xXx: Global Imperial Pop

 

 

American Communication Journal 2014 FALL (Volume 16, Issue 2)

xXx: Global Imperial Pop Tanner Mirrlees* University of Ontario Institute of Technology

ABSTRACT: This paper analyzes the trans-national political-economy underlying and national imperial ideology conveyed by one global Hollywood film: xXx (2002). The first section examines the trans-national economy of xXx, a global Hollywood product owned by Sony Corporation, assembled within a new international division of cultural labour (NDICL), and distributed and marketed to youthful viewers in the U.S. and worldwide. The second section examines xXx’s “globally popular” elements that may have helped them film to overcome the “cultural discount” (i.e., a mixed-race star, international actors, genre hybridity, MTV-aesthetic, global brands and populist spectacles). The third section examines xXx’s representation of U.S. foreign policy (military exceptionalism), U.S. national identity (multicultural militarism), and U.S. values (media market populism) and contemplates how these representations of “America” make the U.S. Empire seem cool. Overall, xXx is shown to be a form of “global imperial pop culture”: it is a product of Hollywood’s trans-national capitalist logics and a tacit promotional vehicle for U.S. Empire that communicates a mix of globally popular elements and nationalist imperialist ideology. Keywords: Global Hollywood, U.S. Empire, cultural imperialism, cultural discount, global imperial popular culture, political-economy ________________________________________________________________ Contact information: Please address all communication to the corresponding author. Tanner Mirrlees, Communication Program, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 55 Bond Street East, Oshawa, ON, L1G 0A5; E-mail: [email protected]

 

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paper analyzes the trans-national economic underpinnings and content of one global Hollywood film: xXx (2002). xXx stars Vin Diesel, a “mixed-race” American actor who plays Xander Cage, a law breaking extreme sports daredevil who is arrested for driving a conservative U.S. Senator’s Corvette off a bridge. To avoid incarceration, Cage joins the United States (U.S.) National Security Agency (NSA) as a mercenary-spy. Cage then travels to the Czech Republic where he covertly infiltrates a terrorist organization called “Anarchy 99” and uncovers a plot to destroy America—and the world’s major cities—with weapons of mass destruction. With help from NSA agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) and a Russian spy named Yelena (Asia Argento), Cage foils Anarchy 99’s terrorist plot, saving America and the world. Produced by global Hollywood in the final months of the Clinton presidency and released in the early stages of Bush’s post-9/11 “global war on terror”(GWOT), xXx is a useful site to examine the divergences and convergences between the business of global Hollywood and the geopolitics of U.S. Empire. This paper offers a critical analysis of how xXx expresses the economic imperatives of global Hollywood and promotes the geopolitics of the U.S. Empire in the space of the world system. By doing so, the paper aims to make a modest contribution to the study of cultural imperialism’s media content. From the early 1970s up until his passing in 2001, Herbert I. Schiller (1973, 1976, 1991, 1992, 2000) analyzed the U.S. Empire, “cultural imperialism” and the significance of corporate communications to the economic, military and ideological expansion of U.S. power. Schiller (1992, p. 51) contends that the U.S. Empire relies heavily on the mechanisms of economic power (U.S.-based yet trans-national corporations) and military power (a “military-industrial complex”). Schiller (1973, 1976) also conceptualized the U.S. culture industry and popular media products as supporting the U.S.’s “national interest” in world affairs. They spread images of messages about American capitalist production models, liberal democratic ideals and consumerism far and wide. Schiller’s initial conceptualization of cultural imperialism frames the American national cultural industry as producing and selling nationalistic media content. But in the 1990s, Schiller (1991) noted the transformation of the American culture industry into a trans-nationally integrated one and how national popular culture was morphing into “transnational corporate culture”(15). Cultural theorists concomitantly examined globally popular capitalist media content (During, 1991; Jameson and Miyoshi, 1998; Wilson and Dissanayake, 1996). Throughout the globalizing 1990s, cultural theorists tacitly forwarded a periodizing argument: we once lived in a world of national capitalisms, states, culture industries and popular media products (the age of American cultural imperialism); we now live in a world of trans-national capitalism, states, culture industries and media products (the age of global capitalism). The argument assumes that an increasingly trans-national culture industry will manufacture popular media products that are less nationalistic and more trans-nationally oriented and resonant than before. While capitalism and once distinctly national culture industries are more trans-nationally integrated than ever before, the world system continues to be divided between territorial nationstates (Mirrlees, 2013). In a context in which the United States continues to be the dominant imperial power and the study of imperial commodity culture remains important (Harvey, 2005; Morley, 2006; Park and Schwarz, 2005; Nordenstreng 2013; Rowe, 2004), there is a need for critical studies of pop culture that move beyond national vs. trans-national culture industry and media content binaries to explore the convergences and divergences between the national and the trans-national. How and why might an increasingly trans-nationally integrated culture industry manufacture popular media products whose imagery and messages convey a mix of global  

