Militainment

Militainment is the combination of “military” and “entertainment”. During the past decade the Pentagon has found a way to monopolize on the ongoing and past wars they have participated in. they have done this through the entertainment industry, and have done almost everything to bring the war to your living room. They have managed this by producing movies, television shows, sports, video games and even toys about the many wars. Nowadays we consume war in the same way that a person consumes entertainment and it’s become a prominent part of American life in the 21st century.
The American nation has seamlessly merged the concepts of war and entertainment so now they appear to the everyday person as the same thing. The 2003 war in Iraq was promoted by a movie trailer, made by the Pentagon, and was shown in movie theatres 2 months before the war even began. As for the war movies themselves many served as recruiting advertisement, such as the 2001 movie “Behind Enemy Lines”. Later came the “Shock and Awe” strategy, which was a media event to its core. It psychologically overwhelmed the Iraqis Military, sent a message to the world about US military power, served as a weapons advertisement for the global arms trade and it served as pure entertainment for those who watched at home, it was a MUST SEE television event. As if the news coverage wasn’t enough, many music channels began airing war videos and messages, radio stations played “music that inspires” and even a Iraq War Movie Soundtrack was produced. George Gerber once said, “A boiling point is reached when the ability to wage war coincides with the ability to direct a movie about it.” I believe that this statement rings true, it came to the point that American industries were taking advantage of what was occurring overseas and exploited it just to make a few more bucks as the idea spread that war was becoming natural.
The people at home came to only know one side of the war and that was the television side. They came to know a war without victims, bodies or suffering. This has been a long ongoing thing dating back to the Vietnam war or the first televised war. In the beginning viewers at home got mainly the whole story but later there were media restrictions limiting what was being able to be shown to Americans at home. In 1991 the Pentagon had created conditions so the war overseas appeared short, abstract, sanitized and even beautiful, minimizing any sort of death whether it was soldier or civilian. The first step of “Clean War” was to dehumanize the destruction by not showing human imagery when televising targeted areas and tilting the ground cameras to the sky, avoiding the street view. Weapons were also led to be believed that they were unable to hurt civilians because of their precision and on the chance that a civilian is killed it is immediately known to be the enemies fault. To top of the clean war there was also a “Clean” language: a bombing = air strike, future bombsite = target of opportunity, unarmed areas = soft targets, civilians killed = collateral damage, etc. But even clean war couldn’t escape contradiction because there is no such thing as a clean war. In 1991 George HW. Bush put a ban on press access for any returning caskets and in 2003 the Pentagon clearly stated that they DON’T do body counts, therefore leaving that task for others to figure out. In 2004 a study was done that conservatively estimated the civilian body count to be at 100,000 or more since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The US military budget in 2005 approached the combined total of all other nations combined, while the Iraqis budget was 1/400th the size. All of the effort put into making war “Clean”, made war more friendly but we at home have to remember that when a bomb falls people get hurt.
War was becoming just another thing to watch on television, and just like the Sunday game viewers at home tuned in to get caught up on everything new. Paul Vinilo stated that, “Weapons aren’t just tools of destruction, but also of perception.” Overall the message towards weapons wasn’t wariness but delight. Networks had reporters praising war machines, statistics sheets were also made therefore making weapons central players in the middle of the action and every night the news would have trivia questions about the different battle groups and weapons. Techno-Fetishism was comprised of three points, 1. The worship of weapons, 2. Depicting weapons as objects of beauty, and 3. Ascribing inherent moral goodness to high tech weaponry. Techno-Fetishism was taking over America. When the Pentagon set off the MOHAB, the largest conventional bomb, the networks went crazy with devotion. Even if you were at hoe you could still get the experience of riding inside a V1 bomber just by watching a video and riding in an official fighter plane became an American pastime. If that wasn’t enough you could also purchase a military vehicle on the markets. As if promoting these weapons wasn’t enough networks were also promoting America by showing their sophistication compared to the Iraqis. The news and the military began “selling” the same thing to back each other up. Not only were people encouraged to fanaticize about the war the were also being pulled into the fight as well.
Toys manufacturers were a big seller in the Militainment industry. Christian Borman, president of plan-B toys said, “He told us we should wait until the war starts, and whatever logos we see on CNN, to put that on our toys.” After the presidents flight, Blue Box toys began selling presidential action figures as a part of the “elite force” set and like any other big movie production the Iraq War demanded merchandise such as a monopoly game, trading cards, playing cards, military bears with guns included, action figures, etc. About 40-60% of action figures were bought for or by teens and adult males. New toy companies began popping up and older ones such as GI Joe began making more detailed action figures. There was even a blown up dollhouse being sold. In 2006 the Army caught wind of the toy success and began marketing them as well. These detailed action figures may have even been a little too realistic because when the Iraqis sent a “video” of an American soldier being held captive it later turned out to be a close up of an action figure with a toy M-16 pointed at his head.
Another extremely realistic part of Militainment was video games. Many of the ones being sold commercially were also being used to train soldiers before battle, which was a major selling point for many of the games. Real war video games from the people who make real wars. As usual the Pentagon noticed the new fad and began capitalizing on the public appetite for war play. These video games just proved the point to the nation that war Can be a form of entertainment or liesure activity. War was becoming more virtual everyday with the games, and computer generated flyovers and maps. Soon war games were coming out only months after the certain operation were finished and video games soon surpassed the wars.
Militainment isn’t only the merging of both the entertainment and military industries. It was the exploitation of the carnage that was happening overseas. It’s a sickening thought to just even think of how much the American industries and economy benefited from their own families and friends dying. But the truth is they were to much in awe of how pretty and clean the war was, and if they were the ones that took the chance and fought for their country knowing what was happening at home would they be as proud as they are?