Conclusions

Abstract

This survey of films helps underscore the unusual combination of consistency and change in the neo-imperialist security state from its inception in the postwar period to today. The state’s problems are all too clear, and they cry for solutions which in the imaginative milieu of the films do change while the problems themselves are little altered. The basic paradigm of the state seeks to secure the society from external and internal threats by extending hegemonic influence abroad and domestically, militarily, economically, or culturally, as both exemplar and vindicator modes emerge either alternatively or in combination to unify the public and quell discord, division, and fear. Ironically, as the films and the history of the culture attest, precisely the opposite typically happens. When fears of alien others are projected onto underrepresented gender and racial groups, this can lead to discord as oppression at home only makes the population view hegemonic tendencies abroad in a negative light. Technologies developed for combat or information control also contribute to paranoia and divisiveness in a society which by the twenty-first century had become more deeply disunited than any time since the American Civil War.