There is a scene two-thirds of the way through the film Civil War, which has seen considerable success at the box office since its release, where it becomes abundantly clear who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. An unnamed soldier, (played by Jesse Plemons), is casually interrogating a group of journalists who have the misfortune of encountering him while he and a comrade are cleaning up after an atrocity. Plemons — wearing rose-colored glasses — asks the journalists where they are from, which America are they from.
The answers they give have immediate life-and-death consequences. That scene is harrowing, not only because of its cinematic impact, but also because of what it says about the country we currently inhabit. As such it, and the film it comes from, is a matter worth excavating.
There is no small number of people living in the U.S. today — like the Plemons character — who consider themselves the “true Americans.
” A good number of them inhabit the rust belt, rural areas and suburbs, or are under the spell of evangelicalism. They have seen the world their parents inhabited — which included a rising standard of living, the dominance of the nuclear family, the privilege of being part of the white majority, and the hegemony of Christian churches — change beyond recognition. In turn, the educated, the city dwellers, the professionals, the multitudes from different backgrounds and countries who comprise the non-white population, are seen as stranger.