The Films of Julia Ducournau: Alpha

 

            The third film in my analysis of the films of Julia Ducournau is the allegorically harrowing Alpha. This Palme d’Or nominated film reaches back into the recent past, to bring AIDS and gay panic once again to the forefront, simultaneously intertwining COVID and trans panic into a salient cultural metaphor for our current context. While the overall application of this metaphor is clunky and less focused than in her previous work, Ducournau crafts a visually arresting film with a captivating narrative that seizes the viewer. This brief paper will engage in the historical underpinnings of Ducournau’s pandemic analogy and its similarities with other historical events, while contemplating the film’s conceit that grief is a Durkheimian “social fact”.

 

PLOT

            When Alpha (Melissa Boros), a 13-year-old second generation Algerian immigrant, living in the north of France, gets a homemade tattoo at a party, her Doctor mother (Golshifteh Farahani) fears she may have contracted a new devastating blood born disease that slowly turns the body to stone. The same one that took her Uncle Amin (Tahar Rahim). As they wait for the test results, Alpha gets bullied and ostracized in school while the mother and daughter pair begin to be haunted by Amin. A spectral vision induced by the emotional volatility of the situation and the trauma surrounding Amin’s death 8 years prior. The question is, can both mother and daughter be able to move past this grief, or shall it consume them in a “red wind” storm.

 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

 Ducournau’s third feature cements her visual and storytelling style. Like her previous installments, Alpha weaves a narrative that intersects time periods in a nonlinear structure. Jumping back and forth in time to increase tension around a traumatically transformative event, parallels the social reaction to major health scares and outbreaks over the last 45 years. This section will engage the similarities between the events depicted and the variety of health crises we have experienced in the last half-century; including the scapegoating of the ill, and the socio-political polarization in the wake of each tragedy.

From AIDS to COVID    

Ducournau refreshingly does not specify a particular time period in which Alpha takes place. Instead, she leaves context clues through car models, clothing, building architecture, and a lack of modern technology that indicates the film taking place prior to the turn of the 21^st century. This adds credibility to the marble disease in the film being a narrative allegory for HIV/AIDS (Human Immunodeficiency Virus/ Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome) which was first identified and garnered increasing attention beginning in 1981.

All those who lived through this period, and were aware,[1]were affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Global fear gripped nations. That fear led to the scapegoating and vilifying of the LGBTQAI+ community in ways the current Queer youth may think hyperbolic, but were all vitriolically and venomously validated by both the general public and the broader social institutions at the time. According to Halkitis (2019), the overt homophobia that both preceded and followed the HIV/AIDS crisis, contributed to the prolonged suffering of the community. Because some of the early cases of what would eventually be called HIV/AIDS were first found in gay men, that gave the vocal supporters of religious and anti-gay policies justification to condemn the LGBTQAI+ community as immoral and feel vindication in their bigotry. This is reflected in the CDC first labeling the disease GRID (Gay Related Immunodeficiency).  The misinformation that followed, allowed for a lack of Government support services in the community, forcing a grass roots information campaigns and outreach that saved lives. The Government eventually came around to disseminating the information about the disease and started to pay (a modicum of) attention to this issue; primarily because it started to show up outside of the LGBTQAI+ community, moved beyond drug addicts and in addition to those needing blood transfusions. At the time, the Queer community constructed best practices (which included condom use, and disclosure of sexual partnership) various organizations, and a helpline. Those grassroots behaviors that were born out of necessity in the face of institutional apathy, became foundational to the Government’s response to the crisis. This was extended around the globe but no more so than in African countries where cultural norms and superstitions about virginal sex as a cure, allowed the disease to spread quickly.

              The disease’s origin and the communities around where it initially spread fueled racist, homophobic and classist discrimination. This vacillated from ignorance and violent intolerance to describing AIDS as a “deserved” biblical genocide.  This was all in service of minimizing government involvement by defining the core of the issue as a personal choice. “Culture” and “lifestyle choices” were used as a political dog whistle to mean non-white (specifically Black) and gay. Meanwhile, drug addiction was framed as poor financial choices. This tendency to identify social problems, as a personal problem, is consistent with the white cis/het supremacy that founded the United States; allowing for a dehumanization of these groups. This continued for decades as these groups were perceived as a threat to the foundational core identity of upwardly mobile, productive able-bodied, straight white men. The accusation of anything else is met with violence, ridicule and ostracization. During the height of infection, AIDS was removed from obituary causes of death (along with any same sex partners); labeling it instead as the illness contracted after the individual was immunocompromised.    

As an allegory, The Marbling disease in Alpha functions in a similar fashion both medically and socially to HIV/AIDS:

·         The disease is depicted to be transmitted by blood or sexual fluids

·         The characters we follow that contract the disease are shown to either share needles for drugs or tattooing, or it is heavily implied that they are gay (Both Alpha’s teacher and her Uncle Amin).

·         Once Alpha is suspected by her classmates, she is ostracized. Students flee the pool in a panic when Alpha bleeds in the water and move out of her way as she walks into the classroom.

·         In scenes where the public interacts with people with this disease, there is palpable fear and distancing from the person. One person allowing someone who contracted the virus to sit next to them by offhandedly saying that “It’s fine. I’m dead anyway.”   

·         Much like the cultural norms, misinformation and superstition that allowed for HIV/AIDS to spread in African Countries, Alpha’s Grandmother, an Algerian immigrant talks about “The Red Wind” that gets trapped in the body, and the only way to fix it is to pray, bathe and drink lots of water

Because Durcournau was writing and shooting this film in 2024, it is difficult to not also make a connection to our more recent pandemic, COVID-19, and the lessons that we learned (or more likely did not learn) in the years in between.

            The commonality between all major global events, be they pandemic, World War or economic crisis, is that, in order to overcome the horrific event(s) there needs to be an intersection between every observable/measurable aspect of a society from the Micro (individual) level, the Mezzo (community/group level) and the Macro (Institutional Global level). During wartime, it was the interlocking mechanism of civilian industrial logistics and the military war effort. During an economic crisis there are government subsidies, bailouts and one instance of an increase in a variety of social programs (New Deal). With pandemics, the Government would work on developing a vaccine and make it readily available to everyone (thus eating the cost) then give every household an amount of money to stay at home and where masks in public to stop the spread.  In hindsight, writing this 6+ years after the initial lockdown orders of 2020, while these things did eventually happen, and we reached the desired (but tenuous) threshold of vaccine parity (that may now be put in jeopardy given new 2026 guidelines), we still had to go through a period of anomie.

            Anomie is a Durkheimian term to mean normlessness or chaos. Societal periods of anomie typically arise during periods of social change during a transition between either a type and/or form of leadership. Minor forms of anomie take place during the change of leadership within an established system. For example, a new political party leadership in positions of established power. The focused emphasis and exercise of that power is going to be different, but it is (supposedly) not going to deconstruct the entire system itself. The normlessness experienced here is in the unknown way the new authority will exercise their established power. Major Anomie is where there is a break in the fundamental structures of power. Where the system that delegates and defines that power is removed. This may lead to anarchy, causing the established institutions to crumble, becoming then a steppingstone to a greater anomic effect as the established norms that allow for a civil society are obliterated. And because there are no longer established and agreed upon rules for any type of interaction, all interaction is thereby organized through a lens of acute individualism; making all communication and decision making transactional.

