Act of Valor (2012)

John Grant at ThisCantBeHappening takes on the Navy Seals and their new propaganda film, Act of Valor:

‘I’ll let Tom Clancy, the master, establish the nature of the new feature film Act Of Valor. Clancy wrote a preface to the novelization of the Act Of Valor screenplay by Kurt Johnstad. The novelization is now on grocery store thriller and romance shelves all across the nation. Although his name is in 60-point type at the top, Clancy, who has become an industry in himself, only “presents” the book, which was actually written by Dick Couch and George Goldorisi, whose names are in much smaller type at the bottom. Here’s Clancy’s opening sentence:

“Navy SEALs are Olympic athletes that kill people for a living.”

That’s a marvel of a sentence that exploits admiration for the Olympics and the idea of athleticism at the pinnacle of excellence and then presents the killing of other human beings as the equivalent of an Olympic sport. Cool! It also establishes the reverent tone of the movie, which, as the advertising touts, is “the ultimate in action adventure … starring active-duty Navy SEALs.”’

Clancy writes that when he heard that SEAL leadership was planning this movie and popular novelization he reached out to them. It seems he had no trouble getting his crack action thriller writing team the mission to produce the novelization. This thriller, we’re told, is different from all the other assassin and serial killer thrillers on the grocery store shelf: This one is the real deal.

But is it?

There is really no way for the ordinary citizen to know if anything in the movie and book is “real” as far as what an actual Navy SEAL hunter-killer team does, because SEAL activities are so absolutely secret, especially the unpleasant, illegal and embarrassing aspects of SEAL missions. What SEALs really do is not what’s most real about this movie and book. What’s most real about the movie and the book is that they are both pure forms of pop culture propaganda mobilized in the war to occupy the American mind.

Continued at The US and its Dark Passenger, Part II: Act Of Valor