In the above
scene from Oliver Stone’s Platoon,
the protagonist Chris Taylor and his brother-in-arms, King, discuss how Chris –
a college-educated white kid – ended up fighting in Vietnam:
Chris: I volunteered. I dropped out
of college, told them I wanted the infantry, combat, Vietnam.
Crawford: You volunteered for this
shit, man?
Chris: Can you believe that? … Didn’t
make much sense. I wasn’t learning anything. I figured why should just the poor
kids go to war while the rich kids always get away with it?
King: Oh, I see. What we got here is
a crusader…. Shit, you gotta be rich in the first place to think like that.
In this
scene King is making a broad point that rich people will always fuck over poor
people, no matter what some well-meaning rich kids may do in an attempt at
solidarity. But his incredulity at the notion that Chris would throw away
college and the opportunity to avoid King’s own shitty fate – and the shitty
fates of their other poor and disproportionately black comrades in Vietnam – betrays
a finer point. People whose lives are in a constant state of precariousness can
little afford to consider giving up whatever advantages they do have for the
benefit of strangers in the name of some grand purpose. Chris (with whom King
forms a dear friendship throughout the film) is a crusader – trying to save the world while everyone King knows is
just trying to fucking stay alive.
So with that
in mind, let’s talk about Roseanne
for a minute.