            During the pandemic lockdown, this anomic period was fueled by inherent racism and misogyny that we’ve established in the US since its founding. There was a class divide that caused the experiences of white-collar workers to be able to weather the lockdown easier than others whose jobs could not be completed from home. People of color were disproportionally a part of the workforce that were identified as essential workers (from nurses and doctors to food service workers), and because women are more likely to be members of the part time service industry, they too were unfairly put on the front lines of labor. This was especially significant because we did not have a working vaccine at the time. This period of normlessness also fueled conspiracy theories about bleach, and horse dewormer; which was moving people away from necessary behavioral change and into fear induced apathy.

            This anomie that we felt was also politically weaponized as the mask mandates and lockdown orders came about. The inability for some to accept that this was happening became a point of political manipulation to pry apart social solidarity, and for the Trump administration at the time to maintain power. In addition to peddling the conspiracy theories mentioned above, Trump stated that he believed it would just go away. He actively attempted to gaslight the American people into believing that COVID wasn’t serious. He defied his own mask mandate orders, repeatedly not wearing a mask or taking off the mask in public. This caused several of his supporters to protest the mandates with their guns in their local cities. Trump hid his own infection with COVID, twice. Once during the first presidential debate with opponent Joe Biden, and again during the confirmation announcement of Amy Comey Barrett; thinking that he’d seem weak if he was wearing a mask or taking his health seriously.  The bungling of the COVID-19 responses which contributed to over 1 million American’s dead, was the major factor that cost Trump the election in 2020.         

Ducournau embraces this anomic vibe and uses the unrest witnessed during these two historical crises (HIV/AIDS and COVID) as a backdrop; and unspoken tension that exists in every scene. There are displays of fear and panic that are based in entrenched bigotry but thinly obfuscated as legitimate individual concern. When Alpha confronts the boy she’s seeing about their similar tattoos, he sheepishly admits that he received his tattoo right after her; the same night, with the same needle. When Alpha asks why he did not speak up when he saw that she was being bullied, he demures, indicating that he did not want their classmate’s ire to fall on him.  Here, Ducournau illustrates the hollow rationalization of dehumanization justified by a medical crisis that both reinforces the narcissistic urge of self-preservation, and a desire for social acceptance. Rather than stand in solidarity with Alpha, he allowed peer group socialization to guide his choices and behavior. Granted, during this time of middle school, the social pressure to conform to your peer /friend group is considerably gargantuan. Nevertheless, it was clear through his depiction, and how he treated Alpha, that his caginess around Alpha’s potential illness wasn’t just to protect himself from social ridicule, but to also gain sexual favors from Alpha (kissing in bathrooms and nearly having intercourse in his bedroom).

Mini rant: How Child sexualization on screen contributes to pedophilia

 As an aside: much in the same way I am hard pressed to know the social and political intention of a piece of pop culture because I do not know how that culture is going to be consumed, so too do I bristle at the inclusion of childhood sexuality in coming-of-age films. Especially when they are explicit or contain nakedness of any kind. I question both the purpose and the audience. How does it serve the story, and what is the overall point? Who does this service? Because it doesn’t seem like it is serving the story, the audience, or the actors involved.

I directly questioned the depiction of child sexual behavior in my previous essay on Water Lillies by Celine Sciamma back in 2024. Like Sciamma, Ducournau cast an adult actress to play younger (Melissa Boros was 19 playing Alpha at 13), and while Ducournau did not personally sexualize her main lead, as Sciamma did in her film, she did have a significant development gap between the actor and the age she was portraying. Considering the wide variance in development among girls, there is some authenticity to a “more mature” looking 13-year-old. Yet, to depict them as being in intimate scenarios when they are depicted by someone older, increases the likelihood of their sexualization by the audience and contributes to the normalization of pedophilia.

Regardless of sexuality being a legitimate part of the coming-of-age story, there is a gulf of a difference between including the turmoil of rising sexual feelings and the depiction of sex and nudity amongst characters that are underage. The former is valid, while the latter is exploitatively pedophilic.  It continues the “adultification” of girls on screen and contributes to the sexual objectification of girls in public, which happens so early and with such frequency as it does, that it doesn’t need assistance from the cinema.  

 

SOCIAL ANALYSIS            

The sociological question that Ducournau asks, outside of the allegorical representation of historic medical crises, is the value and interpersonal impacts of generational grief. What does it mean when an individual can’t let go, or someone cannot get past the worst time of their life? Narratively, this is unique as few films explore the failings of a protagonist to find solace or redemption. The primary reason being that people have been conditioned through generations of storytelling to value character arcs that show growth and moving past that point of pain. Generally, it is desirable to see characters that are not in the same place at the end of a story as they were at the beginning. This change shows both acknowledgement of, and a reward for, the investment of time the audience puts into watching the story unfold. It minimizes disappointment. Rare are films that show characters with an inability to grow. When they are depicted, it is usually a moral failing, a cautionary tale. It is something to learn from, so that unlike these characters, audience members can move on; and hold on to hope for something better. However, this messaging becomes muddled with the realities of grief and the way that people engage with it, and the societal expectation of grief and its processes. Few realize that grief is a social fact.

 Grief as a Social Fact

A social fact is clearly defined as any way of acting that is fixed or not, capable of exerting over an individual an external constraint or that which is generated over the whole of a given society whist having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations (Durkheim 1982:59)

   A social fact has three components to it:

1.       Externality: to exist outside of something (prior or outside of the individual) something that we learn through the process of socialization (e.g. language)

2.       Constraint: puts forth a compelling force or coercive power over individuals. It sets limits and constraints on people

3.       Generality: This is something that is widespread that has been deeply rooted in the cultural norms of a group or society, to the point that they are seen as natural.

Grief is an emotion that is felt by a variety of living creatures; not just humans. It exists outside of any one person, even though every person can experience it. Grief continues even if people don’t. Ironically, it is the emotional vacuum experienced after the loss of someone else that propels grief amongst a populace. Grief exists within the individual, and amongst the people. Both inside and outside the person. Externality. Those that have experienced grief understand how it may manifest as psychological and social shackles that keep individuals inert. The cinematic language used to explain grief is one of a barrier. It is consistently manifested as a hindrance; keeping something or someone from “moving on”. That “moving on” is also always presented as something good. This once again frames progress as linear and positive; because it is assumed, where you are, is never where you want to stay. Especially in narrative storytelling, grief is an albatross that must be cast off. Constraint. Since all humans and many nonhumans experience grief, it is an emotion that is ritualistically self-generating within our society. The experience of grief is not novel or unexpected, it is nuanced to the social, cultural and historical context in which it is experienced. We create rituals as a method to “process” our grief. Funerals and other collective experiences around death are not for the corpse, but for the collective conscience. It is a natural part of understanding life. Generality. Yet just because grief can be understood as a social fact, does not mean that its inevitability is how grief is neither conditioned nor socially experienced.

