#8: Vietnamese depiction in popular media

Depiction of Vietnamese people in different movies.

1. negative

    In Full Metal Jacket (1987), the image of Vietnamese women is sexualized, they are viewed as sexual objects for foreign men. One of the most famous scenes in the film is where a Saigon prostitute says to American soldiers: "Me so horny Me love you a long time". Throughout the films, there are also many scenes of Vietnamese prostitutes used as entertained for the US military. This depiction degrades Vietnamese women. Some other details such as the scene where a Vietnamese man stole the camera of an American soldier made Vietnamese people look bad in the audience's eyes.

 2. neutral

    Heaven and Earth (1993) is a breakthrough in portraying Vietnamese women. Le Ly - the main character, with her strong personality, has broken the norm of a weak, fragile Vietnamese girl - that have be a convention in many films such as The Quiet American (2002), Good Morning Vietnam (1987) or The Casualties of War (1989). The film is also one of the first and till now, one of a few films (with a large budget) to tell the life of a Vietnamese character - as the main character. It shows that Vietnamese no longer can only be a side character, an outsider - serve as the background for other characters and their life story is interesting too.

3. positive

    The 4 main characters in The Smell Of Burning Grass (2011) are a group of friends, who sign up to fight for the country. They represented the young Vietnamese people at that time, are showed to be eager to contribute their strength to the country. But in reality, not everyone wants to join the war, and fight for the country. The 4 main characters go to college, showing that they come from rather wealthy families. People from wealthy families at that time mainly studied abroad so as not to be affected by the war in Vietnam or paid money to avoid being called into the army. Those who participated in the war were mainly peasant children, poor and uneducated.

 The neutral depiction of human that I aim to convey in my media product.

   In my ideology, I always have this very connected idea of good and bad: just because a person has done bad things doesn't mean that person is inherently evil or born that way. They depend on a lot of factors such as social background and living circumstances - it leads to choices of a person later in their life.

I believe nobody is purely good. The line between good and evil is very thin. So this good person (in normal concept) would be someone who knows how to put the good in him over the bad. On the contrary, those villains would be the ones who cannot control the bad in them, and let it overwhelm the good.

So, in my film, there will be both good and evil in every human being - in my characters. One would struggle to remain on a side, good or evil.