For the most part, when there are ideological shifts within a society, they aren’t contained just to the “serious” aspects of a culture. One can see the ripples throughout the society, since almost everything, even our fictional entertainment, is a reflection of the popular zeitgeist.
Even though I’ve never conducted thesis level research to confirm it, I used to have a theory that almost every presidential election of the past 30 or so years where power has shifted from one party to the other has almost always been accompanied by changes in the dominant genres of pop music. For example, the 1980 election occurred shortly after the death of disco, and the beginning of new wave’s popularity. The year 1992 is at the waning end of hair metal’s dominance, with alternative bands becoming the standard bearer for rock music, and it’s around the time rap and hip hop start going mainstream. The 2000 election occurs near the resurgence of boy bands and bubblegum pop acts like Britney Spears. And the 2008 election is at a time when rock music was descending to a nadir, where the genre seems to have “lost its place at the center of the musical universe” (e.g., name a rock band that’s had a top 10 Billboard hit in the past decade).
All of this is not to say *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys are responsible for George W. Bush being president. But just as no one is an island unto themselves, popular culture doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a creation of the society that surrounds it, and often provides a snapshot of evolving attitudes and norms that ripple out in unexpected ways.
So if one looks at the perceptions of war and terrorism in fiction since World War II, what might it say about the fears and ideals of Americans?
1940s—Remembering World War I and getting through World War II
For the most part, war films of the decade are centered around the two “great” wars, with stories of World War I used as tales of inspiration and propaganda to confront the Axis powers, and the events of World War II given some Hollywood-ification for movies and military heroes that gave American audiences reassurance of the rightness of the cause.
In 1941 Sergeant York, directed by Howard Hawks, has Gary Cooper’s titular World War I hero go from a pacifist, conscientious-objector to a marksman that captures hundreds of German soldiers singlehandedly by realizing that sometimes violence is necessary to save lives. Casablanca is usually considered one of the best films of all time, and its love story uses the backdrop of pre-World War II intrigue and the Vichy regime. Noel Coward’s and David Lean’s In Which We Serve is an example of British patriotic filmmaking during the time period, telling the tale of Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten and the destroyer HMS Kelly during the Battle of Crete. Movies like Wake Island, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and Guadalcanal Diary did the same thing for American audiences.
Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator was Chaplin’s first true “talking” picture and satirizes Hitler and the Third Reich. It concludes with a lengthy speech about human rights.
1950s—Remembering World War II, the Korean War, the red scare of Communism and realizing the threat of global annihilation
Among the notable movies of this decade are Stalag 17, The Desert Rats, From Here to Eternity, Run Silent, Run Deep, and The Bridge on the River Kwai. And as the United States moved into post-war conflicts like the Korean War, films like 1951’s The Steel Helmet and 1954’s The Bridges at Toko-Ri dramatized events around that conflict in a similar way, with communism becoming the “big bad.” But there are also films with decidedly anti-war tones. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory is a bleak drama that depicts war as an illogical mess perpetrated by people who seek power for all the wrong reasons. And as the Korean War dragged on, the mood about that conflict is reflected in film as well, with Lewis Milestone’s Pork Chop Hill centered on a group of soldiers ordered on a dangerous mission that decimates their ranks for a hill that has no strategic value. The story is in many ways an expression of American frustrations with the futility surrounding the situation in Korea.
Stanley Kramer’s 1959 film On the Beach is one of the first movies to depict a nuclear holocaust and its aftermath. And in the era of McCarthyism, the idea of infiltration takes hold in popular culture. Don Siegel’s 1956 adaptation of Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a classic sci-fi/horror film, and one of the archetypal alien invasion stories. However, the film comes out of the "Red Scare,” and one of the more interesting things about it is the Pod People can be interpreted either as a representation of Communist infiltration or an indictment of McCarthyism. In a way, the movie sort of proves that if you go far enough to either side of the political spectrum, the fringe basically becomes indistinguishable from the other side it claims to despise.
1960s—Nuclear War and Vietnam
World War II is still a driving force for war movies, with The Great Escape, The Guns of Navarone, The Longest Day, and The Dirty Dozen coming from this decade.
But the threat of communism is a big player too with films like The Manchurian Candidate and serves as the backdrop for the start of James Bond’s first adventures. And as the situation in Vietnam becomes more complicated, John Wayne’s The Green Berets was made as propaganda in support of the conflict.
Movies like Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe dramatize the public’s fear of nuclear war.