Socially, grief is understood through a capitalist lens. It is a barrier that one must overcome or circumvent to have “grown”. This is measured by our ability to look back on that time of grief and value it for allowing us to be where we are in the present. We understand this in very pro-capitalist economic terms: the process of grief, our progress from it, and the growth or “profit” from experiencing it. In this, grief is transactional. This understanding of grief is reinforced through cinema.

In cinema, grief is mainly played as a constraint. It is the source of tension and conflict from which the filmmakers can create drama, stakes, and thus, audience investment (again a capitalist frame). Therefore, to see a return on that investment, the conflict must be resolved, the constraint removed, evaded or abated. Unfortunately, the consumption of these types of stories through this lens conditions us through the process of socialization to define grief as being fundamentally temporary (again, framed as a process) its resolution an inevitability. Additionally, that conclusion is reached with fundamental ease and speed (about the length of a feature film). While, conceptually, we understand that is not how the actual experience of grief works (emotional experiences in humans tend to exist nonlinearly), it creates a social expectation in individuals, organizations, and the social institutions in which we live, to exist as such.

 The United States being a capitalist society, we’ve framed our social and institutional interactions through the economic language of profit to be transitory and transactional. Thus, the Marxian notion of commodification provides an understanding that everything in human life, even the experiences of our emotions, can be bought, sold, traded or exchanged; grief included. Grief then becomes commodified. Usually manifesting in the form of self-help books with a variety of coping strategies, self-care routines, pharmacology and therapies. Access to these manifestations is not all equally distributed, with some groups, usually those with greater wealth, being able to acquire more than those who do not. Regardless, what often is overlooked is that there is always a societal time limit to grief.

In a capitalist system like the US, grief is assigned a value and is considered a commodified resource. The misery of others is publicly traded, and their recovery is profited from. It is cyclical as opposed to perpetually linear. This is contradictory to the common assumption that sustained grief should be desired for profit. Epitomized by the notion that therapy is never over. The rationalization being that there is always something about yourself that you need to work on (a notion that flies in the face of a therapeutic understanding based on having goals that you want to achieve; and once achieved, the therapy ends). Thus, a time limit to grief seems anti-capitalistic…until you factor in productivity.

Capitalism is an economic system that dehumanizes. It is amoral and apathetic. It does not care about the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of its workers. Thus, the arresting power of grief, halts productivity. The work never stops because the profit cannot abide a limit (Marx 1993). Therefore, there are constraints put on grief. No matter how generous the healthcare plan, no matter how understanding your boss, emotionally supportive coworkers, family and friends are, there is a variety of societal limits to grief’s expression.

Grief is allowed to be intense at the outset, with strong emotional support and a variety of empathetic gestures. But the greater the temporal distance from the grief causing event, the quicker the societal acceptance and behavioral latitude evaporates; replaced by an expectation to move past it and become productive again. Once that time is reached, grief is perceived as an individual and moral failing. Characterizing the person as broken if they cannot get back to their previous productive self. Criticized as being “stuck in the past.”

This understanding of the social conditions of grief is taught through the consumption of cinema. As we engage with a plethora of stories that champion the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity, and to not succumb to trauma, nor the grief and loneliness that accompanies it. We reinforce the social condition that grief is not only a social fact, and a normal part of existence, but as something that we inevitably have to overcome multiple times throughout our lives in order to simply exist within society. We also learn that shame, ridicule and ostracization follows those who cannot defeat grief. This results in people masking and self-medicating their grief. They realize that so long as you are still able to participate in the system, you are left alone (to “not be ok”). You are allowed to be mentally and emotionally broken so long as you are undisruptively productive. Thus, we are given several cinematic depictions of functioning broken people. If they do not improve by the time credits roll, they learn to mask convincingly enough to allow the audience to assume a happy ending; even when that may betray the context of the film itself.  Film in this context then becomes one way in which the acceptable image of grief is laundered. It hides the limits of grief within a capitalist society, creating a culture that sees grief as an aberration, and those that can’t control it, as failures. Ducournau’s Alpha is an exception.

In Alpha, grief is cinematically manifested in the character of Uncle Amin. The audience is introduced to Amin as an intrusion into the lives of Alpha and her mother.  Alpha is noticeably concerned, considering that she has no recollection of who he is at first introduction (occupying her room). This is despite his protests that they know each other quite well, and she was just too young to remember. As her mother returns home, she is uncharacteristically accommodating to her brother whom, as we see in flashbacks, is a drug addict. On numerous occasions, the film shows Alpha’s mother resuscitating him after various overdoses. A flashback to when Alpha was five, reveals that Amin had contracted the virus. He then decides to take Alpha to buy drugs so he can overdose and die on his own terms. When Alpha’s mom catches him in the act, she resigns to assisting him. But as he passes out, Alpha’s mother revives him again, unable to let him go. Eventually, Amin, after a painfully long process, succumbs to the disease and is turned into a marble statue.

Since the film is told in overlapping flashbacks, the story moves linearly but jumps between past and present towards the same event (the inciting incident). Ducournau builds to the moment that traumatized both mother and daughter: their collective assistance in Amin’s attempted suicide. Alpha’s mom administering the lethal dose and Alpha’s promise to make sure Amin doesn’t wake up. This schism results in his haunting of them; a manifestation of their unresolved grief. The mother, unable to let go of her brother, and the feelings of failure from Alpha for not being able to teach her mother to let go. This culminates at the end of the film when Alpha declares that Uncle Amin can’t be with them anymore. At films end, Alpha looks on as her mother and Uncle begin to walk toward the house. Suddenly, the spirit of Amin crumbles, carried off by the wind. Her mother screams, left with nothing but anguish.

A more hopeful interpretation of this final scene is that it is a turning point in the relationship between Alpha and her mother, that they are no longer haunted by the specter of their dead loved one. However, there has been nothing to suggest that growth in any of the preceding scenes. Alpha’s recovery of her lost memories and declaration to overcome grief has no practical weight to it. Given the context of the entire film that proceeded it, it is more likely that this is the start of another grief cycle for Alpha’s mother. Stuck resurrecting the memory of her brother in her own mind because she could not bring him back to life. Grief is a social fact, and for some, it becomes the only truth.

    

CONCLUSION

            Alpha is a film that competently provides a historical allegory for the HIV/AIDS crisis with Ducournau’s wonderful body-horrific flare. Yet, the film seems like an allegory in search of a story. The metaphors were so bluntly heavy handed that the narrative wasn’t cohesively held together in the same way as her previous work. However, where this film shines is in its meditation on grief and its circumventive subversion of audience expectations. We expect the narrative arc to the expiration of grief, the conquering of loss and a rebounding acceptance of life. Instead, this film shows us that somethings aren’t overcome, they are adapted to and lived with. An infrequent lesson that is as equally important as its rosier alternative.  

