American Flag

Well I have to just start out by saying that just finished a paper for my history class (I'm T.G.I.F'ing already). We had to watch an historical movie from a list and then write a very open-ended paper critiquing its historical accuracy. I chose The Patriot, because, well, Heath Ledger is in it, and I thought it was pretty good but the whole point of me telling this is that I wrote my essay on demystifying the our ideologies of the American Revolution!

Anyways though, that movie has a symbol in the glorious end battle scene. Mel Gibson epically rides in with the tattered American flag his son had been stitching back together. He waves it, urging those running away to go back and fight. In this case, the flag represented all of the idealisms that were fought for during the Revolution. Freedom, independence, liberty, etc. The fact that he is now waving this flag loaded with meaning shows how much his character changed since the beginning of the film. He had declined to vote for the war, only getting involved out of obligation, and his motivations were juxtaposed with his sons’ idealistic ones. Now he has taken on those same ideals and has discovered that they are worth fighting for.

The flag has a referent that evokes strong sentiments in many people at the sight of it. The signifier “American flag” is connected to the different meanings people associate with it. Some, like my grandpas, both WWII veterans look at the flag as something to respect and honor. They see it as a symbol of all of the ideals which men and women have strived to keep in our country. On the other hand, people in both our country and in others, see the flag as representational of greed, domination, bullying, or oppression. Some hold the flag up as something to be cherished and believe it almost physically embodies its signified, and some burn it in protest or demonstration of their disagreement with the meanings they associate with it. Usually people’s opinions about this subject are strong either way, and this is a great example of how a symbol can say so much more than words.