1970s—Vietnam, distrust of government grows, and the terrorism of hijacking
The war movies of the era tend to be either allegories for Vietnam or reflections on the state of the public’s mood toward government. Patton is a World War II movie, with George C. Scott’s performance as the titular character driving the film. But its appeal can be seen as a yearning for strong military leadership at a time when there didn’t seem to be any. M.A.S.H. uses the Korean War to comment on the conflict in Vietnam with an anti-authoritarian tone that lashes out at a hypocritical bureaucracy of stupidity. Both The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now present a Vietnam War that is literally a surreal nightmare where an escape to sanity is hard and leaves lasting effects. And the distrust of government that comes out of scandals like Watergate filters down into war movies like Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View.
Notable terrorist incidents, like the Black September murders at the 1972 Olympics and numerous plane hijackings in the 1970s, are also reflected in film as well. John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday has terrorists attempting to use the Goodyear blimp to attack the Super Bowl. And Skyjacked and Airport ‘77 center on the threat of hijacking.
1980s—Believing in American power, the Cold War, and the Middle Eastern terrorist as villain
While there are multifaceted and contemplative movies from this decade about conflict and its consequences, such as Das Boot, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket, the Reagan era is interesting as a reaction to the mood of the 1970s.
The fears of the Cold War are still there. Red Dawn is a red scare classic from the decade. And on television both The Day After and Threads become much talked about representations of the public’s fears of heightened tensions between the superpowers and the possibility of nuclear war.
But if film exists as a medium for wish fulfillment, the frustrations of the Iranian hostage crisis, the inability to rescue them, and post-Vietnam doubts about America’s role in the world led to movies that reassured the public. This era of movies is notable as the beginning of the big action hero and a significant part of that appeal is the idea of a hero that cuts through all the bullshit and red tape, kills the bad guys, saves the people that need saving, and gets shit done. Die Hard is the preeminent example of the genre, and its formula of an average guy fighting terrorists/thieves while government officials dithered and got in the way was widely copied.
Arguably part of Reagan’s appeal as a politician was giving popular, overly simplistic answers to complex situations, and the movies of the time followed his lead.
1990s—A post-Soviet Union world, terrorism takes center stage
With the fall of the Soviet Union, the threat of nuclear war became less and the possibility of acts of terrorism, both domestic and foreign, became a much bigger player in film. The idea of terrorism filling in the threat gap for communism can be seen with movies like 1997’s Air Force One. And elements of the first attack against the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombing filter into movies like Fight Club and 1996’s Executive Decision. The latter has been referred to as a “ludicrous portrayal of Islamic terrorists” and significant as an example of how Muslim-American actors can sometimes only get work as a terrorist speaking gibberish that sounds vaguely like Arabic or Farsi.
One of the more interesting depictions of terrorism and how societies react to it actually occurred on television with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The show’s main story-arc deals with the Dominion War. It is the most destructive event in the history of the Star Trek franchise and results in the loss of billions of lives. The war pushes both the Federation and Starfleet to the brink, and the stories of Deep Space Nine are about how the humanist ideals of Star Trek are tested by the threat that anyone could be a shapeshifter/terrorist that is waiting to destroying everything. The series is oddly prescient about the issues that would surround the “War on Terror” in the next decade. Religion and how its used for power and control is a central aspect of the story, the tension between security and rights, and the Klingon invasion of Cardassia plays almost exactly like the second Iraq war, with an invasion launched on shaky grounds backfiring and creating an even bigger mess.
2000s—The War on Terror
The September 11 Attacks were a major event in American history, and of course that filtered through to popular culture. And the depths of how much it affected life can be seen in how sensitive the reactions are to even depicting the World Trade Center, and how it was removed in an almost Orwellian way from old movies and TV shows.
Similar to what happened in the 1980s, the movies and TV became an outlet where the issue could be fought and won. TV shows like 24 present a scenario where the action hero can fight the terrorists and achieve a victory of sorts. However, for most of these depictions, there’s an inherent tragedy to it all. Even in victory, there’s usually something within the story that doesn’t feel right or some line that must be crossed in order to achieve a goal, which tends to be torturing someone in order to get information. Films like The Kingdom or Zero Dark Thirty are examples of this, as well as the controversy surrounding depictions of Arabs and Islam.
Also, many have argued the popularity of the superhero genre is a reaction to 9/11.
From Todd VanDerWerff at Vox:
They began, as with America’s actual reaction to 9/11, as films about vulnerable individuals finding the strength in themselves to overcome tragedy. Then they became stories about beings and organizations with nearly infinite power that would do whatever necessary to keep the homeland safe. And now, increasingly, they are grappling with the costs of the retribution they’ve doled out, and the security systems they’ve built.