 

REFERENCES

Durkheim, Emile 1982. The Rules of Sociological Method and selected text on Sociology and its Method. New York: The Free Press  

Halkitis, Perry N. 2019 “The Stonewall Riots, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Public’s Health” in The American Journal of Public Health 109(6):pp 851–852. Retrieved on 4/18/26 Retrieved at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6507988/

Marx, Karl 1993. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy New York: Penguin Classics     

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[1]  Some of us were children. Many of us had the privilege to be kept ignorant of both the severity and the horrors of death the disease brought at the time

'Maximum Lethality': Pete Hegseth and the Interlocking Mechanisms of Alienation, Masculinity, and Militainment

 

INTRODUCTION

            There is an interlocking relationship between the military, masculinity and the movies. This “Militainment” as it is colloquially referred, reaffirms and strengthens the reciprocity of war and cinema. This began with early depictions of John Wayne style heroism of the early to mid1940’s, to the more robust verisimilitude of current conflict depictions on the silver screen. The cinematic depiction of war romanticizes and manufactures a desire for it; by tying it to the validation and expression of masculinity. The military gets recruits. Boys feel like men. And cinemas get consumers. This pro-war propaganda has been so engrained in the media machine that it is nearly impossible to make an anti-war film, which won’t on some level reinforce aspects of this structure. whether that be the desire for war, a pro-violent masculinity, or the militarization of cinema. It was a small consolation that previously, the reality of military organization and the humanitarian horror of actual combat would dispel this masculine military movie magic. However, military technological progress has distanced perpetrators of violence from their victims. This alienation throupled with masculinity and the authenticity of military propaganda through media (films and video games), has truly transformed war into theater. To that point, this brief paper is an examination of the structure of the “militainment” mechanism, how it has shifted historically and how its current form is embodied by the self-designated “Secretary of War”, Pete Hegseth, during the second term of the Trump Administration.  

            Basics of the Military Industrial Complex

            The term “The Military Industrial Complex” is attributed to Former President Dewight D. Eisenhower during his farewell presidential address in 1961. A lot of the ideas expressed in that speech can be found in C. Wright Mills’ (2000) The Power Elite, originally published in 1956. Mills was a Professor at Columbia when Eisenhower was the President of the College, where they shared a trepidation about these intersectional systems (Kerr 2009).

            As stated in a previous essay (2017):

 The Military Industrial complex is the term[17] that explain the collusion between the three most powerful social institutions in the United States; the military, the economy, and the government.  These institutions have particular representatives that are members of the titular “Power Elite” (namely CEOs, high ranking military officials, and politicians). Mills makes it a point to say that this structure is outside of party politics.  This system continues to be in place regardless of who’s in power.  Since its inception after WWII, when we learned that war and military production stimulates the economy (it having saved us from the great depression of the 1930’s), the military industrial complex has been maintained even in times of peace. President Clinton used it in the routine bombing of the Balkans particularly Kosovo, and later Iraq. President Bush used in to expand Military presence in the Middle East and beginning the War on Terror after Sept 11, 2001 which granted more military power in the executive office.  It was this power that President Obama not only didn’t give up, he refined it into a seamless drone war machine. Given the rhetoric President Trump has been spewing, I do not see this long history stopping anytime soon.

Regarding the use of the Military, the first Trump administration seemed tamed by the perceived guard rails of established centrist Republicans. Although he dropped the MOAB on Afghanistan in April 2017, and assassinated Qasem Soleimani in 2020. Reinforcing the apparatus of the Military Industrial Complex through established right-wing war hawks. Unfortunately, this is paled by the second Trump Administration’s thirst for violence; both domestically (with their exercising of draconian gestapo style tactics against Immigrants and advocates) and internationally, first with the bombing of Venezuelan boats, and now Iran.

            As this trifecta of terror, these three institutions (Economy, Military and the Government) have amassed wealth, geopolitical power and military dominance since its implementation in 1946. The economy, represented by corporations, lobby congress to gain government “no bid Cost plus” contracts. This increases their profits and then employs soldiers from the military after their service into their Private Military Contractors. These contractors are often organized into security firms that conduct a lot of military operations and training (including local police and border security) without the same stringent military code of conduct or punishment (Scahill 2007). The Military, represented by high-ranking officers, set the terms of the contract with corporations through the Department of Defense and award those contracts as they see fit. These same military officials also have seats in Congress that set the budget for the Military that has consistently increased regardless of times of war or peace. The Government, represented by politicians, often gain campaign funds from corporations through lobbying. Whether that be direct contributions (which significantly increased after the Citizens United decision) or indirectly through PAC money, gifts or donations- which they have a poor record of disclosing. They then literally weaponized the military (through determining their budget) to carry out their domestic and legislative agendas. Yet this system does not fully encapsulate control of the populace until it includes the media.   

 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

It was through The Power Elite that Mills is the most prophetic. He outlines a system that we not only still use (as I have illustrated above) but expanded; bringing think tanks and the media into the fold. Think tanks being the private organizations that write public policy which get introduced into congress by politicians.  The media is the catch-all term for the news and entertainment industry which shapes public perception, and in turn, policy. (Brutlag 2017)

            The most important historical shift in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) to understand the collusion between the military, movies and masculinity[1], is the inclusion of the media in the process of recruitment and shaping the public perception of the military. The initial relationship between the movies and the military, dates back to World War I when President Woodrow Wilson hired filmmakers like DW Griffith (famous for the overt and incredibly racist film Birth of a Nation) to shape public support for the war. According to Mirrlees (2025), The Committee on Public Information, the Government’s wartime propaganda agency, established a division of films and worked with studios to cultivate public support.  By World War II, as the MIC was getting established to maintain the necessary (and overwhelming) logistics of military production, support for the war could be found, not only in the newsreels before the movie (telling the audience to buy war bonds and collect scrap metal) but in the feature presentation they paid 35 cents to see.

Early John Wayne films through the 1950’s romanticized the great war and shaped the public perception of it as a just, noble fight against fascism. This rhetoric was reinforced through our collectively manufactured guilt that led to the establishment of Israel as a Nation in 1948 (which becomes important later). This created a form of momentary collectivism, where the war effort at home could be connected to broader military endeavors. The draft at the time was perceived to be a noble sacrifice against tyranny because we were told-so, not just by the representatives of the MIC, but by the celebrities in the movies we watched. This support continued through the 1950’s. Wayne and his ilk continued to do their part to shape our understanding of WWII and our support for it. Yet, after Vietnam, the public’s support of the military waned. The thrice imposed draft (WWII, Korea, Vietnam) coupled with the recognition of the dangers and horrors of war through news broadcasting at the time dwindled enlisted numbers through the 1970’s. This changed with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

 

Reaganite Militainment           

“Together, these economic and political dynamics forge and sustain a powerful synergy between Hollywood and the Pentagon, cementing a mutually beneficial relationship between the means of making war spectacles and the means of making war.” (Mirrlees 2025: 7)

                        Prior to being elected to Presidential office with the 1980 election, Ronald Regan learned of the propagandistic power of the media during World War II. At the time, Reagan was an Army Air Corp Lieutenant and his unit’s public relations officer who was tapped by major studios to star in Air Force, which required him to transfer to the Military’s first Motion Picture Unit.(FMPU). Their goal was to create military training, moral and propaganda films during the war. They were responsible for Frank Capra’s Why We Fight and the documentary on the bomber “Memphis Belle” as well as several short films.

