Part 1: The Military Entertainment Complex
As the majority of the western world is once again experiencing a rise of right wing and antidemocratic ideology, it begs the question: How do these ideas spread so easily? How do they manage to find ground and grow roots in nations that pride themselves in being symbols of progress and Democracy, and infest the worldview of people everywhere?
Apart from being influenced in inherently political spaces, even the distractions you turn to to escape weighty topics can influence your politics. Social media, for one, is rightfully being criticized for its unfortunate efficiency when it comes to spreading misinformation and radicalizing young people in particular. Especially the most mind numbing, formulaic content has the power to reach and change the opinion of the broad population. When it comes to long form content, Hollywood is the standard for the creation of formulaic, empty shows and movies alike.
Hollywood is one of US-America’s biggest moneymakers. Strategically, they aim to put out broadly appealing big productions or “blockbusters” that are the most profitable in worldwide cinemas. The genre of blockbusters has established itself to be action-based, often following the simple plot curve that has persisted since the beginning of theatre. Over time, the industry has branched out into similarly soulless TV-shows and series that freeze people in front of their screens for hours on end. What people fail to consider while these movies and shows are being exported all around the globe, is the strong financial link and codependency between Hollywood productions and companies as well as governmental institutions that aim to push their agenda.
As awareness for many social and economic issues is on the rise, we become more attentive in our consumption, avoiding food or clothing if exploitation or environmental harm is involved in their production. But even the consumption and financial support of entertainment is important to consider.
Misinformation spreads rapidly in the age of social media. Many of us have unintentionally shared misleading statements. That, of course, does not make you guilty of creating propaganda. The non-intention or intention exactly is the difference between misinformation and disinformation or propaganda. Propaganda is defined as ‘systematic dissemination of information’, especially in a ‘biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view’.
Propaganda comes in many forms. From inherently political sources like news channels or political figures, to memes and children’s shows, any medium can push a political agenda. When a political motivation causes information to be withheld, emotional manipulation of public perception, or the spreading of false narratives, it is safe to say that we are dealing with propaganda.
The MIlitary Entertainment Complex
Top Gun Maverick is the third highest grossing movie of our decade.
The heroes of this movie fight against an unnamed, faceless villain, the opposing sides’ deaths no more than points in a video game. The American soldiers, however, needn’t fear death as they are essentially invincible while effortlessly maneuvering their 10.000 kg death machines. These jets are of course quite expensive to use for film production, and Computer-Generated Imagery an only get you so far. To solve this, many production companies strike deals with the US-military that grant it control over the way it is presented in the movie, in order to gain free access to military equipment. While those agreements are publicly reported military sponsorships, it is not unthinkable that the military invests in their public image through media production in other unseen ways. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Top Gun presents the military as appealingly as possible.
Hollywood movies rarely dare to voice criticism of the military, mostly painting America’s force as a positive, humanitarian action, celebrating American soldiers as brave or even tragic heroes, while the lives of the opposition are utterly dispensable. Through a combination of censorship and emotional manipulation, Hollywood spreads a misguiding image of the American military’s impact and what it means to be a soldier.
While America’s intervention in the conflicts of developing countries is painted as an act of support, it is often ignored how the Army further brought terror into these already terror-ridden territories. Prompted by the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York in 2001, America started the “war on terror”, invading multiple middle eastern countries that were inhabited by terrorist organizations. Almost a million fighters and civilians have lost their lives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and other war zones. But when evaluating the numbers of casualties, there lies a noticeable imbalance between the losses of both sides. For example, during the war in Iraq, the US lost 4.900 soldiers as well as 3.700 civilians, while they managed to eliminate 90.000 oppositional fighters, accepting the mere cost of killing 203.000 Iraqi civilians in the process. It seems unthinkable that it was unavoidable to slaughter more than twice the number of innocent civilians than of the threatening individuals they had sought out to eliminate. It is safe to say that the Army invaded these countries with a sense of brute force and lack of value for middle eastern lives, making them out to be quite dissimilar to the idea of a hero that can be found in Hollywood movies.
Even more sinister is the sense of self-righteousness America’s militants displayed when confronting people of the opposition. Behind closed doors or even out in the field, inhumane torture of suspects was, and perhaps still is, tolerated if not endorsed. Many US war-crimes have been documented and punished in retrospect, but even more war-criminals walk free to this day.
But even if civilians managed to avoid being unrightfully detained, they weren’t safe from the cruelty of US-soldiers. Countless incidents of rape, robbery, torture and murder of innocents took place in US war-zones. These cases appeared so frequently; it seems that the American troops must fester a poisonous environment which allows this abhorrent behavior. Chances are, if our beloved movie heroes were real, they would at the very least be complicit in the inhumane atrocities enacted by the military.
The distorted presentation of war realities in movies is not only blatantly obvious, but also incredibly effective. After the original Top Gun movie premiered in 1986, the Navy saw a 500% increase in enrollment.
Examining the 23 US-American war movies that were released in 2024, several are of a similar violence glorifying nature as Top Gun, characterizing western soldiers as heroes in an epical fight of good versus evil. Even the war critical movies only explore the war repercussions for western veterans and ignore the scars of inhumane destruction left behind in war zones, when the American soldiers return to the safety of their home. Only one of last year’s movies (Saigon) provides a more nuanced position, as it explores war from the point of view of a country invaded by the US-military.
These movies employ many propaganda techniques. Apart from the blatant censorship the military entertainment complex enforces, they engage in manipulative techniques such as oversimplification, black and white fallacy, minimization (of war-crimes), flag waving (patriotic appeal) and name-calling (branding middle easterners as terrorists).
To conclude: US-war movies engage in an intentional censorship of human rights violations and manipulate the public perception through misleading narratives that illicit an emotional reaction. The incentive is to recruit soldiers, retain and gain public support of the military as a proudly “democratic” governmental institution, and therefore avoid accountability. The military entertainment complex is an alarming, antidemocratic propaganda tool.
Unfortunately, US-citizens aren’t the only recipients of Hollywood Blockbusters. As the leading movie producer in the western world, Hollywood reaches and influences America, Europe and Australia alike. All of us can connect with American protagonists and narratives as we can easily draw parallels to our personal realities. Feelings of Nationalism, Xenophobia and especially Islamophobia, and the tolerance of avoidable military violence are all western ideologies supported and perhaps strengthened by the propaganda in Hollywood’s war movies. Instances of discrimination of and violence towards middle eastern immigrants as well as war crimes enacted by western countries have only become more common and destructive over the years. Blockbusters present us with a narrative that blinds us from the inhumanity enacted by soldiers everywhere and the antidemocratic threat military action poses to our countries and others alike, if we continue to neglect imposing adequate regulation.
