A Lesson on Patriotism for My Daughters

Every Fourth of July I dress my two young daughters in various ensembles of red, white, and blue. We attend parades, barbecues, and firework displays. I smile as they recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which they learned at school. I teach them to be respectful when people stand in silence for the National Anthem. Over the years I have done this all without much thought. I’ve only recently realized that I’m training my daughters to participate in the performance of patriotism even though I struggle with the concept and sentiment myself.

I didn’t always struggle with it. But I didn’t always really think about it much either. My Fourth of July memories from childhood consist of family vacations and playing with sparklers. The holiday was never one that found me contemplating or discussing U.S. history. Even still, I think I was – or felt – patriotic when I was young. After all, I was a choir girl from childhood adulthood and knew the words and harmonies to every patriotic American song out there. And I firmly recall feeling moved when I sang them. But then that changed.

For many the attacks of September 11^th heightened or awakened their patriotic sentiment (as is not uncommon during times of war). It had the opposite effect on me. Two events forever changed my learned patriotic impulses. The first was my experience student teaching in a high school where 90% of the student population was Arab American. I vividly remember the day when many of my female students who wore hijabs came into my class in tears recounting the racist slurs that were cast at them as they walked to school. They were American citizens and they had cried on 9/11 for the attacks on their country but yet they faced immediate discrimination.  I will never forget how our school received multiple bomb threats and we had to herd hundreds of scared students through the process of evacuating the building. I was horrified at how people justified hateful behavior in the name of keeping their country safe. I still am.

The second experience that helped stomp out my patriotic sentiment happened on a random night at a local piano bar only weeks after 9/11. I was there with my best friend, my boyfriend, and his brother. Unsurprisingly, the dueling pianists played many patriot songs throughout the night. When they launched into “Proud to be an American,” my boyfriend and I stood and sang. It was one of my favorite American tribute songs and thanks to my choral training I knew each and every word. My boyfriend, a thespian happy to perform at any occasion, belted out every word with me. When the song ended we sat down at our table and a blonde haired, blue eyed college girl came over and began directing a slew of racist comments to my boyfriend. She ended with the directive: “go back to your country.”  When she left the four of us sat bewildered and uncomfortable. We had no idea why she crossed the room to yell at us. One explanation was that my boyfriend was Mexican-American and her comments implied she mistook him for being Middle Eastern. Still, we didn’t understand why she was yelling at him right after he had stood and sung a pro-America song. Had she meant to yell at his brother (who, not being the sing-with-the-crowd-type, did not stand)?  With all his theater flair had my boyfriend made a flamboyant hand gesture that she mistook as being disrespectful?  We couldn’t figure out what we had done to warrant such rage.

Moments later this same girl marched up to the piano players and paid them to play “America the Beautiful.”  The four of us exchanged apprehensive glances and this time we all rose as the chords began to play. On her way back through the crowd the girl again stopped at our table and said, “yeah, that’s right, you better stand.”  The next few minutes are a blur. Well, except for the emotions I had. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the anger I felt toward this girl. Despite normally being the non-confrontational type, I launched into a string of insults (punctuated with profanity) and ended my diatribe by throwing my drink in her face. I remember defiantly storming out of the bar (although my friends insist we were about to get kicked because of my reaction). I proudly tell this story of my first and only “bar fight,” but what I often leave out of the story is how it changed me. From that day onward I’ve had a visceral reaction every time I hear “Proud to be an American.”  I feel sick and angry. Those feelings attached themselves – to a lesser extent – to other patriotic songs as well. It’s taken years for that Pavlovian-like reaction to subside. And it hasn’t completely.

After these formative moments I went on to become a post-9/11 television scholar who studied the ways in which the media and popular culture endorsed a certain form of patriotism in the wake of the attack: blind patriotism. To be an American after the attacks meant to buy into the rhetoric of “us versus them” and to support the government and its leaders without question. It was a time of feeling not thinking. For example, Americans affixed flags to their gas-guzzling cars as a sign of patriotic loyalty, but didn’t question our dependence on fossil fuel that was again leading us to war.

Fifteen years after the attack, the 2016 Presidential Election highlighted how the struggle continues when it comes to defining what it means to be a “good” American with one candidate claiming we needed to “make American great again” and another claiming that American was already great “because we are good.” The year since that election has made me revisit what I think it means to be a “good” American and what I think it means to be patriotic. It’s a lot more than performance. It’s a lot more than knowing the words to a bunch of songs. It’s actually hard work… or it should be.

