Hollywood Propaganda: The Glorification of War by the Film Industry

War has been present since the beginning of human history. Likewise, war movies have been present since the movie industry began. Just like most other genres of film, war films have been created as a form of entertainment to profit a person or organization. More people are willing to spend their money and time on a feeling of action, excitement, heroism, and patriotism than gruesome and horrid images of real and common human destruction. Propaganda has been used by governments for a very long time and when motion pictures came into existence, governments almost immediately saw the new medium as an opportunity to influence the public. Governments such as the United States of America, cooperate with the movie industry to use this influence to promote a positive perception about war in order to gain support for wars. The movie industry portrays war in an exciting, glorified, romanticized, and heroic light and often demonizes the enemies; this causes an unrealistic public perception of war which leads to greater positive public opinion and support of real wars.

Hollywood war movies are commonly based around heroic and courageous actions. These are major characteristics in the movies Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down. Although the film Black Hawk Down is based on an actual event, it is all about common soldiers conquering fear and hardship to save wounded allies, despite seeing the deaths of friends along the way. The story becomes personalized and revolves around a few individual soldiers who give examples of heroism. In the movie, one soldier returns to base injured and later chooses to return to the front line to help rescue his allies that are more gravely wounded than him. There are also multiple instan...

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...ew war as a positive and inevitable part of life they act accordingly. If the public was shown the real horrors of war they would be shocked by what they see and view war for what it really is, a tool that governments uses for its own benefit regardless of how horrible it is. The public would act differently. There would be more protests against war because people would realize that it is not the most efficient or effective way of achieving goals. Congressmen would be less inclined to vote to engage in war for fear of displeasing their constituents and there would be less war, less lives lost, and more exploration in to diplomatic negotiations. War should be reserved for the defense of a nation. With war movies, the movie industry has a very large influence on public perception and as of now this influence is not being used appropriately for the good of humankind.