            Reagan’s term in office oversaw the (often literal) explosive integration of movies, military and masculinity. Firstly, there is the common claim that the popularity of 1986’s Top Gun helped to increase Navy recruitment by 200%  which illustrated the value of the military’s relationship with Hollywood. Even as a recent analysis has shadowed that claim in doubt, (though still rising by 8% which is significant) the public perception of that false claim is far more lucrative in establishing the media military mechanism we are familiar with today. As Social Constructionist W.I. Thomas famously said (paraphrased): What is real, is real in its consequences. It was far more beneficial for the Navy to maintain this false statistic because its very existence strengthened the relationship between Hollywood and the Military. The true value lying not in recruitment, but in the shaping of public support for military foreign policy.

            Secondly, The Reagan Administration’s foreign policy was championed through the 1980’s by the cultivation of Action Hero Cinema. The US/Soviet cold war was fought at the movieplex. The characters of the 1980’s Action Cinema became the wish fulfillment fantasy of American foreign policy at the time. Their actions on screen being symbolic representations of American global dominance. As President, Reagan would lean into this by first invoking Rambo when quipping about foreign policy during the White House Press dinner, talking with film star Sylvester Stallone about foreign policy, and personally promoting Rambo III (De Semlyen 2024). A film, which depicts John Rambo assisted by, arming and honoring the Taliban. Here, rather than a general foreign policy, Rambo represents the literal actions of the CIA.  Still, beyond these specifics, the broader cultural ramifications of these depictions have stuck in the minds of those who were indoctrinated to it. This is especially true of children who come away with the mindset of violence as the only antidote to global conflict; often as adults, rhetorically calling for the indiscriminate bombing of countries that might be a potential threat to “the American Way” of life (Brutlag 2025).

 

            The Militainment of “Terror”

            After the International terrorist attacks on 9/11, the pentagon and the Department of Defense (DOD) expanded its editorial control over movies, TV shows and Video Games.   

            As stated in a previous essay (2025):

            According to Robinson, Gonzales and Edwards (2024):

 In November 2001 when Karl Rove had a meeting with the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti. The Bush Administration needed a unified response to terrorism for the purposes of national security:

1.      The US campaign in Afghanistan was a war against terrorism, not Islam

2.      People can serve in the war effort and in their communities.

3.      US troops and their families need support

4.      9/11 requires a global response.

5.      This is a fight against evil

6.      Children should be assured that they will be safe

While not stating this as propaganda, Rove did declare that leaders of the industry have ideas about how they want to contribute to the war effort. (Robinson et al, 2024: 61).

Rove’s actions speak to the way the media is used by the government to shape public perception. But, instead of news reels and cartoons playing before films as they did during WWII, the mechanism of propaganda has become far more incestuous in years since. Regularly, film production and video game developers are provided with military consultants that control the depiction of the government and the military in that medium. For film, this means a lower production budget in exchange for script approval and distribution access. Therefore, during “The War on Terror.” the undercurrent of major studio productions was to encourage support for US foreign policy.

This is how the DOD became intimately involved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU); whose primary heroes for the companies first 22 films were a womanizing war profiteer (Tony Stark/Iron Man) and a WWII war hero (Steve Rogers/Captain America. The epitome of American Exceptionalist Propaganda. But the crown jewel of success for the DOD was not in the infiltration of the cultural zeitgeist of the superhero genre, it is in the transformation of actual military service into cinema.

            This transformation of actual military service into cinema took two related but divergent paths in Hollywood. First through The Pentagon’s ability to reshape the narrative around controversial military policies and secondly, their glorification of military service by casting active soldiers in 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty, and Act of Valor released the same year.

Zero Dark Thirty is remarkable in the development of post- 9/11 “militainment” because it was the first film in history to have unfettered access to the Department of Defense during production. This resulted in the film taking on a pro-torture stance; insinuating through the film’s plot that torture can garner credible and actionable intelligence. An implication that was proven false with the release of the Official Senate Report on CIA Torture released in 2015. Still, with the help of maniacal sexist and convicted rapist Producer Harvey Weinstien, the film not only was garnered with the Best Picture Prize at the 2013 Oscars, but it was the first female Best Director win in the history of the Academy (Kathryn Bigalow). A Glass ceiling was broken at the expense of perpetuating propaganda.

Act of Valor, also released in 2012, was one of the first films to involve active-duty Military. Originally conceived as a promotional ad video for the US Navy Special Boat Teams, the producers became so enthralled with the Navy SEALs they were working with that they devised a film about them. At first, the soldiers were brought on just as consultants on the film (like any other militainment fueled project), but the filmmakers realized that no actor could portray the actual combat skills that they desired for the film, so they recruited the soldiers into the movie. However, according to one report, this participation was far from voluntary; and the Navy not only retained script and final cut approval but they also retained the raw footage to use in both training and marketing. Films like this intentionally blur the line between fantasy and reality; granting fictitious events, or dramatic license of actual events, a great deal of unearned voracity. This then intentionally favors a militaristic interpretation of history in the mind of the audience.

The release and recognition of Zero Dark Thirty and Act of Valor mark a turning point of “Militainment” during “The War on Terror” as the mechanism of the military industrial entertainment complex turns inward on itself to solidify the totality of the Military dominion over the public and their own recruits.      

               

                        Other Contributing Factors During this time  

During the 20 year “War on Terror” there were other factors of militainment that contributed to the authenticity of military propaganda. The first of which was the creation, use and eventual normalization of embedded journalism. The Military learned the power of the media to shape public opinion and perception of war after Vietnam. The media’s access to information and its unfiltered presentation of war turned the people against military actions and fueled the anti-war movement. This is why during the first Gulf War, most of the journalists covering the conflict were relegated to briefing rooms. They were trying to control the message. Going into “The War on Terror”, and specifically The Iraq War, the military tried another approach to maintain messaging. They would allow reporters to be “embedded” with military units in hope that their proximity to soldiers would skew their reporting. The goal was to control the narrative. It worked extraordinarily well. It contained the message, as these embedded reporters would only get the war from the perspective of the soldiers. As it was unclear if these embedded reporters had the access or ability to talk to anyone else besides the soldiers they were living with and relied upon for their health and safety (Linder 2006). It is hard to criticize someone when they are actively protecting you. Through this vantage point, the soldiers would be humanized and be distanced from the wider conflict that they were fighting. This resulted in the common phrase during The Iraq War, even among dissenters: “I support the Troops, Not the Mission.”. According to Linder (2006) “Although the media were aware of the effects of such reporting, articles by embedded reporters were both more prominent and more widely available than other types of reporting.". Therefore, it is no surprise that 71% of news stories during this time were coming from embedded reporters. The pentagon had controlled the messaging.           

