The disconnect between America ideas of war and the realities of war can be stark. This disconnect is not something that those who make and profit from war want to fix. We face many societal constructs that sell war to us while simultaneously keeping the true horror of it away from our conscious minds. I would like to use this assignment to explore this phenomenon.
Rambo
If I’m going to discuss war in America, how can Rambo not be my first choice? John Rambo IS war. He has killed enough people to fill the Grand Canyon six times over. Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx, calls in sick to work whenever John Rambo picks up a machine gun, bow and arrow, machete, or spork; anything that can be used to kill a man. Just thinking about how deadly he is makes me want to log into iTunes and rent First Blood.
Call of Duty: World at War
This is a hilarious advert for CoD:WaW and Gamestop. Video games are a wonderful way to reinforce the disconnect between the reality of war and what we think of war. Games like CoD are important because they start the process of numbing us to war early on in our lives.
Marines
What would an American war be without marines? I choose this commercial because it’s just so silly. The new recruit has to overcome insane challenges before he can even get to the fight with the huge lava monster at the end. The commercial uses heroic and fantastical imagery to sell itself, and wisely avoids the use of the more realistic holy-shit-I-just-got-my-fucking-leg-blown-off-by-an-IED imagery. While the latter form is certainly more truthful about war, the former is more likely to get people into the recruiter’s office. Hoorah!
McCain
This is a video promoting John McCain’s presidential bid. It was not an official commercial for the McCain campaign. The reason that I include it, even though it was not an official campaign commercial, is that it uses McCain’s status as a POW to sell him. Though I would likely never have voted for McCain since I disagree with his politics, and even though this is not an official campaign ad, seeing this clip in 2007 may have been just enough to sway my vote. Just kidding, but you get my point.
War Bonds
I include this WWII advert selling war bonds because, frankly, it’s just awesome. Don’t you want to help America win the war? Don’t you want to run a Nazi through with your bayonet? It's 70 years later, and I still want to. Well, if you buy war bonds, that’s pretty much the same thing as eviscerating a Nazi. Well done, soldier.
Good material. I like the way that you titled your collection war (non)visuals, implying that there's something that we're *not* seeing in all of these pieces. With these pieces from such diverse sources, the challenge is to figure out if there's a story to be told through the varying omissions of what you call the reality of war that they all present. The gap between idea and reality always tells a story.
ReplyDelete