Armed Forces: Masculinity and Sexuality in the American War Film

Chapter 4: Wounds

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This chapter focuses on men who display the effects of psychological and/or physical wounds and limitations. In some cases, the films show how war and battle cause the damage; in others, the narratives present characters who are already impaired in one way or another. In both cases, the resulting effects on the characters ’ masculinity and behavior have significant ramifications for those whom they love or those whom they lead. The most common dangers to masculinity and sexuality from psychological and physical damage center on forms of impotence , symbolic or actual. The inability of a man to function sexually because of a physical injury is potentially a sign of failed masculinity. Correspondingly, someone whose masculinity is in question because of his behavior runs the risk of being thought of as ineffective sexually. Interest in traumatized soldiers’ psychic as well as physical problems begins during World War I. Both Elaine Showalter and Joanna Bourke have documented the impact and influence of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis on the early treatment of shell-shocked veterans in this war.1 Although representations of psychoanalytic treatments have appeared in films about psychologically and physiologically damaged veterans in film, more often than not psychoanalytic theories show up indirectly, in terms of understood concepts and principles rather than in depictions of analytic sessions between doctor and patient. For example, the concept of the fear of castration, originally introduced by Freud to explain aspects of male psychosexual development in terms of the Oedipus complex, has been appropriated within some films as something already understood rather than as something discovered through analysis of a patient. While earlier films about World War I present some memorable examples of psychologically and physically wounded soldiers, none of them appears to be specifically connected to the issue of sexuality. For example, as we saw, Jim Apperson (John Gilbert), the hero of The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925), loses his Wounds c h a p t e r f o u r wounds 73 leg to amputation, but this has no inhibiting effect on his reunion with Melisande (Renée Adorée) at the film’s conclusion. Paul (Lew Ayres) and his comrades temporarily experience psychological trauma as a result of battles or injuries in All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930). That film’s hospital scenes graphically depict the fear of death and physical suffering, particularly when Franz (Ben Alexander) realizes his leg has been amputated, but that trauma is not worked out in terms of sexuality as such. The montage following Franz’s death grimly chronicles the way his boots are worn by a succession of men who are killed. But here, too, this is rendered solely in terms of battlefield trauma and not connected to sexuality. After a discussion of films showing psychologically damaged soldiers, attention shifts to the physically wounded ones in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (Mervyn LeRoy, 1945), Pride of the Marines (Delmer Daves, 1945), The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946), The Men (Fred Zinnemann, 1950), Coming Home (Hal Ashby, 1978), and Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989). Home of the Brave (Mark Robson, 1949) is of particular interest since it focuses on the psychoanalytic treatment of a soldier whose physical problem is psychosomatic. A subsidiary interest in this regard will be in the role of women as caregivers to the wounded, and of the maternal impulse as displayed in men. The topics and some of these films have already received rewarding commentary from Sonya Michel, Tania Modleski, Martin F. Norden, and Kaja Silverman.2 Psychological Films made during and shortly after World War II are much more likely to present psychological trauma as a major element in the narratives and to connect it directly or indirectly to sexuality. Certainly one of the first claimants could be I’ll Be Seeing You (William Dieterle, 1944), in which Zachary Morgan (Joseph Cotton) meets Mary Marshall (Ginger Rogers) after he is temporarily released from an army hospital where he has been treated for war stress. The film was released late in 1944, by which time the American public had ample opportunity to learn about the term “traumatic war neurosis.” For example, a 1943 article in Time pointed out the expression had replaced“shell shock”and described how various treatments were being used in the field.3 The fact that Zach has had to come home to be helped indicates the severity of his condition, which is underscored...