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Early on, Billy observes that the Texas Stadium symbolizes American society. The stadium is filled with thousands of people, boasts of endless food joints and stores, and hosts a football game on a holiday (Thanksgiving) that's unique to America. The stadium offers everything in the way of American culture, from the Jumbotron flashing advertisements to football. Billy also notices that up close, the stadium is also relatively shabby and ill kept, alluding to the income disparity of the American citizens. However, the stadium also looks shiny and wonderful on TV, signifying the media’s power to shaping public opinion—like the way footage from the Bravos’ firefight in Iraq makes Americans think war is exciting, whereas the Bravos know that war is horrific and terrifying. The association between the stadium and America as a whole is reinforced by the fact that the stadium is in Texas, the home state of then-president George W. Bush. In this way, the stadium doesn't just represent America as a culture; it is representative of the very person who leads the country.
The Texas Stadium Quotes in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
The Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Texas Stadium. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
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Years and years of carefully posed TV shots have imbued the place with intimations of mystery and romance, dollops of state and national pride, hints of pharaonic afterlife such as always inhere in large-scale public architecture, all of which render the stadium of Billy's mind as the conduit or portal, a direct tap-in, to a ready made species of mass transcendence, and so the real-life shabbiness is a nasty comedown.
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Chapter 3
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It dawns on him that the Texas Stadium is basically a shithole. It's cold, gritty, drafty, dirty, in general possessed of all the charm of an industrial warehouse where people pee in the corners.
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Chapter 7
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He glows, which isn't to say he's a handsome man but rather shimmers with high-wattage celebrity, and therein lies the problem, the brain struggles to match the media version to the actual man who looks taller than the preformed mental image, or maybe broader, older, pinker, younger, the two versions miscongrue in some crucial sense which makes it all a little unreal [...]
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Chapter 12
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Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.
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The Texas Stadium Symbol Timeline in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Texas Stadium appears in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
1. The Thing Begins
...can't make them mean anything. Since he will sit in the aisle seat at the Texas Stadium later, Billy will have to endure more grateful citizens throughout the day.
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...the Texas Stadium despite having grown up eighty miles away from it. Now, as the stadium comes into view, Billy realizes that seeing it on TV has somehow masked the fact...
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2. A Private in the Infantry
Bravo arrives at the stadium two hours before the kickoff. Nobody seems to know what to do with them, so...
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3. It is Mostly in Your Head But We Have Cures for That
...remembers Kathryn telling him to keep being lucky. He looks around the concourse of the stadium and thinks that it's a truly disgusting place. Mango and Billy decide to abandon their...
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7. We Are All Americans Here
Back at the Texas Stadium , Billy thinks that if he were to add up the wealth of every person...
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...even works. Specifically, Billy wants to know where the money comes from to build the stadium and pay the players. Mr. Jones patiently says that it has to do with "leverage...
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8. Dry-Humping for the Lord
...for a photo. As the cameras flash, Norm evades questions about possibly building a new stadium. Billy muses that the reporters must know that the Bravos are being used to promote...
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18. The Proud Good-Bye
...game left, Dime declares that it's time to leave. Josh leads them out of the stadium, and Billy texts Faison to meet him outside. Nobody stops the Bravos to thank them...
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