{"id":6620,"date":"2009-02-09T05:29:12","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T10:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=6620"},"modified":"2017-10-01T22:35:16","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T03:35:16","slug":"kid-rock-and-dale-jr-say-yall-should-join-the-national-guard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/02\/09\/kid-rock-and-dale-jr-say-yall-should-join-the-national-guard\/","title":{"rendered":"Kid Rock and Dale Jr. Say Y’All Should Join the National Guard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen W.<\/a> sent in a link to a music video promoting the National Guard.\u00a0\u00a0 He saw the video before a screening of Taken<\/em> in Sioux Falls, SD. At the moment, the National Guard website<\/a>\u00a0(warning: noisy) features Kid Rock and Dale Earnhardt Jr.\u00a0 The opening graphics, set to\u00a0a snippet of Rock’s Warrior<\/em>,\u00a0feature a military helicopter followed by a race car and then a picture of an anonymous African-American National Guard member with the rock star and car star:<\/p>\n

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A few clicks into the website leads you to this music video:<\/p>\n

[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QeVt4j_T7-8[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

In the photographs made available, pictures of Kid Rock’s life as a rock star are mixed with pictures of people in the National Guard, and the lines between the two blur:<\/p>\n

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\n\"capturex\"<\/p>\n

\"capturel\"<\/p>\n

\"capturez\"<\/p>\n

\"capturep1\"<\/p>\n

Some observations on the marketing of military service:<\/p>\n

First, the glorification of military service is an American phenomenon.\u00a0 (See this post<\/a> which features an American and a Swedish military recruitment commercial back-to-back.\u00a0 The difference is quite amazing.)\u00a0 In this video, the glorification is particularly acute when the light-skinned driver of the Hummer manages to avoid hitting the blue-eyed, olive-skinned, dark-haired boy and then comes out with his giant gun to kick the ball back to him, inspiring a look of awe from the child who’s country he is\u00a0likely (given the politics in the last 8 years)\u00a0invading.\u00a0 We’re left, assured, that the U.S. military are all around good folk.<\/p>\n

Second, in this case we have military service being marketed with celebrity tie-ins.\u00a0 The website deliberately blurs the line between being a famous rock star, a celebrated race car driver, and a member of the National Guard.\u00a0 Similarly, this Air Force recruitment ad blurs the line between various extreme sports and military service:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

These links between military service, skateboarding, and being a rock star are disingenuous, to say the least.\u00a0 And it reminds me of a series of recruitment ads I’ve been seeing lately that highlight the super cool jobs you could <\/em>end up doing in the Air Force (like being a fighter pilot). I don’t know about you, but both of my family members who joined the military (in their cases, the Army) ended up being bus drivers.<\/p>\n

Third, which celebrities are being used to market the National Guard tells us something about who they are trying to recruit.\u00a0 Clearly, they are reaching out to young,\u00a0working class, perhaps rural, white men.\u00a0 This is not part<\/em> of the National Guard marketing aimed specifically at this group, the entire<\/em> National Guard website<\/a>\u00a0(warning: noisy), at this time, is entirely devoted to this theme. It speaks to who <\/em>fights American <\/em>wars?\u00a0 Studies have shown that, while once military service was required of elites, this changed during Vietnam.\u00a0 Today military service is overwhelmingly performed by working- and middle-class men.<\/p>\n

Finally, the re-framing of the role from “soldier” to “warrior,” one who wages war, is very interesting.\u00a0 I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.<\/p>\n

More fodder for discussion, if you need it:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen W. sent in a link to a music video promoting the National Guard.\u00a0\u00a0 He saw the video before a screening of Taken in Sioux Falls, SD. At the moment, the National Guard website\u00a0(warning: noisy) features Kid Rock and Dale Earnhardt Jr.\u00a0 The opening graphics, set to\u00a0a snippet of Rock’s Warrior,\u00a0feature a military helicopter followed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,29,23384,55,2087,2110,778,276,285,1757,108,309],"class_list":["post-6620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-celebrity","tag-class","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-gender","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-gender-nationalismpatriotism","tag-intersectionality","tag-nationalismpatriotism","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-sports","tag-warmilitary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6620"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71981,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620\/revisions\/71981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}