The New York Times agrees with me:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/opinion/the-permanent-militarization-of-america.html
" From lawmakers’ constant use of “support our troops” to justify defense spending, to TV programs and video games like “NCIS,” “Homeland” and “Call of Duty,” to NBC’s shameful and unreal reality show “Stars Earn Stripes,” Americans are subjected to a daily diet of stories that valorize the military while the storytellers pursue their own opportunistic political and commercial agendas."

That is an opinion piece.
Also, lawmakers, cringey TV shows and non-government funded games don't have the same people managing them. It isn't some active attempt by some body in the government but rather individual instances of military themed stuff being popular for some reason and doing well, so companies make more of it. And if you don't know already, patriotic military stuff will always be popular, because that's how humans work. There doesn't need to be this conspiracy. Also, if they wanted recruits, the US has done drafts before, and probably will do so if needed again. Its not like the government can't force service already.

Where did I write about a "conspiracy"? I merely stated that NCIS and similar shows promote a paranoid and militarist view of the world ("there's a world of enemies out there and our brave, virtuous military is protecting us against that").
And no, the US can't just bring back the draft because that would probably be the one thing that would make permanent military interventions unpopular and cause an anti-war backlash as it did during the Vietnam war. As long as it's only volunteers and lots of foreigners dying no one on the US really cares.

The article seems to say that. The shows certainly operate on that principle, but how many people actually believe it is what really matters, and that is anyone's guess. There are similar militaristic fandoms, like Warhammer 40K, and I really doubt its fans believe in the principles of their fandom beyond believing it for entertainment. Its like wrestling. Many people know its fake but suspend their disbelief anyway.

Warhammer is fictional. The NCIS shows take place in the real world and feature real countries/organizations as antagonists. An example: An episode of NCIS: LA I watched earlier this year featured some Russian spies in the US...who casually murdered an American policeman when he checked their car and found some weapons (because you know those Russians just are like that...psychopathic killers). They also prominently feature groups like Hamas (admittedly an unpleasant organization, but has never committed terrorism against the US) or countries like Iran as enemies. Given the rather disastrous consequences of US interventions in the Mideast during the last 25 years and the deterioriation in relations with Russia I can't regard this as just innocent fun without political implications.

Look, this is a fun little repartee and all, but can we kindly NOT turn this into a political thread? We all know how it'll end.

Well, if you insist, I'm out (though I think my observations about NCIS are relevant).

But yet those are fictional. You can't have political thrillers without contrived psuedo-real enemies and people. Besides, most of these are age-rated 18+ or 16+ and at that stage at least, people should be able to discern fiction from reality to the level that believing such things is more the fault of the person and not the people creating it. I don't see political implications unless the media in question is being used as educational material or official information sources.

I think that's a bit naive...and frankly, many viewers of NCIS are probably too dumb to understand that it doesn't exactly present a nuanced view of international relations (after all the US even has prominent politicians who confuse Sunnis and Shias...yet still make grand pronouncements about the need for Mideast interventions).
But I probably should leave it at that...don't want to be responsible for this threat getting locked :-))))))

Of course, 18+ people can differentiate between facts and fiction. So can a four year old.

But despite that people "know" that NCIS is fiction, the brain doesn't differentiate all that much, sez science. It has nothing to do with being "dump" or being smart. The brain just has this holistic approach where it collects and uses everything.

A single example:

In German, the word "bridge" is feminine. But in spanish, it's masculine.

As a result of this, German speakers describes a bridge as something ladylike: “beautiful, elegant, fragile, peaceful, pretty, slender,”
Spanish speakers, on the other hand, goes like this: “big, dangerous, long, strong, sturdy, towering,”

Considering that this is how the 18+ brain goes about his business, I think the same brain would be more than ready to pick up 'facts' from TV serials.

But believing TV shows to contain fact needs a conscious effort. The brain doesn't work like you described 100% of the time, since there are people who differentiate things, like most of the people on this forum. So it may happen, but its clearly not guaranteed to happen 100% of the time, and I'm guessing it won't if they already know the truth / real information.

Similarly I doubt native German speakers believe the bridge has feminine characteristics, instead just use it without thinking about it.


They might be, but isn't it their fault then? Ie if you're thinking fictional TV shows represent reality, isn't the only person at fault yourself? There's a limit to which things can be rearranged around you, but isn't rearranging the unreasonable thing to do when you're a bull in a China shop?
OK I understand, it may be offtopic. I'll stop too.

And yet you yourself dismissed Avatar as rehash of Pocahontas.

There is a difference between being inspired by something to create something new with it's own identity, like X-Files was inspired by Kolchak The Night Stalker, and something being just a slavish copy with no originality whatsoever.

That's not to say you can't or shouldn't find Stranger Things enjoyable. I didn't, but that's not the point. Some people did enjoy Avatar too.

Dismissed? Where did I dismissed Avatar as being a rehash? Quite the opposite. "Avatar? Rehash of Pocahontas"

My point was that no matter what we think is original or not, or just being inspired, we're still building upon someone elses work.

Sorry, I read that as pretty clear dismissal. In fact, I don't see how it could be read as anything else. Not that any of it changes anything about the point I was making.