Hollywood's war on terror: the representation of the post 9/11 US interventionist foreign policy by American popular cinematic industry

As being world’s leading cinematic industry, the Hollywood has an ability to influence and shape its worldwide audience in terms of their perceptions through its representational techniques. Throughout history, politics and entertainment industry have been intertwined since the former have always been inspirational to the content of the latter or the process can also be vice versa. Hollywood too, has long been responded to the subject of politics especially when it comes to American politics. The event of September 11, 2001 has opened the new era of American foreign policy towards the states that believed to be in some way involved with the terrorist attacks. This research was done from researcher’s speculation about how the American foreign policy of the use of force to intervene other states is being presented through narrative of US filming industry with the selective criteria of mainstream films projecting American statesmen stationing in several operation camps to complete the task of War on Terror. Moreover, this research also provided how the image of unfamiliar places and its locals such as Iraq and Afghanistan are being created wholly from the American perspective. Most importantly, it is interesting to observe on Hollywood’s stance on the presumably controversial interventions of Iraq and Afghanistan that lately, more and more media or American news agency or society in general do regret these moves started by the Bush administration as a consequence of 9/11 attacks. In spite of public opinions that heavily criticize the two interventions, it is interesting to see if the industry, as world’s dominant filming industry, whether it goes along the trend or not since the subject of plot and storyline can always be inspired by political factors. Nevertheless, the dominant theme of films carried this particular storyline does very little in terms of questioning the interventions since most of them chose to be quiet about the policy behind those actions. Keywords: War on Terror, Hollywood, US, Hegemony, Representation, Depiction, Other, Extraterritorial Power, State Officers, WMDs, National Interests

作为全球顶尖的影视产业，好莱坞能够通过其表征手法，影响并塑造全球观众的认知观念。纵观历史，政治与娱乐产业始终相互交织——前者总能为后者的内容提供创作灵感，反之亦然。好莱坞亦长期关注政治议题，尤以美国政治为核心。2001年9月11日事件开启了美国对外政策的新纪元：美国将那些被认定与恐怖袭击存在某种关联的国家作为干预目标。本研究源于研究者的思考：美国影视产业如何通过叙事手法，展现其以武力干预他国的对外政策？本研究通过筛选标准选取主流影片样本，这些影片刻画了美国政要进驻多个作战营地以完成“反恐战争”任务的情节。此外，本研究还探讨了美国视角下，伊拉克、阿富汗等陌生地域及其民众的形象是如何被完全建构的。尤为重要的是，针对伊拉克与阿富汗这场本就颇具争议的军事干预行动，好莱坞的立场值得探析。当前，越来越多的媒体、美国新闻机构乃至美国社会大众，均对布什政府因9·11事件发起的这场干预行动表示懊悔。尽管公众舆论对这两场干预行动批判声浪高涨，但作为全球主导性影视产业的好莱坞，是否顺应了这一社会思潮？考虑到影视剧情与叙事主题总能受到政治因素的影响，这一点颇具探究价值。然而，采用这类叙事主题的主流影片，几乎未对干预行动本身提出任何质疑——其中绝大多数都选择回避这些行动背后的政策逻辑。关键词：反恐战争（War on Terror）、好莱坞（Hollywood）、美国（US）、霸权（Hegemony）、表征（Representation）、刻画（Depiction）、他者（Other）、域外权力（Extraterritorial Power）、国家公职人员（State Officers）、大规模杀伤性武器（WMDs）、国家利益（National Interests）