I stood with hundreds of thousands of people at the Women’s March in D.C. the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The crowd was decorated with signs that argued “Dissent is Patriotic” and the chant “This is What Democracy Looks Like” recurred at regular intervals. It was at that my moment that I thought to myself:  “yes, this is what it means to be a patriot.”  That day while people debated on Twitter about whether the hashtag #NotMyPresident was anti-American or not, I worked to re-conceptualize my own thoughts about patriotism. It is these that I hope to relay to my daughters.

Patriotism is not blind. It is not about seeing our country’s history through rose colored glasses; it is about critically examining the past, acknowledging our darkest moments, and strategically working to never glorify or repeat them. (Those fighting to keep Confederate Monuments in place obviously do not share my definition of patriotism.)  It is not about supporting the government and its leaders without exception; it is about holding them accountable for the ways in which they represent and lead this country. It is not only about celebrating our country’s values and accomplishments, it is also about working hard (individually and collectively) to ensure that we continue to live up to those values and that our successes have a positive impact on the world. It is about accepting that one can have complex, contradictory feelings about our country and still be a “patriot.”

I felt the complexity of my own American pride this past summer when I attended the Naval Retirement of a friend. I sat through the ceremony and was, unquestionably, moved as they discussed the unknown sacrifices that those in service make for us on a daily basis. At one point I looked down at my side where my two daughters sat and I realized I was happy that they there taking in this message. Mentally I added another footnote to my complicated definition of patriotism: it is the ability to support our men and women in the military, even when I don’t support the wars they are sent off to fight or the administration that sends them there.

I’m not sure how any parent goes about teaching their child about patriotism, but know how I plan to teach them about this important concept. By taking them along with me to protests that fight for human and environmental rights. By explaining to them why I support the decision to peacefully sit, kneel, or lock arms during the National Anthem as a protest against the systematic racial inequality that still plagues this nation. By supplementing their in-school history lessons with knowledge about the parts of American history that are often erased. By teaching them to think critically about social issues and government actions. By encouraging them to vote for the leaders they want and to demand more from the ones they get. But all that said, I will also support their desire to recite the pledge of allegiance, stand for the national anthem, and to sing any patriotic song they want… as long as they understand that the First Amendment assures that no one is required to do so.  And, I’ll also probably continue to dress them in red, white, and blue every Fourth of July because I never pass up the opportunity to thematically coordinate their attire. 

Fictionalized Terrorism Abounds on TV, but Realistic Portrayals of ISIS Do Not: How the Post-9/11 Entertainment Trends May Explain the Discrepancy

Recent fictionalizations of terrorism on American television are part of programming trends that arose in the wake of 9/11.  One example is the prevalence of government-focused shows, such as Homeland (2011-present), Person of Interest (2011-2016), Scandal (2012-present), House of Cards (2013-present), The Blacklist (2013-present), Madame Secretary (2014-Present), Blindspot (2015-present), Quantico (2015-present), and Designated Survivor (2016-present).  Shows like these predominantly feature political leaders and intelligence officers continually rescuing the country from peril – often reinforcing the problematic us versus them binary (wherein the “us” is almost always synonymous with American/Western citizens, although the “them” changes in noteworthy ways during various historical moments).  More recently, such shows have also integrated serious political critique, often addressing ethical issues surrounding the ways in which the U.S. has waged its war on terror.  While these government-focused programs are often more explicit in their attempts to remediate 9/11, shows across genre lines (e.g. paranormal fantasy, science fiction, dystopia) have regularly integrated post-9/11 motifs throughout the last decade and a half (e.g. terrorism, government, salvation, justice, fear).

While the prevalence of the above mentioned themes in television may allow viewers to work through some of the cultural anxieties lingering from the September 11^th attacks, this steady stream of fear-based programming actually helps to create and sustain those very same anxieties, creating a national climate of fear.  Interestingly, these fear-based narratives do not always align with the most contemporary global threats.  For example, there are relatively few representations, or references to, ISIS/ISIL in 21^st century television shows even though plots about terrorism still abound in popular culture.  This suggests that throughout the last decade TV shows have often ignored the shifting geopolitical landscape (or have been slow to depict it).  For example, such narratives often fail to address the ways in which the threat posed by ISIS/ISIL today differs from those presented by Al-Qaeda in the years immediately following 9/11. The medium’s continued role in post-9/11 affect modulation may explain this phenomenon.  (I discuss the ways in which contemporary television works through lingering post-9/11 fears in various blog posts on XXXXX).

