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While driving down the highway, one can’t help but notice car after car with magnetic ribbons positioned on bumpers, trunks, and fenders. Ribbons that urge fellow drivers to have “Autism Awareness,” “Fight Breast Cancer,” or “Be an Organ Donor.” And, most popular or, at least most recognizable are the yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbons that seem to have started the craze. These magnetic ribbons, available at many convenience and discount retail stores, allowed drivers to (affordably) proclaim their patriotism to the public-at-large. In the years following the events of September 11, 2001, magnetic yellow ribbons seem to be an inexpensive way for millions of Americans to support their country and its troops. And, because of the popularity of these ribbons, other organizations began selling them to draw attention to their own causes.
I’ve always felt uneasy about these public displays of patriotism and social activism because, for instance, the yellow “Support Our Troops” rely on Christian iconology and a “feminized” rhetoric that actually discourages a public discourse regarding the war in Iraq. The yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbons seem to be an attempt to rally support and to avoid the public condemnation as witnessed during the Vietnam conflict. As Dana L. Cloud notes in her article “Operation Public Comfort,” “Persian Gulf War presidential and news versions of the Vietnam War continually suggested that lack of support was the major cause of the ‘failure’ of the U.S. troops in the Vietnam War” (Foss 310). And, now in the years following the events of 9/11, George W. Bush made it perfectly clear in his speech to the nation that one was either “with us” or “with the terrorists.” Any kind of dissent, then, equates to a lack of support for one’s country and one’s troops who protect that country. No longer is civil protest “a social disease” that would lead to a reoccurrence of the “epidemic of the ‘Vietnam Syndrome’” (Foss 303); civil protest would only empower the terrorists who carried out the events of 9/11. As such, the slogan “Support Our Troops” comes across as an explicit command, squashing any kind of dissonance or public debate.
Additionally, the yellow “Support Our Troops” magnetic ribbons rely on Christian iconology to convey its meaning—an iconology that perpetuates a faith-based, Crusades-type conflict between Christians and Muslims—since if one is to turn the ribbon to 90 degrees, the magnetic ribbon resembles the Christian “fish.” This distinction between Christian-support and Muslim-aggression seems to reiterate the dualism that one is either “with us” or “with the terrorists.” And, to extend this dualism further, one is either a Christian “with the troops” or not a Christian “against them.” In this case, the yellow magnetic ribbons seem to rely on Christian tenets of faith and obedience particularly when coupled with a feminized unquestioning “support.”
Specifically, the yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbons feminize the conflict by using materials associated with “woman’s work” and by encouraging the public to “support” passively the government without contention or criticism. As Cloud notes in regard to the yellow cloth ribbons that adorned doors, trees, and flagpoles during Desert Storm, “‘Support’—translated to mean uncritical acceptance of existing conditions and one’s ultimate powerlessness to do anything to chance them—was the order of the day. The therapeutic function was to nullify anger and to silence debate in the context of an emotional mutuality that precluded political discussion” (Foss 308). By encouraging passivity in a feminized context, the magnetic ribbons diminish public debate by relying on gender roles that frame one’s reaction to the war in Iraq in “emotional terms” since public dissent is, as Cloud notes, “excluded in favor of nurturing and protecting others from potential critique” (Foss 308).
Perhaps another troublesome aspect, for me, in regard to the popularization of the yellow ribbons is that other groups have begun distributing similar magnet ribbons in an attempt to raise awareness or funding for specific causes. For instance, I’ve seen pink ribbons supporting breast cancer awareness, purple ribbons encouraging others to be organ donors, and puzzle ribbons advocating that we must “cure Autism now.” However, these magnetic ribbons began initially as patriotic symbols to “support the troops”; consequently, this (uncomfortable) war metaphor has been extended to illnesses, diseases, and disabilities that simultaneously encourage the public to “fight” against these causes but through passive means of support and awareness. However, whether the ribbons are pink, purple, or yellow, they each rely on “traditional and oppressive constructions of womanhood and family to enforce a sense of […] emotional unity” that rejects criticism, debate, and division.
Foss, Sonja K. “Operation Desert Comfort.” Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice. 2nd ed. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press, 1996.
I need to recognize Kristen Garrison for her paper on war metaphors in breast cancer discourses.
posted by: rgregory at 00:39 |
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