RED+BLUE To Color a Soldier’s Heart: Nonprogressive Representations from Netflix’s “Purple Hearts”
HUM 100 - U Critical Theories Final Output Zine
Cervantes, Michelle Cabral, Grace Monsod, Kimmy
Dalde.
Kenneth Vivo, Ellie
ed “Purple Hearts” (2022) will wherein it became popular excellent cinematography yet execution. The story’s main bining the girl’s blue democrat y’s red republican heart would purple heart, thus, the title. end, it seems as if to make blue must submit to red. paper claims that the movie introduction of progressive feminism resulted in a mere n and propaganda.
earts" film brings us a story of overs” trope, which is popular lm audiences. Although there with using popular tropes, the n example of Adorno and im that the culture industry is predictable story (Storey, ) Many scenes can be eady existing ideas, and each built to form an obvious o, the film wasn’t able to ance and the other foundation hich is the political aspect ey instead romanticized the m and justified that the liberal ust submit to the socially lead, creating a notion that nform to men in the name of
predictability of the film leads have a false fulfillment of wish are constantly shown that n be forgotten or solved when ance. As Leo Lowenthal action prevents the masses yond what they see (Storey, resulting in them having a nding of reality. Romano has y viewers were swayed into litary propaganda of the film that patriarchy is a must in
RADICAL FEMINISM
Additionally, the production's shallow understanding of feminism is noticeable in Cassie’s characterization. At first, it was shown how Cassie opposes the idea of war as she does not believe in “guns first”. In the later part of the movie, however, it shifted to her taking care of a war-injured marine and even making a song to comfort the soldiers. The film even implies that all women can do is talk while it is the men who fight the real battle (wars).
This can stir a misconception among viewers regarding feminism as it contradicts Lisa Day's assertion that the feminist theory should center on fighting inequalities and inequities seen in society, including those that go under the topics of class, gender, race, sex, and sexuality. Moreover, this supports the argument of radical feminists that women’s oppression is the result of patriarchy, a system of domination in which men as a group have power over women as a group (Storey, “Feminism” 152).
blue isn t enough to make the color purple.
Overall, said instances of misrepresentation of feminism respond to Althusserianism’s definition of ideologies as a ‘closed system’ wherein “Purple Hearts” normalizes oppression towards women Furthermore, it can be concluded that said film is produced to act as the Repressive State Apparatus, while the military acts as its Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). In fact, its production was even funded by the military to continue to perpetuate an innocent image that allows viewers to sympathize and root for them. Even if the film’s agenda might have initially trended toward a meeting in the middle, the production’s decision to work directly with the US military gave it a much different result (Romano). Moreover, this shows the relevance of “symptomatic reading”, the process of analyzing a text according to what it does not – indeed cannot – say (Buckland) The film is not simply a light-hearted romance but an instrument of propaganda yet the audience was blinded by the romanticizations The movie even garnered over 23.41 million viewing hours in a week and was even coined as one of Netflix’s most successful movies.
