The World Hates America's Many New Military Propaganda Shows

Here are some upcoming shows set to make their debuts on our TV screens in the next few weeks:

• The Brave, an inside look at “America’s elite undercover military heroes.”
• SEAL Team, an inside look at “the most elite unit of Navy SEALs as they train, plan and execute the most dangerous missions our country can ask of them.”
• Valor, about an “elite unit of U.S. Army helicopter pilots called the Shadow Raiders.”

Notice any similarities? For some reason, America is suddenly getting a ton of shows about how great the American fighting forces are. With so many different military elite shows clogging the airwaves, it’s a wonder our country’s military elite can even get any military elite-ing done without bumping into each other.

There’s just one problem, as the Hollywood Reporter laid out in a piece on Friday: the rest of the world hates this America First shit, and that’s threatening the bottom line of the NBCs and CBSes of the world. From THR:

“These shows are all really well made and the production values are great, but some of it is pretty jingoistic: lots of breast-beating and flag-flying,” says Stephen Mowbray, head of acquisitions for Swedish public broadcaster SVT. The backlash isn’t related to Trump per se, but rather to the rah-rah American tone that military series can showcase — and the perception that more of these shows are coming under Trump. “Really patriotic, nationalistic shows are really hard for us to place,” agrees Silke Regier, an acquisitions executive with leading German network RTL.

Gosh, why would someone in another country not be into a show that valorized our chief symbol of American empire and domination? It’s almost as though all of those years of endless war and the rise of Donald Trump left a certain impression on our global brethren.

Fear not, though, because the makers of this propaganda have a handy solution: pretend like these shows aren’t actually about America. From THR (emphasis mine):

As a signal to the international market, NBC changed the name of its covert ops series from the more culturally loaded For God and Country to The Brave. “We’ve been very careful to position this show for our international buyers not as a U.S. military show but as an international action show,” says Don McGregor, executive vp and sales liaison for NBCUniversal International Distribution. “We want to keep politics out of it.”

Because nothing says “international action show unrelated to the U.S. military” like a show about…the U.S. military. Good luck guys!