Pop goes the war

Almost a fortnight into the war and Operation Iraqi Freedom is fast becoming the fountainhead of popular culture. There are Bush masks in Eu...

Almost a fortnight into the war and Operation Iraqi Freedom is fast becoming the fountainhead of popular culture. There are Bush masks in Europe. There are missile-shaped rice crackers in Taiwan depicting the supreme leaders of Iraq and the United States.

There are coloured stickers in numerous homes announcing competing views on the war and e-cards are available to send 8216;8216;thank you8217;8217; messages to American troops.

War has spawned a new language too. The word 8216;8216;embed8217;8217; is now well embedded in popular vocabulary, 8216;8216;scud studs8217;8217; like the BBC8217;s Rageh Omaar and 8216;8216;scud studettes8217;8217; like CNN8217;s Christiane Amanpour or the BBC8217;s Hilary Andersson have been deified as the superstars of the war. There are even reports of a new range of Rageh Omaar T-shirts as the Somalia-born journalist becomes, as The Times of London reported, the pin-up boy of many TV-addicted ladies.

Fast-talking television anchors now speak of 8220;MOAB8221; Mass Ordnance Air Blast and 8220;BDA8221; Bomb Damage Assessment as easily as they say DKNY or YSL and it may not be difficult to imagine a certain Shock and Awe fashion trend emerging in the future, inspired by the cut of combat trousers.

The most ironic popular icons of the Vietnam war, for example, are the Vietnamese toy tanks made out of Coca Cola cans available on the streets of Ho Chi Minh city.

An American literary critic has recently written on the intimate links that have always existed between the Pentagon and Hollywood. Decades after the Vietnam war, many Viet veterans put up posters on their cars saying, 8220;Vietnam was a war not a movie8221;.

They were protesting against the manner in which Hollywood rampaged over the Vietnam war, transforming grisly realities into slick cinematic sequences. And films such as Francis Ford Coppola8217;s Apocalypse Now have been fiercely criticised by many Vietnamese for its unabashed stereotyping.

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In the TV coverage of Shock and Awe, it is impossible to miss the Lawrence of Arabia style shots of the Iraqi desert or indeed the hoisting of the American flag at Umm Qasar in the style of the World War II battle of Iwo Jima, shots that are perhaps not surprising given that the TV networks dispensing news worldwide such as ABC and CNN are also media companies that produce mass entertainment. The sombre solemnity of war is in danger of being overthrown by the T-shirts and tamashas of war as showbiz.