Certain ideas in western culture for the past several decades have been deemed manly: sports, beer, and the military. One of those three things would usually be a “no brainer” to include in an ad, commercial, and or program that is targeted for a male audience. This tactic has been so successful that advertisers now combine some of those together in one advertisement.
I notice this most when I watch football or basketball with my boyfriend. Television is filled with constant name-dropping that you don’t even need a commercial break to feel bombarded with promotions. The NBA Cares segment, which occurs after the commercial break stops and before the game is started again, demonstrates just one way the sport establishment, promotes the military.
This is a new commercial for Budweiser that has been played very frequently during the NBA playoffs.
This constant praising of men in war creates a lack of critical thinking and discussion of the military's actions through solely emotional appeals. Supporting the troops should be concerning bringing them home, not supporting them in a war zone while sports stars and beer companies can use their image of manliness to support their profits. In a Washington Post article in 2008, $7.7 billion was spent on recruiting; the defense budget faced a 11% cut which equals almost $800 million. More recently in 2010, the military spent $7 million on NASCAR advertisements. These are large sums of money that I feel could be better used for veterans, educational assistance, housing assistance, and the list could go on. The military is a major institution within our government and nation. It is known about by all citizens, so what needs to be advertised is other options for what masculinity is and what men are capable of doing besides sports and war.
I find this pie chart helpful to seeing how much actually goes towards defense and everything else in the federal budget; this is the 2012 federal budget.
As a former Marine, I very much appreciate your comments on what supporting the troops means to you. I can agree that we need to be looking for ways to get more of my brothers home, however, I do understand that we are there and we need to support them regardless. And i definitely think we need to invest more in Veteran's Affairs and other programs, however, the more money we take away from the boys in country, the less effective gear they get, and the more casualties they take. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to hear about there being a lot of fraud, waste, and abuse of military funding.
ReplyDeleteAlec,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment and understand and respect your views. From your comment, I feel as though I was perhaps not as clear and or precise with where my points were being targeted. In my post, I was attempting to only discuss my opinion of the unnecessary spending that is done by the defense in terms of recruiting and or advertisements and the cutting of that particular spending. I would agree even with redirecting those funds from the purpose of recruitment and advertisement to a more productive and needed cause, such as assistance programs as mentioned. It shouldn’t be a surprise and isn’t that the military wastes and abuses their funding in the recent military conquest in the Middle East. One of the main wastes and abuses that is widely criticized and discussed is the use and payment of the mercenaries from the private security company Blackwater, now known as simply “Xe” now. This article states the name change and explains the reasons of why. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/13/blackwater-sheds-tarnishe_n_166739.html.
In a New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23burns.html , the disproportionate spending on the private employees’ services versus the other men in the militaries pay is explained and examined.
“Partly, the disparagement stems from the contempt with which professional military men have traditionally viewed mercenaries — especially those who earn, like some contractors in Baghdad, as much as $1,000 a day for skills and risks that bring about the lowest-paid American soldier a tenth of that. Not even four-star generals earn as much.”
This is just one example (note that is from 2007 so there is a lot that is not being mentioned) that displays the inappropriate and wasteful spending done by the military. Take a look at those articles and let me know what you think.