Shirin Vossoughi svossoughi@media.ucla.edu
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Remember Super Mario Brothers? Pac-man and Donkey Kong? In case
you haven’t been to Toys “R” Us lately, the world
of technologically advanced video games has exploded since we were
kids. To check out the latest fast-paced adventure game, just pick
up “America’s Army: the Official U.S. Army Game.”
It won’t cost you a thing. Paid for by tax dollars, the game
is absolutely free.
“America’s Army” is just the latest facet of
the military’s multi-media approach to recruitment in the new
age of war without end. Using video games, huge ad campaigns,
reality TV shows and the Junior ROTC, the military’s goal is
to convince youth that life in the armed forces is both rewarding
and fun.
Aimed mostly at youth of color, the expensive recruitment
campaign is a perverse attempt to draw America’s kids into an
institution geared toward violence and obedience instead of pushing
them to pursue the immediate path of higher education.
The Army’s video game makes clear the characteristics the
military would like to cultivate in its target audience of youth
““ players who follow orders gain points on scales that
measure loyalty, duty and honor. As Michael Capps, one of the
games’ designers, states, “The game does include
violence but only in the same way the real Army uses force in
defense of our country. We wanted to portray it as a value-laden
organization.”
The problem is the one sided, rosy view of the armed forces such
modern tools of recruitment promote. For example, the latest
“Army of One” ads ensure recruits that the army
respects their individual identities. Cool commercials and logos
are hoped to blend into popular youth culture to be sold on
products like clothing and gear. Placing their commercials on such
channels as Comedy Central and MTV, the Army’s target age
group is clear: youths aged twelve to twenty-four.
But just as obvious is the group coveted for their race. Just go
to www.americasarmy.com to see for yourself how the majority of
characters are men of color. Hired by the military to help sharpen
its image, Leo Burnett’s advertising firm (famous for such
youth-friendly clients as Disney, Coco-Cola and McDonalds) has also
subcontracted to Cartel Creativo and IMAGE USA to secure the Latino
and African-American niche.
But the racial slant of recruitment doesn’t stop with the
media. In fact, youth in America’s inner cities are bombarded
with images of the military in the one space that is supposed to
promote education and non-violence above all: school. In their
report, “Making Soldiers in the Public Schools,”
Catherine Lutz and Lesley Bartlett show that while public schools
should promote critical thinking and respect for other cultures,
Junior ROTC curriculum promotes authoritarian values, gun use and a
version of history that looks at the heroic accomplishments of
soldiers rather than the role of citizens. JROTC programs stress
military careers as opposed to civilian ones in mostly non-white,
non-affluent schools.
While cuts in education have subsidized a ballooning military
budget, the high-school graduation rate in the U.S. (about 74
percent) is one of the lowest among industrialized countries. For
those who do graduate, schools are crawling with Army recruitment
officers ready to snatch them up. In East L.A.’s Roosevelt
High School, there are five military recruiters for every one
college counselor. As Luis Sanchez of Inner City Struggle points
out, “promises of money or citizenship are thrown out like
candy.”
In addition to video games, commercials and JROTC, the military
has jumped on the “militainment” bandwagon, venturing
into the realm of reality TV.
CBS’s “American Fighter Pilot” and VH1’s
“Military Diaries” are set to compete for the highest
ratings in a time producers see as ripe for jingoistic
television.
With cameras following good-looking soldiers, the goal of these
shows is twofold ““ make the military look exciting and show
the human side of training to kill.
In the upcoming “Military Diaries,” soldiers are
given cameras to tell their stories, hopes and dreams and to help
recruit new batches of youth into the Armed forces.
But this only shows viewers what the Army wants them to see. My
proposal for the next reality TV show: give cameras to some kids in
war-torn Afghanistan, a few women in Japan’s Okinawa and the
people of Iraq and the Philippines. Have them tape-record the death
and destruction, sexual abuse and displacement caused by the U.S.
military. Show the tape to America’s youth alongside Army
recruitment ads and adequate information about higher education.
Then let America’s youth decide if the military is right for
them.