The Hollywood War Machine

The Hollywood War Machine The newly expanded and revised edition of The Hollywood War Machine includes wide- ranging exploration of numerous popular military-themed films that have appeared in the close to a decade since the first edition was published. Within the Hollywood movie community, there has not been even the slightest decline in well-financed pictures focus- ing on warfare and closely related motifs. The second edition includes a new chapter on recent popular films and another that analyzes the relationship between these movies and the bourgeoning gun culture in the United States, marked in recent years by a dra- matic increase in episodes of mass killings. Carl Boggs is Professor of Social Sciences at National University in Los Angeles, Adjunct Professor at Antioch University in Los Angeles, and author or editor of numerous books including Imperial Delusions: American Militarism and Endless War (Rowman & Littlefield 2004) and Masters of War: Militarism and Blowback in an Era of American Empire (Routledge 2003). Tom Pollard is Professor of Social Sciences at National University in San Jose and a docu- mentary filmmaker whose work has appeared on BBC, the Discovery Channel, the Life Network, Canadian Broadcasting System, and various PBS channels. His most recent books include: Loving Vampires: Pop Culture’s Undead Metaphors (2015) and Holly- wood 9/11: Superheros, Supervillians, and Super Disasters (2011). The Hollywood War Machine U.S. Militarism and Popular Culture, Second Edition Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard First published 2007 by Paradigm Publishers Second edition published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Taylor & Francis The right of Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-61205-797-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-61205-798-9 (pbk) Typeset in Sabon & Gill Sans by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Preface vi 1 Media Culture in the Imperial System 1 2 Militarism in American Popular Culture 15 3 War and Cinema: The Historical Legacy 36 4 The Vietnam Syndrome: Politics and Cinema 64 5 Recycling the Good War 93 6 Cinematic Warfare in the New World Order 127 7 Hollywood after 9/11 167 Postscript: Blowback and American Sniper 189 Notes 195 Index 203 About the Authors 216 Preface In the span of nearly a decade since the first edition of The Hollywood War Machine appeared, the trends at work in American political and popular culture we explored have only accelerated, taking the United States further along the path of militarism, authoritarianism, and oligarchy. It takes no genius to see that media culture—not only film but TV, the Internet, video games, and print journalism—is integral to these trends, both reflecting and contributing to their development. If during the George W. Bush years, the United States had become the most militarized society on the planet, the ascent of Barack Obama to the White House has unfortunately done little to change this reality. Violence in its multiple expressions still pervades the landscape, visible in a massive gun culture, increased rampage killings, thriving global arms trade, military operations in several countries, and a media thoroughly saturated with violent images and narra- tives. As we elaborate further in the following chapters—including a new chapter, new postscript, and numerous revisions—the progressive militarization of American society has been a thoroughly corrupting influence, not only on the conduct of foreign policy but on domestic politics, everyday life, and the media system itself. The American pursuit of unchallenged global supremacy—sometimes referred to as “full-spectrum dominance”—has set in motion conditions in which democracy, human rights, and truth-telling are being sacrificed at the altar of elite economic and geo- political agendas. As the worsening global situation reveals, imperial power generates heightened blowback against U.S. interventions, nowadays centered in the Middle East, with its legacy of invasions, bombings, killings, destroyed public infrastructures, political destabilization, civilian displacements, and of course longstanding support for brutal dictatorships. Since the 1990s this legacy has impacted mostly Arab and Muslim regions, with the result that the “war on terror” has ensured rapid growth of what it is osten- sibly meant to defeat—jihadic resistance, mass insurgency, local militias, and terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and its spinoffs. Indeed U.S. foreign policy could not have been more efficiently designed to produce blowback, as empire gives rise to the very political violence its managers and apologists so righteously oppose. The central global phenomenon of the present era is the unfolding dialectic between empire and blowback, between imperial power and forces aligned against it, usually referred to as “terrorism” in the West. Empire simultaneously corrupts the domestic political sphere—its lopsided and irra- tional costs, risks, and entanglements subverting the social and political health of American society in general. As the drive for international supremacy brings recurrent, some would argue perpetual, warfare, those who benefit include the military-industrial complex, state power, huge corporations, weapons traders, and a media complex that thrives on hyper- violent spectacles. Tightly interwoven with the neoliberal global order, the U.S. warfare Preface vii system fuels an authoritarian state, shrinkage of public debate, and collapse of political agency under the enormous weight of patriotic conformity. Since war (and orientation toward war) demands a public discourse of lies and myths, politicians, the government, and media all end up as conduits of duplicity and deception. At the very heart of empire, Americans now face a daunting reality: war and militarism are deeply embedded in the very fabric of society, in everyday life, and in the deep attitudes and values of the general population. It might thus be appropriate to refer to a widening “culture of militarism”, a phenomenon that will be difficult to overturn in the absence of powerful counter forces. As one element of this culture, the gun craze— with its estimated 270 million guns, including untold numbers of automatic weapons— is by far the largest in the world. The United States now leads all countries in the number of random massacres, rampage killings, and serial murders. It is the biggest manufacturer and seller of all types of military-style weapons on the international mar- ket. The systematic violence of the warfare state ultimately saturates and deforms civil society as well as the political system. Regarding the primary focus of this book—media culture—its wide panorama of militaristic images and discourses (most visible in Hollywood cinema) helps rationalize and legitimate the imperial system: a swollen Pentagon budget, bases around the world, record arms sales, military interventions, a global surveillance network, and continued modernization of nuclear weaponry. If the established media functions as a linchpin of ideological hegemony, nowhere is this more pronounced than in U.S. military and foreign policy. Warfare-state needs turn the media into a serviceable propaganda instrument, one that relies more heavily on dissemination of “news” and “entertainment” than on outright government censorship and controls. While its opinion leaders champion a free press and diversity of opinion, when it comes to the global scene, the United States can be said to possess one of the most restrictive, ideological media systems anywhere: the TV networks, for most Americans the main sources of “news” and commentary, typi- cally follow a uniform, formulaic (pro-military, pro-war) line, with alternative voices confined to the wilderness. Media culture is both a conduit and an enabler of military power, which seems to give Americans a special pride and sense of identity. This second edition of The Hollywood War Machine appears at a time when political conditions in the Middle East and nearby regions appear to be spiraling out of control, marked by extreme chaos in Iraq and Libya; massive insurgencies and civil strife in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine; mounting conflict between the United States and Russia; new Israeli assaults on Gaza; and the readiness of U.S. military forces to bomb or oth- erwise intervene at any number of crucial flash points. In this global Hobbesian state of nature, the corrupting force of empire can only intensify, further exacerbating the dynamic of imperial power leading to international blowback. If so, a compliant and jingoistic American media culture is destined to work overtime, ever more zealous in feeding patriotic mobilization and

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