摘要：Film critic and historian Gilbert Adair, in his
study of representations of the Vietnam War,
(1981:10) suggests that American attempts to
`deal with' Vietnam in visual narratives either
failed to fit neatly into the dominant strategies
of narrative closure, or were simply too crudely
resolved to signify any real coherence or
understanding.1 For Rick Berg and John Carlos
Rowe (1991:1), this form of `excess' owes much
to the fact that these representations have less
to do with the culture, society, history and
politics of post-colonial Vietnam and more to
do with the United States of America (USA), its
national and cultural identity, mythology and
ideology. Phrased differently, it can be said
that at the core of the dominant cultural
representation of America, `Vietnam' is enmeshed
in the `unrepresentable' ± or rather, its
uncomfortable surplus of meaning signifies
America's overwrought desire to represent
itself as a Superpower, to consolidate and
stabilise its meaning (Berg & Rowe 1991:13). As
Adair (1981:9) writes, `here at last was . . .
[America's] full frontal. Perhaps even its Deep
Throat '.
