I was very young during most of the Bush years but the era was during my formative years. The old sub had some conversations about how the Bush years were even more fucked than the last 4 years. I looked back and realized how homogenous entertainment and culture was.
For example, there was a very macho edge to a lot of the TV programming back then (Spike TV, WWE was still really popular, a ton of over the top action movies). It seems like everything on TV was focused on objectifying “babes”, explosions, dangerous events, and being traditionally masculine. Michael Moore got booed at the Oscars for criticizing Bush, Bill Maher’s first show was cancelled for calling the US military cowards, and the Dixie Chicks got destroyed. You either rode the way of Patriotism or was outcasted. MAGA tried to revive this macho nationalism but it rang hollow and never took hold.
It was also the time Christian evangelicals (Jesus Camp) became a potent political force for the GOP.
In the background of action movies and manly TV shows, there was the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan. I feel like toughness and masculinity injected into the public by way of the entertainment industry was a way to inflate nationalism.
Do any older chapos have any specific memories of this time or recommendations of this era to watch?
The first 3 seasons of Arrested Development are spectacular. It’s a mockery of the era rather than an exemplar of it, but it really couldn’t have come from any other period
The TV show 24 really captured a lot of the feeling the media was trying to push during the Bush era. I wouldn’t really recommend watching the show, but it did have scenes depicting torture successfully providing intel and other myths of the time.
Fantasy was really big in the 2000s as well.
If OP is also looking for “historical moments” which capture that same zeitgeist, look up the Abu Ghraib scandal. 24 existed to justify this sort of gruesome behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
Might be stretching it here, but I’d count the original Iron Man. Flashy, technocratic approach to warfare that highlighted all the new exciting technologies and how easy it was to compartmentalize violence with it. It kind of blends the nascent Obama-era liberal of wanting to be the world’s superpower “the right way” with the blatant “FUCK YEAH USA” energy. You can see this in the scene where he tests out the new suit on an Iraqi village occupied by terrorist, but there are zero civilian casualties. It was before Occupy Wall Street, so “billionaire savior” is unchallenged. Also it was before Disney sanitized all sex from Marvel, so Tony is play-boy who fucks instead of a concerned dad.
Similarly, I’d say the first two Transformers movies do this. Big and flashy, American military is justified by being the world police, shows how technology is increasingly creeping into our lives but is also uncritical of it. Megan Fox. (Megan Fox was weirdly a big part of the zeitgeist in the latter Oughts).
For Jesus Camp-type satire, I remember liking Saved! when I saw it in the theater, and that came out in 2004.
I also watched the miniseries Generation Kill recently, and it was kind of a shock how much it took me right back to 2003. Not that I was ever in the military, but I was the right age for it, and it was crazy to me that I knew exactly what was going on in my life during the invasion of Iraq.
This twitter thread really encapsulates how batshit crazy the early 00’s were: https://twitter.com/mugrimm/status/1171794187609657345
Jesus christ, his second thread on Katrina is horrible. Especially that video where ghouls proudly explain how they gunned down black people in the aftermath.