While various post-9/11 themes continue to be prevalent in contemporary shows, some things have shifted in TV programs that take on terrorism storylines specifically.  There has been some effort to stray away from the stereotype of Arabic/Muslim terrorists by developing plots that offer up another global threat (e.g. Madam Secretary included a storyline focused on Russian cyberattacks).  When the typical Arab/Muslim as terrorist plot is in place, it is typically accompanied with Arab/Muslim characters intended to counter such stereotypes. Unfortunately, as scholars are quick to point out, this well-intentioned move often simply results in crafting a new type of clichéd character.  Alsultany, director of Arab and Muslim American Studies at the University of Michigan, has documented the new TV trend wherein “if there is a terrorist theme with a Muslim or Arab as a terrorist, the writers and producers will typically throw in another Arab or Muslim character to try and defuse the stereotype.” These characters tend to be depicted as extremely patriotic American citizens or “an innocent Arab-American who’s been victimized by post-9/11 hate.”

The most notable shift in representations of fictional terrorism on television has been the increasing instance of plots that feature terrorist actions/threats that stem from within the United States. Recent seasons of Designated Survivor and Quantico, for example, have had storylines in which American citizens – often holding positions within government – have been responsible for (or complicit in) large scale terrorist attacks that occurred on U.S. soil.  This turn toward the terrorist-within storyline aligns to some extent with the political critique found in many contemporary shows.  This may reveal the continued distrust of government officials that amplified post-9/11.

The one change that did not occur on a large scale throughout the last decade and a half, as one might have expected, is reconfigured terrorist storylines that reference or allegorize the contemporary threat of ISIS/ISIL rather than al-Qaeda.  While ISIS/ISIL-related plots do occur within a few shows, their overall absence (despite the fact that terrorism storylines remain prevalent) seems telling.  Like many programs, Madam Secretary, a TV show focused on the behind-the-scenes work of the Secretary of State, Elizabeth McCord (Téa Leoni), focuses most of its terrorist storylines around a fictional group (in this case, Hizb al-Shahid).  The common practice of creating a fictional terrorist organization may be a tactic to protect a program’s shelf life, allowing it to have a universal appeal even years after its release.  When fictional terrorists are embedded into storylines, as opposed to fictionalizations of real terrorist groups, they can serve as stand-ins for any terrorist group that may be at large when a viewer is watching the episode.  It also serves to distance fictional narratives ever so slightly from the reality viewers may be trying to escape.  Although most of its terrorism-themed episodes focus on its fictional terrorist group, Madam Secretary has also included multiple references to ISIS/ISIL, including a recent storyline that suggests a link between Hizb al-Shahid and ISIS/ISIL.  It has aired one particular episode specifically centered on ISIS/ISIL.  Despite its overt focus on this real life terrorist group, this episode showcases how contemporary television seems reluctant to move away from the America-in-peril motif found in post-9/11 narratives. 

Season 2, episode 6, “Catch and Release,” opens with chilling footage that remediates the ISIS/ISIL-caused deaths of the first American civilians:  journalists James Foley and Steven Joel whose videotaped beheadings were broadcast globally in August and September of 2014 (Hall, 2015).  The first moments of this episode include a video of an American aid worker accused of being a spy kneeling beside an ISIS leader.  The American captive is forced to read a script about how the United States’ interference in Syria is responsible for his pending death by beheading.  The remainder of the episode focuses on the government’s investigation and response to this murder. Governmental officials determine that the terrorist leader shown in the video is American born (and importantly not of Arabic decent); this man also happens to be the son of a State Department worker.  The fact that Madam Secretary’s most comprehensive storyline tackling ISIS/ISIL results in a plot focused on an estranged American family is telling as it, again, places the United States at the center of a narrative that had the potential to delve into wider-reaching geopolitical concerns. Assuming current televisual texts are still being used to modulate lingering post-9/11 fears, this episode serves as an example of the how such programming seems to require a continued depiction of the United States as the center of attention (and likely target) of the war on terror. 

