This paper investigates popular discourses of national security and geopolitics in contemporary Hollywood films. It examines the role the US Department of Defense plays in producing popular images of military power and geopolitical identity and explores how these practices are linked to a dominant geopolitical imagination of American hegemony and the role of the United States in world politics.
The analysis looks at how the Hollywood–Pentagon connection represents a key dimension of the military–entertainment–industrial complex, where a film is simultaneously being used as a tool for recruitment, military public relations, and commercial profit.
A special focus is on how the Pentagon utilizes the theme of Alien invasions in major Hollywood films to popularize discourses of military superiority, heroism, and American leadership that stand increasingly in contrast with the political and military realties of the US role in world politics.
