Superheroes, Victims, and Villains - Personal Statement Example

Superheroes, Victims and Villains: An Analysis of Kennedy’s Missile Crisis Address In analyzing John F. Kennedy’s Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation (Kennedy), from October 22, 1962, what I find most striking is how Kennedy uses language selectively to create an approach of honesty and intimate identification between the government and the people, then defines, in extremist positioning terms, the Soviet Union, the United States and Cuba. My thesis is that the entire address presents an exaggerated and dramatic story of good and evil, a plot one might expect to find in a superhero comic book or a movie. My primary goal is to examine the strategies used to accomplish this. My secondary goal is to analyze how the drama, characters and plot build on a mythological framework. Kennedy starts out with a greeting, addressing my fellow citizens. He builds trust by assuring that the government has fulfilled its promise to protect the security of the people. He establishes government transparency by being over-detailed. He tells, for example, the day and time that the horrifying information came to him. Who can doubt it? He says that he feels obliged to report the situation to the American people, in fullest detail. From the initial greeting, Kennedy begins to work on the underlying mythology of the people. My Fellow Citizens may seem like an innocuous formal greeting, but a closer examination is warranted. Without the possessive form, connection would be denoted, but with the possessive form, the phrase assigns ownership. It is not an objectification of the people, necessarily, but implies patriarchal connection. He is President, father of the people. Fathers are strong and they are in charge. Fathers use wisdom to protect and advise, and to neutralize threats to the family. So this very first word sets people into a mental space of respecting his authority, surrendering to the superiority of his role. The second word he uses, fellow, implies his humility, his solidarity with the people. Although the father is in charge, and although he wields superior wisdom in managing and defending the family, he needs their support. While obedience can be forced, respect and loyalty cannot. A leader is more effective when people want to follow. Through the use of this single word, Kennedy implies voluntary loyalty and trust, rather than stressing his right of power and the people’s duty of obedience. Kennedy makes abundant use of quotes from the Soviets. In a sense, he is taunting them, using their quotes to show how ridiculously inconsistent and untrustworthy they are. He is polarizing their character in relation to American character. This strategy dehumanizes the Soviets so that they are uncritically accepted as The Enemy. Rather than attributing each quote to a person, he repeatedly introduces their statements with, and I quote the Soviet Government. This makes him seem honest and accurate in his portrayal of their position. A direct quote, after all, is apparent proof that they said what he thought they said. No critical thought is needed. Yet, in truth, context is everything, and a statement out of context can be completely misleading. When a quote is attributed to a particular person, it can be more easily rationalized by assuming that the person had a bad day, overstepped his authority or is unreasonable but, after all, does not represent a national orientation. When a quote is attributed to a government, it is more total than that. It is reflective of an implacable condition. Furthermore, when quotes are attributed to a government, any inconsistencies can be presented as singular inconsistencies. For example, if the Soviet President says A and the Soviet Prime Minister says B, and the Soviet Defense Minister says C, and if ABC are lumped together as being what the government said, then differences in opinion or context, presented as inconsistencies, will be understood lies. Kennedy presents the United States as entirely good. He presents the Soviet Union as immoral and evil. He presents Cuba as an unwilling victim of the enemy superpower. For example, he states that the US has never secretly relocated strategic missiles in another country and has never (since WW 11) tried to take over another country by force, to rule its people. With these words, he pitches America as honest, well-intentioned and peaceful. He contrasts America with the Soviet Union which, he claims, has been demonstrating quite the opposite. Kennedy claims that the US is opposed to war, keeps its word, and demonstrates patience and self-control, because the US is peaceful, powerful and a world leader. He mentions how the Soviets blockaded Berlin, 14 years earlier, and kept the German people from access to basic necessities (Kennedy). He specifies that we are not doing this at this time. This latter phrase leaves a window ajar so that the US can appear to be righteous and compassionate and patient, for the time being, but threatening, and justified in future actions identical to those the Soviet Union used, if need be. This implies that the Soviet action was not justified and was not based on preliminary patience and fair intention, as US actions are. Kennedy’s apparently honest and open offer, to present the US case against the Soviets and deliver peace proposals to any serious international body, is intended to leave an impression of willingness to be judged. Judgment may result in public support and vindication of any suspicious action, but also carries risk of censure, if found guilty. So that the US can present an aura of transparency and innocence, without risking censure or loss of autonomy, Kennedy adds the phrase, without limiting our freedom of action (Kennedy). He reiterates the peaceful intentions of America, and addresses Cuba as friend (Kennedy). He thus claims Cuba for peace and America, separating them from the Soviets, placing Cuba on the side of righteousness, in spite of strategic missiles pointed at the USA. A primary indicator of the alleged goodness of the United States is its role of great protector of the Western Hemisphere and the world. It has mythological import. Kennedy declares that if any nuclear missiles are launched from Cuba toward any Western Hemisphere country, it will be seen as a direct attack by the Soviet Union against the United States of America (Kennedy). He refers to the unswerving US objective to get rid of Soviet missiles from the Western