However, the lack of (realistic) representations of ISIS/ISIL on television might simply align with the United States’ slow comprehension of this threat and/or the ways in which it differs from its predecessor.  Writing for The Atlantic, Wood (2015) explains how many Americans – and even, at least initially, government officials – misunderstand the nature of ISIS/ISIL because they “tend to see jihadism as monolithic” and, hence, “apply the logic of al-Qaeda to an organization that has decisively eclipsed it.”  Wood (2015) details the ideological differences between ISIS/ISIL and al-Qaeda and the ways in which these impact the focus of their terrorist actions:

The humanitarian cost of the Islamic State’s existence is high. But its threat to the United States is smaller than its all too frequent conflation with al-Qaeda would suggest. Al-Qaeda’s core is rare among jihadist groups for its focus on the ‘far enemy’ (the West); most jihadist groups’ main concerns lie closer to home. That’s especially true of the Islamic State, precisely because of its ideology. It sees enemies everywhere around it, and while its leadership wishes ill on the United States, the application of Sharia in the caliphate and the expansion to contiguous lands are paramount.

So regardless of whether television shows rely on the United States-in-peril motif as part of the continued post-9/11 trends, or whether these hyperbolic plots simply reflect Americentrism which is common in U.S. popular culture, it is clear that integrating realistic storylines related to ISIS/ISIL would result in an incongruity with the typical television mythology concerning terrorism.  More realistic fictional portrayals of ISIS/ISIL could actually help Americans better understand the threat this group poses and, as a result, move past some unnecessary lingering post-9/11 fears about the likelihood of another 9/11-like terrorist attack on U.S. soil.  To its credit, Madam Secretary’s recent storyline discussing ISIS/ISIL in relation to their fictional terrorist organization may actually provide this sort of cultural education.  In the scene that introduces this storyline, the Secretary of State’s husband, a religious scholar, Henry McCord (Tim Daly), questions the possibility of Hizb al-Shahid and ISIS/ISIL working together because of their ideological differences.  Should the television program decide to delve into this in greater detail it might help counter the misconception that there is some commonality between all jihadist terrorist groups.

The television program that has provided the most realistic ISIS/ISIL related storylines to date is Showtime’s Homeland.  In fact, sadly, its fifth season premediated the recent terrorist attacks in Europe. (The season was almost completely filmed prior to the coordinated terrorist attacks that occurred in Paris on November 13^th, 2015, killing over one hundred people.)  Fans may have anticipated a departure from storylines focusing on Muslim terrorists during a season where the main characters relocated from the Middle East to Europe.  And while the season does delve into other threats (with attention paid to Russian cyber terrorism, for example), the focus on Muslim terrorism continues to be a major focus of the show (Hibberd, 2015). Critics have praised the show for pointing out real problems in the U.S. approach to combatting ISIS/ISIL, pointing to one speech in particular, which appeared in the season five opener, “Separation Anxiety” (Tapson, 2015).  During a CIA debriefing, a main character, Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend), an agent who spent two years in Syria, is asked whether the U.S.’s strategy is working, to which he replies:

What strategy? Tell me what the strategy is. I'll tell you if it's working. [Silence]

See, that right there is the problem. Because they, they have a strategy. They're gathering right now in Raqqa by the tens of thousands. Hidden in the civilian population. Cleaning their weapons. And they know exactly why they're there. Why is that? They call it the end times. What do you think the beheadings are about? The crucifixions in Deir Hafer? The revival of slavery? You think they make this shit up? It's all in the book. Their fucking book. The only book they ever read. They read it all the time. They never stop. They're there for one reason and one reason only. To die for the caliphate and usher in a world without infidels. That's their strategy. And it's been that way since the seventh century. So, do you really think that a few special forces teams are gonna put a dent in that? (Raff, Mann, Stoudt, Gansa & Gordon, 2015).

When asked for suggestions for how to proceed Quinn recommends “200,000 troops on the ground indefinitely to provide security and support for an equal number of doctors and elementary school teachers” (Raff, Mann, Stoudt, Gansa & Gordon, 2015).  He is, of course, told this is impossible.  This fictional CIA agent’s assessment of his government’s inability to effectively combat ISIS/ISIL realistically delves into the difficult predicament the U.S. finds itself in concerning the real world fight against them.

With thoughtfully crafted storylines, fictional television has the potential to critique U.S. military practices and to help inform citizens about geopolitical issues.  However, as seen in the discussion of post-9/11 fictional programming on the air, it also had the potential to maintain cultural anxieties that have dominated the United States for the past 15 years. Furthermore, when storylines fail to align realistically with real world conditions, television may actually end up manufacturing unfounded fears. The continued attention to 9/11 (or at the very least post-9/11 televisual themes evident in this study) neglects contemporary threats and perpetuates a fear cycle from which viewers have very little chance of breaking free.