Please see, "G
uardian," courtesy of Kid Rock in conjunction with, yes, the NATIONAL GUARD.The U.S., while in a horrible recession (I prefer saying depression but people give me a look of death), looking to raise taxes, cutting the professionals in the Navy claiming mass redundancies, while all this is going on, they choose to spend money on REALLY expensive commercials, including a rock video.
So yesterday I went to the movies, and the entire run of previews was sponsored by the National Guard and branches of the armed services. This was a little creepy and I be
came nervous. However, once the ode to the armed services became a rock video, I was genuinely troubled.I alluded to the cost above, just because the production values were extremely high and seriously, the commercials I saw must have cost a fortune. But more importantly, and because the things that come out of my mouth when unguarded are more insightful, I turned to my boyfriend and said, if this isn't like putting cartoon characters on cigarette boxes I don't know what is. He, appropriately, gave me the, I can't believe you just said that as it is totally inappropriate as this is the government and involves patriotic values etc. Of course, the question is, does it.
The problem with military recruitment is the way in which it skews towards those with greater financial needs through its incentive programs and the opportunity to get a job without the
connections that are typically otherwise necessary since we don't actually live in a meritocracy (see random Army recruitment video). There are always exceptions to this, but I want to talk about the bigger issue. Making the whole thing exciting and glamorous and having there be a rock video in which soldiers are these perfect heroes obviously exacerbates these issues. It panders, again, to those who have not been fully educated as to what the military really does and the impact it has on other nations. My biggest issue is probably that it panders to the image of members of the armed forces as precisely what they should not be - that is, violent, irreverent, blind balls of frenetic energy that can ru
n off in any direction.Most of all, the videos were obviously propaganda films, a la, WWII and various other wars. For those who aren't aware, previews in the cinema were a regular forum for these videos and the videos were often weird.
(as examples of weird I offer a couple of Walt Disney examples --> Donald Duck
anti-Nazi film and a truly troubling example of a cartoon-style documentary, the style of which will be familiar to anyone who grew up watching these)They're amusing to watch now, given that we won and all, but you have to remember that the Germans and the Japanese had them too. Everyone thinks they're right. And the distortion of popular culture for political/military ends seems a lot more like something an evil corporation would do for personal gain than something a benign but powerful capitalist democracy should be doing. It just troubles me. And I'm offended that I'm paying taxes for this.
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