Hemisphere, implying it as our duty or mission by saying we must do this (Kennedy). He claims that we act in defense, but characterizes Soviet action as offensive. Kennedy maintains tension between good and evil. He directly calls Soviet statements false. He refers to the Soviet Union’s devious intentions by describing the evidence of long-term planning (Kennedy). He indignantly comments on how their deliberate deception is intolerable to the US and to the world community of nations (Kennedy). His use of the latter phrase is intended to insinuate that other countries are on the same side as the US, with the Soviets on the outside of the circle of trust, to borrow a term from the movie, Meet the Fockers (De Niro). President Kennedy associates the USA with courage, consistency, commitment and a strong character which predisposes Americans to give their all for freedom (Kennedy). By saying that Americans have always paid the high price of freedom, he invites patriotic emotions from the people and also strong memories of recent war and loved ones lost. These emotions and memories validate what Kennedy is saying, at the level of mythos, outside logical analysis. Various phrases are intended to arouse the insulted dignity of the American people. Some of these are: flagrant and deliberate defiance; living daily on the Bull's-eye of Soviet missiles; reckless and provocative threat; an atmosphere of intimidation (Kennedy). If one examines these inflammatory phrases more objectively, one cannot help but note that flagrant and deliberate defiance is not possible outside an authoritarian relationship. The Soviet Union had not placed itself under an authoritarian umbrella of the US. The Soviet Union was, in fact, another world power, competitive with the US. Referring to reckless and provocative actions insinuates that the US is a harmless force, living in peaceful unity with all nations, and that the Soviet action of installing strategic missiles on Cuban territory was an act without political context, targeting a peaceful people. In fact, the USA had just emerged from World War II, followed by the Korean War. Furthermore, one year before Kennedy’s address, the US and South Vietnam signed a military and economic aid treaty and troops were sent to support South Vietnam in their decades-long conflict (infoplease.com). The year Kennedy gave this address, the US Military Assistance Command was formed, under his leadership (infoplease.com). This began US involvement in the Vietnam War. Three years after Kennedy’s address, the US began air raids and, a year later, there were 190,000 US troops fighting in Vietnam (infoplease.com). The Soviets rendered support to the Communist side, so it is difficult to take seriously the contention that the US is peaceful and harmless, while the Soviets are evil and devious, without instigation. National leadership of all nations has peaceful and not-so-peaceful functions to perform. To portray one side as righteous and the other side as evil is a mythological stance, useful for fairytales, comic books and politics. Kennedy portrays Cuba as victims, referring to them as being imprisoned…pawns… captives…a target for nuclear war (Kennedy). Speaking directly to Cuba, he sympathizes with their sad plight, their lost revolution, the way foreign values and foreign agenda are played out in their country (Kennedy). He instructs them in how to understand that these strategic missiles are not in their interest. He assures them that they are not responsible for this situation as they are being used by others (Kennedy). The relationship binding the US, Soviet Union and Cuba together is one of danger and crisis. He refers often to secrecy and surveillance, and 14 times to threat. He cautions about the impending risks of fulfilling our responsibilities and he uses the chilling phrase, the abyss of destruction (Kennedy). Kennedy names specific cities that could suffer nuclear strike. He named Washington DC, since it is the seat of American power. The Panama Canal was chosen as a place in which the American people take pride in a massive construction achievement. Cape Canaveral was specified for its military importance. Mexico City, Canada, Central America and Peru were cited so that people would understand this was not a nuclear threat only against the USA. I suspect the Caribbean was mentioned for its significance as a recreational resort and cruise area. Kennedy may have been implying that no one and nowhere is safe anymore. Kennedy invoked the will of God, to support US efforts at securing peace and freedom for the entire world. This invocation immediately followed his claim that the motive of the US is the vindication of right (Kennedy). When people are in a state of shock, listening to the terrible news Kennedy is relating, and hearing the extreme seriousness of the matter, the vindication of right, followed by God willing, will suggest to people’s open minds a call to super-heroism, like the missions of Superman, Spiderman or The Green Hornet. People will be aroused to support the proposed actions without considering that they may lead to the total nuclear annihilation of the world. A call to action, however risky in the face of nuclear destruction capabilities, lends a cocky confidence to a nation of individualists, nurtured on comic books and movies about heroism and adventure which generally have happy (or at least noble) endings. Kennedy appealed to the nation on a very personal level, portraying honesty and government transparency. He strengthened their moral commitment and nationalist image by characterizing the US as virtuous. He presented the story in black and white by contrasting the Soviet Union as non-virtuous. His story was like comic books or movies. Basically it had a superhero (the US), an evil villain (the Soviet Union), a helpless victim, a nearly impossible goal (peace and freedom) and dramatic challenge (an enemy with nuclear strike capability who has come across the seas and set up an offensive military arsenal, aimed at the US). This address was informing of and responding to a very dark moment for America but Kennedy handled it brilliantly, eloquently, persuasively, and with flair, like a Superhero. Works Cited infoplease.com. "Vietnam War: US Involvement." 2011. infoplease encyclopedia. Web. 1 August 2011 . Kennedy, John F. Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation. Washington DC, Web. October 22, 1962. Meet the Fockers. Dir. Jay Roach. Perf. Robert De Niro. 2004. Film. Read More