Mayssa Chehata, Blog #7: Maya Lin and Reflection in Society

I loved the film Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. I’d never heard the story of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial before, and I thought it was very interesting to watch the selection process for the memorial design and see the challenges that Maya and those who supported her design and her vision faced. When I read the question for this week about American Nationalism, I immediately thought back to this film, and the conflict between the veterans who supported the design and those who didn't.

While it is important to always remember that the memorial was meant to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the Vietnam War, I thought that some of the comments and angles taken by the oppositionists to the memorial were particularly noteworthy. One veteran, speaking against the design before the US Commission on Fine Arts, stated that it was meant to be a big, black scar. The veteran was very angry, and seemed to be under the impression that Maya Lin meant the design to be insulting to the veterans. However, this isn’t how I saw it at all. When he made the statement about it being a big, black scar, I was thinking well what else is the names of 57,661 fallen soldiers to America besides a scar, something that will always be a part of our history, but that can hopefully heal and we can learn from our mistakes. I was pretty surprised by the veteran’s distaste with the memorial being a “scar” (whether you agree that is what the design was or not), because wouldn’t someone who was there, who experienced the whole thing, be the first one to tell us that the Vietnam War was a perpetual scar on American history. This is absolutely not to say that the fallen and still living veterans aren’t extremely honorable citizens who should be highly respected for their (both voluntary and involuntary) sacrifices and service, but can we not recognize the wrongness of what we did, of our way, and should we not be at least a little bit ashamed, if not at least mournful, of what happened?

Another critic noted in the film was Pat Buchanan, who was said to have publicized the claim that there was a member of the selection jury who was a communist, and stressed the presence of anti-War individuals on the panel. I thought this was very revealing of the time, and the fear that was instilled in Americans about “communists,” but also the ways this fear was exploited and manipulated by the media so severely, in this case for the case of getting rid of a design for a fallen Veteran’s memorial, it is literally sickening. Also regarding the discontent of having anti-Vietnam War people as part of the design selection panel, I didn’t understand if instead they would have preferred only pro-War individuals to be involved. This way, we can continue to perpetuate the ideal that America should just raise arms whenever we have a problem with another country, even through our memorials, instead of promoting memorials and public art which looks to promote balance and peace, or at least reflection on our history, rather than simple war glorification.

This concept of reflection brings me to my final point, about the memorial itself. In this class we are trying to find our individual positions within our communities, and in this film we watch Maya Lin’s journey finding her position and what role she played within her society. I think that this idea of self-reflection, about ourselves, ourselves within our communities, and ourselves within our greater societies or nations, played a really important role in Maya Lin’s design, as it is in its current finalized form. When you visit the Vietnam Veteran’s memorial, you walked down the pathway alongside the wall with all the names inscribed, dumbfounded by the size of the thing and the endless rows of names, but every once in a while you stop to read through several names, or maybe to identify a name you recognize, and you look directly into the wall. As you read those names, if you change the focus of your eyes for a second, you see yourself staring back at you. The wall is reflective, and I think this is a crucial aspect of the design. It makes us look at all these names, and subsequently look at ourselves. First as an individual, but also, as you see the reflections of others around you on the wall as well, reflect on your society, in direct relationships to those who sacrificed their lives for our country.

I realize this was a little bit off topic but I wished we’d had more time to discuss this film and the role of art in society and imagined communities in class. I think in a society that puts art in the backdrop of what are deemed “more important” things like math and science, it’s easy to forget how important art is in our everyday lives. Even simply the layouts of our classrooms, academic buildings, and campus are crucial in determining how we interact with one another and how we feel, communicate, and exit on a daily basis. When we think about music, literature, painting, all these things, they are pivotal in helping form communities, as they reflect not only how the artist sees himself and his position within his community, but also allow that artist’s community to look at the art and reflect on their self and their own roles in their community, as Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veteran Memorial—and literally billions of other works—have done for America, and the same thing within all other nations and communities.