Oliver Stone's Platoon Essay

Oliver Stone’s film, Platoon (1986) presents the American struggle between good and evil during the Vietnam war era. Chris Taylor, represents middle class America and a nostalgic value in purity and innocence. The United States is many times represented as untainted and unaligned with conflict, but instead as helpers or saviors to other countries and their internal struggles. Stone’s film, however presents a new reality for the United States because of tension and distinct reactions to the war in Vietnam. Sgt. Elias and Sgt. Barnes are representatives of two opposing forces in American society. Sgt. Elias once believed in the war efforts of Vietnam but with time he lost hope and support for the war and instead is trying to salvage humanity of soldiers and in terms that of American society. Sgt. Barnes takes on the evil role, he is ruthless and will do whatever it takes to care for his image and persists on believing in the necessity of the war. In

Tom Engelhardt describes “the era of reversals” as “American post-war “reconstruction” [which] would begin not in Vietnam, the land in ruins, which should have been but was not the defeated country, but at home in a land almost untouched by war, which should have been but was not the victor; and the rebuilding would focus not on some devastated physical environment but on the national psyche” (180). American films about the Vietnam war, like Platoon do not focus on the disastrous aftermath that continue to affect Vietnam to this day, but instead on the fight for maintaining or rediscovering American identity after our evident loss in a war, where more soldiers and citizens were killed on the Vietnamese