Journal of Emerging Scholarship

The U.S. has long used film and television to justify its military actions abroad. Films like Top Gun: Maverick and Zero Dark Thirty operate to entertain and bolster war-hungry and nationalistic narratives through negative depictions of enemy states and positive depictions of U.S. military actions. The Department of Defense directly supplies airplanes, soldiers, information, and military bases to film directors in exchange for control over the final film’s script. Through both subtle and drastic changes made to many blockbuster films, a patriotic pro-war sentiment has emerged as a common theme amongst these film franchises. News media companies echo the same patriotism by exploiting the fears of the public such as threat of nuclear war or terrorism. Together, these industries provide a particularly brutal image of global politics to the American consumer. This essay seeks to answer the question: How does the U.S. Military utilize film and televised news media as a tool for propagandizing the American public?