Author: Thomas Schryver
Several weeks ago, I went to see the movie Religulous. Before the three hours of previews started up, I found myself in for a special treat.
Kid Rock suddenly appeared on screen and informed me, through a music video called “Warrior,” that a) the Army National Guard is badass as hell and b) that they must be in dire need of new recruits.
The music video portrays three different storylines: one showing Kid Rock performing the song at the Los Alamitos Military Base in Long Beach, California, another portraying the work of a “citizen soldier” at home and at war in a Middle Eastern country, and thirdly and inexplicably, Dale Earnhardt Jr. boldly gearing up for a computer generated NASCAR race.
The 70s flavored and nu-metal tinged Southern Rock was enough to make me opt for a quick escape to the concessions stand, but my curiosity of where this piece of musical propaganda was going kept my gaze fixed on the screen. After a verse of simplified patriotic rhetoric, the music dies down before an explosive chorus in which Kid Rock yells, “AND THEY CALL ME WARRIOR…THEY CALL ME LOYALTY…”
The fact that Kid Rock is obviously neither of these things is almost immediately evident given the host of nicknames that he has attributed to himself. And yet somehow Kid Rock, who has, over his eighteen year musical career, labeled himself as an American Badass, a Rock n’ Roll Jesus, and an Early Morning Stoned Pimp, seems to be just the type of role model that the Army National Guard marketing directors are looking for.
“He is as real as it comes,” Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, director of the Army National Guard said in a National Guard website interview. “[Kid Rock and Earndhart] did a magnificent job…they are real patriots.”
Kid Rock – the Devil Without A Cause – an American patriot? Maybe it’s Kid Rock’s “maverick” qualities that give him the patriotic sheen that the National Guard has been looking for. Either that or 3 Doors Down was too busy to shoot a follow up to their own National Guard music video, “Citizen Soldier,” which they released in 2007.
Before I continue, it is important that I underscore that there is absolutely nothing wrong with supporting the United States’ troops. I don’t for a second think that our country should be unthankful for the men and women who are prepared to defend the defenseless and step up during a national emergency.
But “Warrior” possesses something a little too unintentionally similar to Team America’s over-the-top patriotic anthem “America, Fuck Yeah.” What simply irks me about the National Guard’s advertising is its deliberate use of misleading imagery and its divisive, guilt provoking and ‘bandwagoning’ tactics. In the first verse of “Warrior,” Kid Rock sings, “So don’t tell me who’s wrong and right when liberty starts slipping away. And if you ain’t gonna fight, then get out of the way.”
In male schoolyard terminology, this basically boils down to, “If you don’t want to fight, then you are a pussy.” It’s a classic example of the “shoot first and ask questions later” mentality; a willfully ignorant statement that refuses to care or ponder about the moral implications behind actions, and chooses to just “get-r-done” instead.
This kind of message only serves to bring about an “us versus them” credo, one that no doubt appeals to the National Guard’s target demographic of teenage males. By serving up testosterone-charged images of racecars, low-flying helicopters, and rock concerts, many adolescents no doubt get the impression that the National Guard separates the men from the boys, and view the war as a chance at heroism, respect, and adventure.
Furthermore, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kid Rock, and 3 Doors Down have nothing to do with the war in Iraq. Trying to make a connection between these figures and the war is as futile as trying prove a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
Glorifying a war in the name of freedom and liberty, while failing to mention that it has (according to www.iraqbodycount.org) ended the lives of approximately 90,000 Iraqi civilians, or even suggesting that this war may have no relevance to American freedom and liberty in the first place, is gravely irresponsible.
I’m not saying that the National Guard’s recent marketing strategies come as a surprise, but it strikes me as particularly low when an organization commercializes an unjust, illegitimate, wasteful, and deleterious cause as anything otherwise.
“I’m giving all of myself, how ’bout you?” Kid Rock asks in the song’s second and final verse. If kids watching this commercial aren’t giving all of themselves, then I hope to God they aren’t giving into the National Guard’s mouthpiece propaganda either. Hopefully true patriots know not to mistake a shitty and jingoistic white trash Rock song for a heroic battle cry.
Thomas Schryver is a senior Philosophy major. He can be reached at tschryver@oxy.edu.
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