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How 'Top Gun' Made Us Love War
All of "us"? Really? Or are you promoting a book? From the footnotes: David Sirota is is a syndicated columnist, radio host and the author of "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now."  Americans are souring on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military budget is under siege as Congress looks for spending to cut. And the Army is reporting record suicide rates among soldiers. So who does the Pentagon enlist for help in such painful circumstances?Hollywood. In June, the Army negotiated a first-of-its-kind sponsorship deal with the producers of "X-Men: First Class," backing it up with ads telling potential recruits that they could live out superhero fantasies on real-life battlefields. Then, in recent days, word leaked that the White House has been working with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow on an election-year film chronicling the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. Is that the military, or the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP)? Not only did enlistment spike when "Top Gun" was released, and not only did the Navy set up recruitment tables at theaters playing the movie, but polls soon showed rising confidence in the military. With Ronald Reagan wrapping military adventurism in the flag, with the armed forces scoring low-risk but high-profile victories in Libya and Grenada, America fell in love with Maverick, Iceman and other high-fivin' silver-screen super-pilots as they traveled Mach 2 while screaming about "the need for speed." You got a shortage-of-testosterone problem, bud? As Mace Neufeld, the producer of the 1990 film "The Hunt for Red October," later recounted to Variety, studios in the post-"Top Gun" era instituted an unstated rule telling screenwriters and directors to get military cooperation "or forget about making the picture." Economics drives that directive, Time magazine reported in 1986. "Without such billion-dollar props, producers [have to] spend an inordinate amount of time and money searching for substitutes" and therefore might not be able to make the movie at all, the magazine noted. Like Apollo 13, made without any support from NASA. It was made without NASA support, but you could of fooled me! The result is an entertainment culture rigged to produce relatively few antiwar movies and dozens of blockbusters that glorify the military. For every "Hurt Locker" -- a successful and critical war film made without Pentagon assistance -- American moviegoers get a flood of pro-war agitprop, from "Armageddon," to "Pearl Harbor," to "Battle Los Angeles" to "X-Men." And save for filmmakers' obligatory thank you to the Pentagon in the credits, audiences are rarely aware that they may be watching government-subsidized propaganda. Funny how I think there are so many anti-war movies. Maybe that's all the media promotes? Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, recently sent letters to the CIA and the Defense Department demanding an investigation of the upcoming Bin Laden movie. He criticized the practice of granting ideologically compliant filmmakers access to government property and information that he says should be available to all. The "alleged collaboration belies a desire of transparency in favor of a cinematographic view of history," he argued. Considering King's previous silence on such issues, it's not clear whether he's standing on principle; more likely, he is trying to prevent a particular piece of propaganda from aiding a political opponent. Ah, but the writer sees a silver lining to that King-Kloud! Yet, even if inadvertent, King's efforts make possible a broader look at how the U.S. government uses taxpayer resources to suffuse popular culture with militarism. Getcher tin-foil hats here! If and when King holds hearings on the matter, we could finally get to the important questions: Why does the Pentagon treat public hardware as private property? To cover the cost of fuel? Why does the government grant and deny access to that hardware based on a filmmaker's willingness to let the Pentagon influence the script? For technical accuracy? And doesn't such a practice violate the First Amendment's prohibition against government abridging freedom of speech? Make the movie you want without their help, like Apollo 13, you whining cry-baby! Posted by: Bobby 2011-08-28 |
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