            Another contributing factor to the complete expansion of militainment during “The War on Terror” was the implementation and expansion of the predator drone program. Just as the embedded journalism humanized soldiers, the drone program preyed on that sympathy to allow for its proliferation. The US drone program was sold to the American people as a way to safeguard our soldiers. Instead of putting our soldiers in harm’s way with boots on the ground, We could protect the sanctity of a soldier’s life by using remote piloted planes to deliver munitions. Ostensibly, valuing and validating the lives of our soldiers above those that we were planning to bomb. We create value in life through the way that we grieve- the rituals, ceremony and meaning that we attach to it. Through these processes we recognize (some) lives as grievable; those certain lives, our lives (nationalistically), become sacred over others (Butler 2010).  While this seems reasonable, even caring. The distance away from the consequences of violence alienates individuals from any empathy or remorse they might experience if they’d feel directly accountable.

In Sociology, the Milgram Study taught us about how we have been conditioned to authority. Briefly, the study, disguised as a learning test, instructed respondents (assigned the role of Teacher) to administer electric shocks with increasing voltage for every wrong answer another respondent (assigned the role of a learner) would give. The actual experiment was to see how long individuals would comply with basic nonaggressive commands from an authority; and to see if they would shock people to death if told to do so.  Although there was a lot of complaining, bartering, and pleading with the authority, 65% shocked up to lethal levels.  In the original experiment, the respondent receiving shocks were placed in another room obscured from the “teacher’s” view. As the distance got closer, Milgram found that the compliance percentage dropped. Seeing and being the clear direct source of harm caused people to end the experiment. Through this lens, the US drone program is a perfect example of an obedience to authority; except instead of flipping a switch to administer an electric shock; the soldiers are pressing a button to deliver a payload that will vaporize a target. This compliance and obedience are reinforced through the conditioned alienation towards violence found in video games.    

A considerably large chunk of Militainment is consumed by the infiltration of the Military into interactive Video games. Prior to the digital era and the dominance of PC and Console video games, Tabletop Strategy and RPG games were used to simulate war plans (Payne 2025). We see remnants of this depicted in pre-digital age period pieces, or in fantasy series where a war council is developing battle plans. But as the computer got more advanced and gaming became a viable subculture from which to pluck potential Privates, the Military leaned into incorporating video games into their overall media dominance.  Their intent was two-fold: to condition prepubescent players to be enamored by the military and the jobs of soldiers, and to use videogames to condition the soldiers that they already have; to improve coordination, communication and strategy.

The Military really started to involve themselves in the gaming subculture in the early to mid-1990’s with ID software’s release of Doom. The Military took note of the growing influence of the game and its potential to be a cost-effective supplement and simulator for training. They modified the game; changing the sci-fi setting to something slightly more realistic and found that it was a successful team building exercise. Then just after 9/11, The military constructed a gaming project known as America’s Army in 2002. This series of games was designed as a public relations recruitment tool during “The War on Terror” spreading US Militarized Propaganda. Other games followed: Full Spectrum Warrior, Virtual Reality Combat Training (Created by Private Military Contractor Raytheon), Tactical Iraqi, and Virtual Battlespace 2. As these training tools became more sophisticated in the 20 years from the beginning of the war to its “official end” in 2022, they began to mirror what soldiers would see in combat, as they looked through a scope or fired down on the enemy from a helicopter. This furthered the blurring of the line between simulation and situation, adding to the alienation and lack of empathy soldiers would have for their enemies.   

Today, like films, many video games have military consultants. Those consultants have control over how the military is depicted in the game. In exchange, developers are granted access to military style weapons and gear to be used in their project, even having soldiers to provide motion capture. The game would also be fully endorsed by the military and available to soldiers on their bases. This includes specific Military focused Games like The Call of Duty series, the Medal of Honor series, EA’s Battlefield series, the Tom Clancy techno-thrillers and Counterstrike. This also included other genres that had a military flavor to it, such as StarCraft and the Medal Gear franchise. Again, like film, any game that had a passing connection to the military, no matter how ancillary, would be eligible for Military assistance. Yet the genre of game that lent itself to most of the Military’s focus was The First Person Shooter (Payne 2025).

The First-Person Shooter (FPS) is a style of gaming that places the gamer in the point of view (POV) of the main playable character who uses usually copious amounts of various types of weaponry throughout the storyline to advance the plot. Many of the games mentioned above are structured as an FPS. This allows the gamer to symbolically embody the protagonist; and if that protagonist is a soldier, then the gamer becomes one temporarily in the liminal space of the game. This is attractive to The Military because, with the Military’s assistance, it can condition gamers to think, act and react like a soldier; years before they are eligible to enlist. Thereby creating cultural value in the Military again and establishing a subtle pipeline between mainstream consumer and the Military. This subtlety has been made more apparent in recent years through the Military’s sponsorship of e-sports.

To reach late Gen Z and early Gen Alpha, branches of the Military have created their own e-Sports leagues (Payne 2025). They host gaming sessions on Twitch and YouTube and oversee The Armed Forces E-Sports Championship semi-annually. According to Payne (2025) this shifts the focus of Militarization of video games into the Militarization of video game culture. Sociologically, this reduces required resocialization of individuals through established mechanisms like Boot Camp. As these behaviors related to military service become more ingrained in the overall process of general socialization through media consumption, rather than spending the time, money, energy and effort to break Non-Military Civilian rules regulations and norms through an arduous 16-week process. Instead, the targets of this recruitment are already coming in with a skill set that has been cultivated through the culture of video games, and an indoctrination to the obedience of the Military.               

            Unfortunately, because The Military is hyper focused on recruitment and indoctrination of new recruits, the training of existing soldiers lean into depictions of the military as inherently and consistently violent; which is not an accurate depiction of a soldier’s daily experience. Thereby, reinforcing only the aggressively violent aspects of soldiering. While these games improve communication between a squad, they do nothing to help with interactions with civilians. They being forever framed as faceless enemies in need of eradication and undeserving of sympathy. A mentality that is embodied by the Warrior Ethos masculinity that permeates the Military subculture.

 

SOCIAL ANALYSIS

             Historically, Military positions have always been open to men for several generations allowing men to monopolize the Military subculture into a venerable “boys club”. Women were regulated to support positions even through the majority of the “War on Terror.” Although, as many servicewomen would glibly attest, the only difference between combat and combat support is semantic and about 10 feet. Yet, this alienation and dismissal of their role in combat has caused women to non-identify as Combat Vets, even though they qualify.   This culture became so toxically masculine that when combat roles were finally open to women in 2013, women would consistently downplay their femininity to fit in to masculine military culture; and avoid the very real danger of sexual violence while in the military. As this alienation of women in the Military illustrates, the inherent focus of “Militainment” indoctrination is those who identify as cisgendered boys and men.

            The ‘Warrior’ Ethos: Anger, Entitlement and the Action Movie Mentality

            As boys and men are the targets of “Militainment” socialization through media consumption, collusive in its construction is a caustic characterization of civility and chivalry that couples violence with a virulent masculinity that is motivated by misogyny.  

            The Warrior Ethos can be defined as "I will always place the mission first, I will never accept defeat, I will never quit, and I will never leave a fallen comrade." The Warrior Ethos is a set of principles by which every Soldier lives. In a broader sense, the Warrior Ethos is a way of life that is often applied to personal and professional lives of men through general gender socialization. It defines who they are and who they aspire to become. This “code of conduct for life” fosters a sense of reward-based entitlement, an unwillingness to say no, to be utterly relentless and to put their goals (mission) above anything else. This is complementary to the establishing and development of a Rape Culture.

