and the subsequent murder of a young Vietnamese girl by U.S. soldiers, deployed on a routine reconnaissance mission deep into the contested terrain of Vietnam. While most war films portray violent scenes situated in battlefields, Casualties of War depicts how war extends beyond geographical boundaries to claim its victims. The chapter shall attempt to study the politics of representation of gendered violence in war through the prism of memory and analyse the US soldier’s gaze towards the Vietnamese female ‘other’. There exists a huge divide between white feminist discourses and the stark realities of the lives of the native ‘other’. The traumatic memories of such events are lost due to the exclusionary nature of the processes of remembering and enforced forgetting. The chapter will be an attempt at illuminating the disparities in representation and remembering the trauma of Vietnamese people, thus paving a way forward towards problematising the existing processes that govern the creation of historical narratives and construction of memorial archives through various media, and thus reimagine the canonical cultural engagement with the Global South.« (Source: Article)

Contents:

	Abstract (p. 199)
	Introduction (p. 200)
	Cinematic Memorialisations of the American War in Vietnam (p. 203)
	Intersection of War Memories and Gendered Violence in Casualties of War (p. 204)
	Rape as a Weapon of War (p. 205)
	The Metonymic Relationship of War and Rape (p. 207)
	In Conclusion: West-Centrism within Casualties of War (p. 209)
	References (p. 211)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of Vietnam / History of Vietnam (1945–present) | History of the Americas: History of the United States / History of the United States (1964–1980), History of the United States (1980–1991) | Commemoration: Collective memory | Film: Brian De Palma / Casualties of War | Film: Films about gang rape | Sex and the law: Rape / Gang rape, Wartime sexual violence | War: Vietnam War / Incident on Hill 192, Sexual violence in the Vietnam War