'Top Gun: Maverick' is Tom Cruise's new Hollywood war propaganda movie without a war

'Top Gun: Maverick' is Tom Cruise's new Hollywood war propaganda movie without a war — where Lockheed Martin stealth jets soar and a NATO-adjacent villain looms

In “Top Gun: Maverick,” the enemy is an unnamed country that threatens our freedoms with a NATO-adjacent nuclear plant and state-of-the-art fighter jets and helicopters. The hero, of course, is Tom Cruise, or possibly the defense contractor Lockheed Martin. While technically an update to the iconic 1980s original, this “Top Gun” hews close to an old-fashioned tradition of soft propaganda for the military-industrial complex dating back to World War II. And while Tom Cruise may think he's immortal, that particular Hollywood institution feels increasingly dated. 

While Tom Cruise may think he’s immortal, that particular Hollywood institution feels increasingly dated.

In 1986, theaters in Detroit, Los Angeles and elsewhere allowed the U.S. Navy to set up recruiting stations outside showings of Tony Scott’s original “Top Gun.” The movie was a critical flop but a box office bonanza, and it not only catapulted Cruise to stardom but also apparently boosted recruitment, although not always in ways that pleased the Navy. While the original movie was still playing, Lt. Ray Gray of the Navy’s Officer Programs Department told the Los Angeles Times that he had seen a marked increase in applications from “individuals who have applied in the past and were turned down or dropped out of Aviation Officers Training School, and individuals who are approaching the maximum age limit (to apply).”

To say that Hollywood and the U.S. military have a cozy relationship is an understatement; read enough history of the armed forces on film and it can seem like Hollywood is merely a byproduct of the American war machine. Celebrated director John Ford worked for the Office of Strategic Services — the precursor to the CIA — heading its field photographic division; in 1942 he shot a documentary about the Battle of Midway as a soldier deployed during the battle itself. He was wounded during the filming, but the finished product earned him both a Purple Heart and a special citation among the the first-ever best documentary Oscar-winners “for its magnificent portrayal of the gallantry of our armed forces in battle.” Frank Capra shot instructional films for the Army between the classics “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “It’s a Wonderful Life;” one of those shorts, too, won an Oscar. Both Donald Duck and Daffy Duck fought for their country in “Donald Gets Drafted” and “Draftee Daffy,” respectively. (Donald’s nightmare about being a Nazi, “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” also won an Oscar). Superman starred in an appallingly racist theatrical short called “The Japoteurs.”

The armed forces were always happy to show the glories of war; its horrors, however, were a different story. Even when dealing with movies made by veterans about their own service, of which they were justifiably proud, the armed forces tightly controlled the narrative. Ford shot footage of D-Day itself; that film stayed in the archives. “Very little was released to the public then,” Ford said of the footage he shot during World War II in an interview with American Legion Magazine in 1964. “Apparently the Government was afraid to show so many American casualties on the screen.” Indeed, some of it stayed hidden until 2014.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/top-gun-maverick-tom-cruises-new-hollywood-war-propaganda-movie-war-rcna30773


Post ID: b3d5d6e0-48c1-43e2-a3b4-c5a3db7d2c43
Rating: 5
Updated: 1 year ago
Your ad can be here
Create Post

Similar classified ads


News's other ads