 The Rape Culture is the complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is sexy and sexuality is violent from institutions, interactions and everyday behavior.

            In such a culture: women both perceive and experience a wide continuum of threats and acts of violence daily that ranges from sexual remarks, stalking (both real and virtual) touching to rape itself. It is a culture that condones physical, emotional and psychological terrorism against women while presenting it as the norm^[2] In the rape culture, both men and women assume that sexual violence is a way of life.^[3]

 

What lead to the formation of the Rape culture is Multifaceted and layered:

1. Boys are socialized that masculinity is tied to violence and emotional suppression
2. Masculinity is fragile and can be easily repudiated. Men therefore must (re)establish their masculinity in every social situation especially when around other cis/het men 
3. The belief in hetero-normativity and that all men are entitled to women. Ex: “There is someone out there for you.” ^[4] As if you don’t have to do anything work on the relationship or yourself.
4. Women are taught to understand sexuality that is not rooted in their own body^[5] but as a performance usually for the pleasure of heterosexual men (Women’s ability to be sexually fluid has often been commodified as a sexual product for male consumption)
5. Girls get the message that one way that women can access power (especially masculine power) through the achievement of male sexual pleasure, especially within a relationship context.
6. This sends the message to boys that girls are sexual manipulators thereby making them feel powerless, emasculated.
7. Boys learn that one way to regain their masculinity is by “taming” and punishment of women through humiliation, rape, other forms sexual violence, or murder.

 

This punishment is achieved through a myriad of behaviors outside of the typically defined Rape and sexual violence. To establish dominance, power and control.

            In the Military, rape is being used as a weapon, a tool of war and genocide and oppression. Rape culture is a militarized culture and "the natural product of all wars, everywhere, at all times, in all forms." This is historically, politically and socially a part of this Warrior Ethos.

            The toxic masculinity of the warrior ethos is consistently perpetuated in the action films marketed to boys and men. As mentioned above, the Reaganite Militainment of the 1980’s that helped to further Conservative foreign policy, simultaneously cultivated a unique masculinity that complemented and crystalized the warrior code. Film franchises like Rocky, Rambo, Bloodsport, Die Hard and The Terminator consistently conflated toxic masculinity with the heroic ideal. Heroism in this context is misinterpreted stoicism plus violence. Violence is dispensed as moral justice, and typically, the protagonist is rewarded at films end with the prize of a woman, and the promise of sexual gratification. All aspects of The Rape Culture.

            De Semlyen (2023) synthesizes it like this:

            “Claims of sexual assault and harassment followed several [of these actors] throughout their careers The heightened sense of Masculinity they portrayed on-screen had the potential to warp and corrupt. And not just for the men wielding the weapons, but sometimes for those who worshipped them. If life was cheap on-screen, it could be cheap off-screen too.” (p.9)    

            Since the heyday of 80’s Masculinity there has emerged a different type of masculinity that tried to indoctrinate a different kind of man.

            As I state in a previous essay (2025)

            Sigma” coded masculinity arose first from a 2010 blog post by Science fiction writer, Jon Beale, who, in addition to espousing a myriad of racist and sexist beliefs, expressed his frustration with the generalization of the “alpha and beta” structure and what he considered “the losers” underneath them ( Just to go down the list: deltas gammas, lambdas and omegas). Thus, he coined the term “Sigma male” which is collectively understood as the introverted “lone wolves” and outsiders that seemed to be on par with Alpha males, but maybe didn’t express their level of bravado while remaining intelligent and stoic.  One characteristic of this “Sigma” type of man that is often glossed over is their expressions of neurodivergence. Many of the character names that are often proselytized as “Sigma males” are John Wick, Walter White, Tommy Shelby, Jason Bourne and Tony Stark. Those unconventional Heroes/anti-heroes, that do not exhibit hyper masculine qualities, are brilliant but are able to become singularly focused, mission driven, obsessive, have skilled pattern recognition, able to be a social chameleon but unable to read social cues all the time. Thereby incorporating qualities of neurodivergence on the autism spectrum into this questionable masculinity quagmire.

regardless of where men are on this corrosive carousel of status and identity, they all perceive themselves above women. It is their misogyny that binds them

 

Thus, from these descriptions there is a consistently strong correlation between masculinity, militainment and misogyny that revolves around the alienated dehumanization of others. This collusion is so strong that through the process of Cis/Het masculine gender socialization in the US, there is a likely internalization of ‘Militainment’ propaganda as an expression of that masculinity. This is often represented by a desire to be an action hero, to speak in cliché ’ed one-liners, and expect that violence will have no consequences. This is currently exemplified by Self- defined “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, and the actions of the Second Trump Administration.

 

CASE STUDY: PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (SOD)  

            Pete Hegseth is the embodiment of the alienated masculinity that motivates militainment propaganda. Since being appointed to the position of the Secretary of Defense, he has become emblematic of the violent misogyny and dehumanizing otherness of US foreign policy of the past; and doubles down on those attitudes in his current job (so long as he has it). These actions are part of a pattern of behavior throughout his life that epitomizes the relationship between the military, masculinity and the movies.

            Truncated Origin

            Born an eldest Millennial in Minneapolis, Pete Hegseth later went on to Princeton where he majored in Politics (BA) before joining the Reserve Army Training Corp just months before 9/11. Once he graduated, between stints at Bear Stearns, Hegseth was deployed through the Minnesota Army National Guard to Guantanamo Bay to guard detainees. Hegseth enlisted during the Troop surge in the Iraq War in 2005 and was part of the 187-infantry regiment. After his tour, he went back to the Army National Guard where he taught counter insurgency training. He would remain in ‘The Reserves’ until 2021; prompted to leave by the election of Joe Biden.

In-between reservist duties, Hegseth worked with conservative think tanks and veteran advocacy groups (funded by the Koch Bros.). Simultaneously, he began a hosting gig for the TV program Fox and Friends, where he eventually caught Trump’s eye; leading to his current position. Yet acquisition of this position was not easy. During the confirmation process, Hegseth was determined to be wholly unqualified for the position. Reports and allegations of alcoholism,  workplace aggression, sexual assault, racism  and  misogyny threatened to torpedo his chances. In the end, Vice President JD Vance had to Break the Senate tie to get him confirmed.

                        Beliefs      

            Hegseth is a conservative Christian whose faith seems to have deepened over the last 10 years with his connection to Pastor Douglas Wilson, who supports the repeal of women’s rights to vote. Hegseth’s support of Christianity extends to support of religious Crusades, going so far as to have two Crusade style tattoos on his body; one of which has been consistently used by and credibly tied to White Supremacist groups especially Christian Nationalists.  

