A piece of supremely nasty mischief': Peter Bradshaw on the White House video

"The White House's giggling new teen-YouTuber-type supercut of badass moments of imagined American or quasi-American machismo from film and television, crassly interspersed with real infrared kill-shot footage, boosting the new military attacks in Iran. We get flashes of, among others, Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and that well known legend Pete Hegseth, a moment that gives us a clue as to whose idea this all was."

"Here is an administration pre-celebrating the real victory over its own whiny libs. The video is of course designed to troll the Dems and the wokesters. Why didn't Franklin D Roosevelt think of this before D-day? Of course, some of that creative energy and political acumen might have gone into imagining who they want to take over in Iran."

"In Braveheart, Mel Gibson is the underdog fighting against the overdog, in which latter category the US military fits more securely. But maybe Braveheart's blue-faced fight against the British makes more sense, given Trump's new (or newly acknowledged) contempt for Keir Not Winston Churchill Starmer."

The White House created a provocative video combining scenes from films like Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman, and Top Gun with actual infrared military footage from recent Iran operations. The compilation appears designed to mock critics and celebrate military action through entertainment aesthetics. The video includes references to Pete Hegseth and characters like Walter White and Saul Goodman, suggesting deliberate choices to appeal to a specific political base. The imagery juxtaposes underdog narratives from fiction with America's military dominance, creating ironic contradictions. The production reflects a strategy prioritizing cultural provocation over substantive policy communication regarding military objectives in Iran.

Read at www.theguardian.com