Netflix series on the Vietnam War looks at pain across racial lines
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Black and white American soldiers in Vietnam. Photo: Courtesy of Turning Point: The Vietnam War/Netflix
A new Netflix-limited series takes a fresh look at the Vietnam War that examines the conflict from the eyes of Black soldiers, Vietnamese fighters and journalists on the 50th anniversary of its end.
Why it matters: The Vietnam War has split Americans across ideological and racial lines for much of the last few decades, with those divisions around the U.S. role in the world still evident today.
Zoom in: "Turning Point: The Vietnam War," which was released on Wednesday and is now streaming on Netflix, confronts those divisions head-on while trying to make sense of why the United States got involved in Vietnam in the first place.
- Following in the footsteps of other Netflix series, "Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War" and "Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror," this five-episode docuseries goes beyond military failures and diplomatic moves.
- Instead, the series examines the political and cultural reckoning that followed the war, which reshaped American society and created generations of distrust.
Series director Brian Knappenberger tells Axios the war birthed a "radically different country" in the U.S. and fostered division about government, protests and duty.
- "I think the reason to look back on it is because the Vietnam War just had this lasting impact on us."
- Knappenberger says his goal was not to glorify the past and political figures but to take an honest assessment, even when it hurt.
The intrigue: Unlike many previous documentaries on the Vietnam War, "Turning Point: The Vietnam War" actively uses the voices of Black soldiers to show how the conflict affected them as the Civil Rights Movement hit an apex.
- Black veterans talking of grappling with their conflicted feelings, fighting for "democracy" in Vietnam while being treated like second-class citizens back home.
- In addition, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnamese American author of "The Sympathizer," talks in the documentary about the effects of the war on his family.
Flashback: President John Kennedy got the U.S. involved in a civil war in Vietnam amid the Cold War and fears of spreading Communism.
- After his assassination, President Lyndon Johnson escalated U.S. involvement, sparking anti-Vietnam War protests on college campuses across the nation.
- President Nixon continued the war, even expanded it to nearby Cambodia, until agreeing to a peace accord. Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese fighters on April 30, 1975.
- Juan José Valdez of San Antonio, Texas, was the last of the 11 U.S. Marines out of Vietnam before the fall of Saigon.
Zoom out: The new documentary comes as a new poll shows a majority of American adults, including most Vietnam War veterans, think the United States should have stayed out of Vietnam.
- The survey by Nexstar Media and Emerson College Polling, released this week, showed that a majority of adults (62%) think the U.S. should have stayed out of Vietnam.
- A plurality of U.S. adults (44%) think the war in Vietnam was not justified, while 29% believe the war was justified.
Yes, but: Knappenberger says it's also important to take into account the voices of North Vietnamese who were involved in the war and how it transformed their lives.
- The documentary talks to several Vietnamese figures who recount their experiences and the lingering results decades later.
Between the lines: Thousands of returning Vietnam War veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and were shunned by anti-war protesters and war supporters for the defeat.
- Some Vietnam War veterans, such as the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. John Kerry, ran for office, but none were ever elected president.
