War as Entertainment

Football Sunday! I day when two opposing sides meet on the grid iron to battle their way to victory. Only one team can win in this all male sport where hitting the opponent as hard as you can is ideal. Each Sunday during the season, a record number of Americans line up in front of their television sets to see who will win the battle. They also tune in to hear statistics, size up the enemy, and even to witness behind the scenes drama. This hugely popular sport is obviously a microcosm for the American obsession with war. However, is it really obsession, or is it that Americans can no longer tell the difference between war and football?

The physical violence is not the only, or most important, connection between American football and war in general. Some of the more simple ones are: team colors, team captains, and team positions. Yet, some other overarching connections make the two appear to go hand in hand: both are multi-million (or multi-billion) dollar industries creating revenue for all types of manufacturers, both have spectators (news coverage), and both are presented with comercials. Military advertisements are even found throughout stadiums and during broadcasts of games. This close correlation affects the average veiwer in many ways.   

War is not a publically moral thing to condone; football, however, does not have that same moral stigma. Therefore, the more that war can resemble a Sunday afternoon football game, the more negativity it sheds. So the news stations cut from footage of war, to the army "coaches" discussing strategy on the field, then cut to comercials, then cut to celebrities performing for troops or giving their opinions on the "game": sounds disturbingly like the Superbowl. I believe this is a specific strategy in keeping the American veiwer from being critical of what they're seeing.

As long as war is entertainment-like, less questions will be asked about it; this is because, normally, things of merely entertainment value have negligible consequences. The public enjoys the entertainment of graphic news coverage wether it's of a running back getting pummeled, or a huge explosion in a convoy of troops. That enjoyment hinges on our ability to detached from the situation and see what's on the screen as entertainment with little consequence. Now, troops getting injured is hardly perceived as different from the running back getting injured. In a busy lifestlye with dozens of beeping and flashing gadgets, and constant streams of movies, music, and sports, who has time to pay close attention to the details anyway? Distract and deploy.

So try turning off the TV. Re-evaluate and re-evolve.