The Spoils of Playing War

To build even stronger partnerships with entertainment and academia, the army founded the Institute for Creative Technologies in 1999 at the University of Southern California. Into the 2000s, the CIA ‘worked with’ the scriptwriter of Zero Dark Thirty and the US Navy was listed ‘producer’ on four 2012 big-budget releases. Such synergy means reduced production budgetsfor studios, including low-cost access to military locations and high-end technology. In return, the military can inject pro-war and pro-nationalist framings into scripts.

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