Regarding Red Dawn

[Stevicus]

Hmmm... a bit of a chicken egg thing, I guess? Do the movies impart a certain world view? Or are the movies made to appeal to those with a certain world view? Or is it all a self reinforcing feedback loop? "paranoid prone individuals see a movie designed to appeal to paranoid individuals, which reinforces their paranoia, which in turn leads to more movies with more paranoia appeal," and so on?

It's probably some of that, although I think such movies and other elements of popular culture promote a distinctly black-and-white, good guys vs. bad guys viewpoint. As a result, most people have a very oversimplified, one-dimensional view of geopolitics, where "enemies" are viewed as no different than the typical Western bad guy or comic book super-villain.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

It's probably some of that, although I think such movies and other elements of popular culture promote a distinctly black-and-white, good guys vs. bad guys viewpoint. As a result, most people have a very oversimplified, one-dimensional view of geopolitics, where "enemies" are viewed as no different than the typical Western bad guy or comic book super-villain.

Oh, I absolutely agree that the American tendency to reduce EVERY issue to a "goodies vs. baddies" dichotomy is destructive and a product of popular culture/pop journalism... but there too we have the chicken/egg issue... are Americans bluntly black/white dichotomists because that's how pop culture presents every issue, or is every issue presented like that because the audience are black/white dichotomists ? Or is it a feedback loop like I described above? Interesting questions to think about how we got where we are... not necessarily very helpful to get us somewhere better, though.

 

[Stevicus]

Oh, I absolutely agree that the American tendency to reduce EVERY issue to a "goodies vs. baddies" dichotomy is destructive and a product of popular culture/pop journalism... but there too we have the chicken/egg issue... are Americans bluntly black/white dichotomists because that's how pop culture presents every issue, or is every issue presented like that because the audience are black/white dichotomists ? Or is it a feedback loop like I described above? Interesting questions to think about how we got where we are... not necessarily very helpful to get us somewhere better, though.

Some of it may have been an appeal to Americans' moral consciousness to get involved in world wars. We were mostly neutral prior to the World Wars (some often refer to it as "isolationism" although I have reservations about that term). We were like a bystander who "doesn't want to get involved," so perhaps the masses needed some heavy-handed convincing.