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Radical Prints Up Close and In-Depth

Click the Print to Go Closer

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Berkeley # 26 Title: Does He Destroy Your Way of Life? Description: 37 x 28 cm ; blue on white Image: asian farmer with water buffalo - encapsulated - slide

Springing from the Cold War and its fanatical opposition to communism, the rhetoric surrounding the conflict in Vietnam was steeped in apocalyptic terms of good versus evil. According to the 'Domino Theory' of American foreign policy, North Vietnam was merely the battleground for a much larger struggle against communist influence around the world. Victory meant containing and undermining the communist threat; defeat could lead to a chain reaction that would destroy the American way of life.

It was thus in the official interest of successive administrations to depict the North Vietnamese as vicious, predatory, demonic, and threatening — and this is a depiction that has been remarkably enduring in both Hollywood representations (such as Deer Hunter) and popular consciousness.¹

Many of the anti-war posters from the Berkeley workshop make a self-conscious effort to counteract this de-humanizing characterization of the Vietnamese 'other'. The artists often go to the other extreme, idealizing Vietnamese civilians as residents in a kind of agrarian utopia, free from gross consumerism and close to nature. As in #17, below, scenes of domesticity also abound, and there are resonances in this print of traditional Madonna-and-Child iconography that gesture towards the hypocrisy of the Christian 'hawks' that were running the war.

Berkeley #17 Title: Her Suffering For Our Comfort? Strike Description: 38 x 56 cm ; blue on white ; computer paper Image: mother and child - encapsulated - slide

Despite the sentimental tendencies, these tender and humanistic images are both effective and affective. The simplicity of the monochromatic silkscreen medium and the re-used computer paper permits a degree of child-like innocence that would perhaps be difficult to accept in a more complex work. And yet here it can be appreciated for its universal appeal, the themes of motherhood and the fragility of the young family touching a nerve in us all.

However, in this second image, the apparent mutual exclusivity of 'her suffering' and 'our comfort' also hints at a sense of liberal guilt — a feeling that middle-class entitlements have been purchased at the expense of this utopian way of life. This self-recrimination adds a sharper undercurrent to the seemingly tender scene.