By the 1990s the Pentagon had greatly expanded its global and imperial reach and deeply embedded itself into the commerce and ideology of Hollywood war movies, video games, television, and the private arms industry. Post-Vietnam Hollywood attempted to resurrect the 'good war.' The Pentagon, Hollywood, video games, and the arms industry were now working in tandem, all hugely profiting. As always, paying the ultimate price for this commercial success were the working-class men and women who actually fight these wars. No other media genre more sharply illustrates the contradictions of American society - notions about social class, politics, and socio-economic ideology - than the war film. American War Cinema and Media Since Vietnam examines the representations of war in feature films and documentaries, television, and war video games since Vietnam to reveal how they illustrate the complexities and contradictions of America's post-Vietnam wars of 'discretion, ' class issues, commerce, and politics.

No other cinematic genre more sharply illustrates the contradictions of American society - notions about social class, politics, and socio-economic ideology - than the war film. This book examines the latest cycle of war films to reveal how they mediate and negotiate the complexities of war, class, and a military-political mission largely gone bad.