Why We Fight: Subdued propaganda in movies in the age of 9/11

Abstract: This paper explores how American culture has been shaped by the U.S. Military through the lens of Hollywood movies to be more accepting and eager to enlist. There is a variety of material in the text, ranging from internal Department of Defense documents, surveys of servicemembers, academic writing, articles, and Freedom of Information Act requests. While much has been written on the relationship between entertainment and military, there has been less focus on the reasoning behind this relationship and the political theories that can be applied to this association. The theories of Gramsci, Hall, and Lukes will be applied onto the American media-cultural landscape of the post-9/11 era. Because of a lack of previous writing on this specific topic, this essay uses inductive reasoning to reach its conclusion. This being that the economic structures created by the U.S. military with regards to Hollywood, aid the military in its overarching goal of creating Gramscian consent of further recruitment of the public into the military.