In terms of Conservative Politics, Hegseth has been known to support:

·         Jan 6^th insurrectionists – blaming the violence on Antifa

·         Anti- Abortion

·         The repeal of Gay Marriage (calling Gay people Abnormal)

·         The removal of women from Combat roles in the Military

·         Opposition to Diversity Equity and inclusion DEI

·         Climate change denial

·         Anti- Muslim sentiments

·         The US separation from the UN and to ignore the Geneva Conventions

·         Anti-Masking (COVID)

 

The manifestation of these abhorrent policies and beliefs is then filtered through Hegseth’s media consumption of Militainment propaganda. The result of which has him speaking in Action movie clichés as a way to express both the strength and power of our own military and shield his own insecure fragile masculinity.

The First ‘Action Film’ Secretary of War

            As a child of the 80’s and early 90’s, Hegseth’s formative years of gender socialized masculine indoctrination came in the form of Reaganite Militainment complete with the toxicity of sexism, and support for conservative foreign policy. Therefore, in his role as Secretary of Defense he would create a workplace culture and develop actionable policy initiatives that would reflect that internalization. This was first witnessed in an unprecedented speech to the Generals of all the armed forces, where Hegseth outlined his intended policy changes to the culture of the Military.

            On September 30^th 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth addressed all the Generals of the Armed Forces. This had never been done in the history of the Department due to the considerable cost and danger to national security such an event posed. Hegseth walked to a podium in front of a large flag that was intentionally reminiscent of George C. Scott; this indeed was designed as Hegseth’s Patton moment; rallying the Generals into his new world order. It was here that he rebranded the Department of Defense as “The Department of War”. A rename that is unofficial, as the change of the department name and his title takes an act of Congress. As he spoke about this transition he used rhetoric like the type of speech C. Wright Mills (1958) identifies as a key indicator of Crack Pot Realism, an ideology that will lead us into endless war. During the bulk of his speech, Hegseth offered a blistering rebuke of diversity, equity, and inclusion standards in the Military, the reinstatement of  male based physical standards, Haircut and facial hair standards based upon white cultural norms and a “No more walking on egg shells policy” a  clear political dog whistle effectively reinstating overt discrimination.

In October 2025, Hegseth mentioned that the US had been engaged in a campaign of bombing Venezuelan boats since the beginning of September. He identified the targets as “drug boats” and described the captains of those boats as “Narco-Terrorists” without providing any further evidence that challenges the credible claim that these were just fishing boats. As of March 9^th, 2026, there have been 44 strikes with 146-deaths and only 5 survivors. To add insult to these injuries/ deaths, during his state of the Union, President Trump quipped that people in the region were afraid to fish because of the strikes. During these strikes Hegseth was reported to allegedly use rhetoric that would fit right into the dialogue for a Michael Bay villain; calling the Military to “kill everyone” in a controversial “double tap strike” to eliminate survivors in direct violation of The Geneva Conventions, and a possible war crime. However, the strongest example of Hegseth representing the interlocking mechanisms of Alienation, Militainment and Masculinity is in his actions and rhetoric around the US/Israel war with Iran. 

      

                        Iran War

            After the initial strikes against Iran in late February 2026, Hegseth held a press conference in early March where his violent rhetoric took on a verbose cinematic tone of performative masculinity.  Saying of the Iranian Conflict that “This was never supposed to be a fair fight.” And they will continue to “Hit them when they’re down” without “rules of engagement” while bragging about their awe inspiring “maximum lethality”. “ They’re toast and they know it.” he once said.  He also constantly spoke of domination and control that harkens back to the reclamation of power used by perpetrators of intimate partner violence; Hegseth threatening and reveling in the use of the words “kill”, “death” and offering “No Quarter” to US enemies. To reinforce this amalgamation of Militainment with actual real-world violence, in a series of promotional videos for the strikes, The White house interspersed “killstreak animation” from the Video Game Call of Duty.  As well as film clips from Braveheart, Superman, Top Gun, Breaking Bad, and Iron Man alongside declassified imagery of the Iran War which again muddles the understanding of the difference between fantasy and reality. Unfortunately, by using this boastful, hyper masculine action movie language, and popular cinema with a catchy music track behind it; Hegseth garners support from like-minded right-wing populist goons. So much so that Gov. Greg Abbot believed that the Video game cut scenes were actual footage of the US bombing Iran. As always, Pop culture is soft power.    

  

Pete Hegseth is a deeply unserious person. His demeanor, decisions, (scripted) dialogue and (lack of) decorum does nothing to obfuscate his unseriousness, as he presents a painfully pejorative performance of prepubescent masculinity that is as toxic as arsenic. But that performance is a product of the alienated detachment caused by the internalization of our culture of Militainment; specifically through 80’s Action movie consumption. He wants to be as strong as the characters he grew up with. He is a scared little boy who wants a big strong hero to make him feel safe again. So, he projects one…poorly. There are a lot of cis/het men like Pete, who share his same beliefs and world view. But many of them have not risen in the ranks with such speed and ineptitude as to sit at a position of power. Now, instead of playing with action figures in his bedroom, Hegseth is playing with the lives of both soldiers and international civilians, albeit with the same childlike imaginary detachment. He thinks weapons are cool because they explode, and that makes him masculine and therefore strong. This militainment masculinity hasn’t taught him to care about what happens when the fires go out and the dust settles. To him, strength is masculine and you show strength through violence, which leads to victory, and in Pete’s mind, validation.       

 

CONCLUSION

            The actions and behavior of self-described “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth during his tenure illustrate the epitome of the interlocking mechanisms of the military, masculinity and the movies. He quips action movie style dialogue as a shield to desperately hide his insecurity. However, he is not unique. Those without Hegseth’s power and influence often hold the same beliefs and speak in movie dialogue. This is a function of the long history of general and gender socialization to masculine Militainment propaganda where there is no diplomacy, only destruction. Hopefully, Hegseth, not being immune from prosecution, will eventually learn through an international war crimes trial, that real life is not like the movies.   

 

REFERENCES

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___________ 2025 “Episode 52: The Rambo Franchise Part I with Dr. Ted Preston” In The Sociologist’s Dojo Podcast retrieved on 3/13/26 Retrieved at https://thesociologistsdojo.libsyn.com/episode-52-the-rambo-franchise-episode-part-1-with-dr-ted-preston

Butler, Judith 2010. Frames of War: What makes a life Grievable? New York: Verso Books

De Semlyen, Nick 2024. The last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops and Feuds of Hollywood’s Kings of Carnage New York: Crown Publishing  

Kerr, Keith 2009. Postmodern Cowboy: C. Wright Mills and a New 21^st-Century Sociology London: Paradigm Publishers

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Mills, C. Wright 1958. The Causes of World War Three New York: Simon and Schuster

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[1]  And to a lesser extent Pete Hegseth’s whole misogynistically creepy vibe

[2] Women are often the arbiters of their own protection against this culture. We teach women not to get raped. Meaning it is somehow their fault if they do; instead, we should teach men not to rape.

[3] Dr. Kate Manne’s distinction between sexism and misogyny, in which sexism is the system, but misogyny is the ”enforcement mechanism” that keeps women subordinate.

[4] This belief is reinforced by the media that all men are entitled to someone “super-hot” regardless of their appearance

[5] In fact, they are often encouraged to hate their own body, dissecting it into “problem areas” that need to be fixed.