White House war promo videos marry action movies, sports and video games to real-life combat footage

Peaceful and violent, in video game screenshots, in movie clips, and on professional playing fields, the icons appear fast and furious in rapid-fire sequences—some of the most famous fragments of 21st-century American popular culture, exploited by the Trump administration to promote the freshly-triggered war with Iran.

White House social media has released a series of high-octane videos that mix real explosions from the Iran war with action movie heroes, game footage and harrowing football tackles, leading critics, such as a senior cleric in the U.S. Catholic Church, to condemn a trivialization of the deadly real-life conflict.

Excerpts from “Braveheart”, “Superman”, “Top Gun”, “Breaking Bad” and “Iron Man”. All appear cut between declassified footage of what is presumably the war in Iran. Even the likeness of the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon is added, asking, “Do you want to see me do it again?” between images of buildings, planes and vehicles blown up by American bombs. The caption for a bombshell message: “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” – the title of a Toby Keith song about the war after 9/11 and subtitled “The Angry American.”

The fiction-meets-fact product from the aggressive White House social media team cuts a wide swath through cultural references that resonate with young men, including video games Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Halo. Two videos feature tackles from the NFL and college football and home runs from Major League Baseball – with bat cracks interspersed with explosions.

They are accompanied by threatening or aggressive music, including “Bonfire” by Childish Gambino, “Bazooka” by Miami XO and “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC. One of the White House posts described the video as “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY,” complete with flag and fire emojis.

It’s hard not to see the thinking here: the more cinematic the content, the more people might support the war.

The sounds and images of American popular culture, certainly attention-grabbing in many contexts, have been increasingly used in politics in recent decades, at least since Bill Clinton’s use of Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” during his 1992 presidential campaign. Never, however, has the White House constructed and disseminated such content, drawing explicit parallels between aggressive moments in modern entertainment—a fatal shot in a video game, a blow to the football, a towering home run – and battle footage to amplify enthusiasm for war.

What is happening with the White House videos, which some call the “gamification” of war, has not been well received in some quarters.

Two actors whose work appeared in the videos — Ben Stiller, who starred in the 2008 film “Tropic Thunder,” and Steve Downes, who plays Master Chief, the protagonist of Halo — said the material was used without permission and asked that their depictions be removed.

Stiller said on X that he had “no interest in being part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.” Downes called the videos “disgusting, juvenile war porn.” Neither the NFL nor Major League Baseball would comment on the use of their images in war videos.

The debate has also reached a high level within the American Catholic Church. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, said he found it sickening to see a war that brought real death and suffering being treated like a video game. This approach, he said, dishonors those who have died, including U.S. service members.

“Our government treats the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it is just another piece of content to peruse while we wait in line at the grocery store,” Cupich said in a weekend statement. “But, ultimately, we lose our humanity when we get excited about the destructive power of our military.”

Asked for comment, the White House did not say whether or not it would accept artists who claim their works were used without permission.

“America’s heroic warfighters are meeting or exceeding all of their objectives during Operation Epic Fury,” White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly said. “The mainstream media wants us to apologize for highlighting the incredible success of the U.S. military, but the White House will continue to showcase the many examples of Iranian ballistic missiles, production facilities and dreams of having a nuclear weapon being destroyed in real time.”

This isn’t the first time the White House has released gaming-related memes. Last year, it posted a drawing of Trump dressed as Master Chief. In another, Trump looked like a blocky Minecraft character with the caption: “The most pro-gamer president in America.”

Every war has a psychological dimension, and this seems to be part of it, said Zia Haque, director of the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College in Pennsylvania. “We live in the digital age and I see this as using space to spread the message at all levels,” he said.

Some observers also present the administration’s content as a potential effort to encourage players to join the military. This wouldn’t be a first: The Pentagon’s efforts to recruit gamers date back to at least 2002, with the release of a first-person shooter called America’s Army. The Department of Defense also sends recruiters to video game conventions and esports tournaments.

Today, most of Trump’s loudest fans are young white men who are gamers and avid consumers of sports and popular culture — and therefore likely a receptive audience for such images and music.

Many young men are motivated to join the military because they want to be cool, like the people they see in action movies, said Ray Deptula, who recently retired from the U.S. Navy after 24 years and rose to the rank of commander. That’s what motivated him, he said. So he can see the appeal of the videos.

But, he says, there is a caveat – an important caveat.

“This is not what your life is going to be like,” said Deptula, who recently wrote a novel, “A Dog Before a Soldier,” about a young man who joined the army out of desperation during the Revolutionary War. “Your life will be based on hard work and humility.”

But Jeff Fromm, co-author of “Marketing to Gen Z,” has doubts about the long-term effectiveness of these videos.

Many young Gen Zers are keenly interested in the transparency and values ​​of the organizations they seek to join, and Fromm questions whether the current administration is doing very well in these areas.

Sometimes the overlap between real life and gaming culture is accidental. Last week, Trump posted on Truth Social that defense contractors had agreed to “quadruple production of ‘exquisite class’ weapons.” Political pundits were perplexed, but Final Fantasy XIV players remembered the game’s most powerful weapons. Still, the president probably wasn’t calling for the game’s Exquisite Wrathgrinder to go into production.

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Associated Press correspondents Matt Brown in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.