Soldiers' songs: Music's role in representing male protagonists of selected American combat films about the Vietnam war

This study addresses the question of how different representations of male, Vietnam war film protagonists are reflected in different applications of the codes of Hollywood scoring practice.; While a number of combat films are referenced, the study focuses on three selections separated by approximately 20 years: The Green Berets (1968) directed by Ray Kellogg and John Wayne, original music by Miklos Rozsa; Full Metal Jacket (1987) directed by Stanley Kubrick, original music by Vivian Kubrick; and We Were Soldiers (2002) directed by Randall Wallace, original music by Nick Glennie-Smith. The study also provides a score analysis of The Story of GI Joe (1945), directed by William Wellman, original music by Louis Applebaum and Ann Ronell. The inclusion demonstrates the principals of traditional scoring practice applied to a classical combat film, thus providing a point of departure for comparison.; The study employs selected methods of aesthetic inquiry to reveal the characteristics of the protagonists as well as the characteristics of the music that facilitates representation. For the former, a series of questions derived from film criticism and gender studies are used to investigate the protagonists' behavior and relationships within the diegesis. For the latter, a model of musical analysis is adopted from "A Multidimensional View of Musical Works" developed by Professor David Elliott in Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education.; The study finds that differences in characteristics of war film protagonists result in differences in musical codes that represent them. Only in a few cases, however, do the codes depart dramatically from those of traditional scoring practice. More often, when non-traditional representations are expressed musically, traditional codes are altered rather than abandoned entirely. Conventions may be repurposed to facilitate representations, e.g., musical characteristics that are generally coded as feminine in the tradition of classical film scores may be used to represent a more vulnerable or sensitive version of the masculine hero. Conventions may also remain functionally true to traditional models while the specific material of signification---the musical design---may change to accommodate situations or character traits not traditionally present in classical Hollywood combat films.