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capitalist and imperialist media content? To answer these questions, I analyze the trans-national production, marketing and distribution of xXx, the “globally popular” elements in xXx that may have helped it to cross borders, and xXx’s representation of American foreign policy, national identity, and values. I show xXx to be a product of Hollywood’s trans-national capitalist logics and a tacit promotional vehicle for U.S. Empire that communicates a mix of globally popular elements and imperialist ideology. By doing so, I conceptualize xXx as a form of “global imperial pop culture.” xXx: The Political Economy of Global Hollywood “Hollywood” refers to a number of major film production studios headquartered in Los Angeles, California whose parent companies are “first-tier” trans-national media conglomerates (TNMCs). Warner Bros (Time-Warner), Fox Entertainment Group (News Corporation), The Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group (The Walt Disney Company), Paramount Pictures (Viacom), Universal Studios (NBC-Universal), and Sony Pictures Entertainment (Sony Corporation) are the largest film studios in the world, operating trans-nationally, and producing, distributing and marketing films worldwide. These studios finance, coordinate and control organizationally and territorially decentralized film production networks all over the world. When coordinating the cross-border production of films in a New International Division of Cultural Labor (NIDCL) (Miller et al., 2005), Hollywood studios “offshore” tasks to production firms in other countries, moving media work from one centralized and often geographically bound division of labor (the U.S.) to a number of specialized media firms in a de-centralized and territorially unbound division of labor (many countries). The power relationship between the TNMCs that run global Hollywood and the smaller service firms that work for them is often asymmetrical and unequal (Miller at al., 2005). Hollywood majors can turn fledgling film industries into service-dependencies (by maintaining control over copyright and key creative, financial, distribution and marketing decisions), disorganize cultural workers (by pitting U.S. cultural workers against non-U.S. workers and demanding that all of them lower their expectations) and take advantage of the public subsidies provisioned by states (by instigating a competitive “race to the bottom” between states, regions and cities that try to attract production contracts) (Miller et al., 2005). xXx is a global Hollywood commodity owned by Culver City California-headquartered Sony Entertainment Pictures (SPE) and produced by U.S.-based Revolution Studies (RS) and Original Film (OF) and a number of below the line production firms and cultural workers in the NIDCL. RS and OF travelled from Los Angeles to cities in the NICL in search of low-waged cultural workers to exploit, production facilities to employ and naturalistic and realist yet discounted places to rent and shoot. Some parts of xXx were shot in California, but most filming happened in the Czech Republic, which has become a magnet for runaway productions from Los Angeles (Miller et al. 2005, p. 152). Prague-based media elites have alliances with global Hollywood moguls and have worked to make Prague an important site for numerous “runaway productions” (Toumarkine, 2004). By shooting xXx in Prague, RS and OF minimized labor costs to maximize profits by hiring non-unionized and highly skilled cultural workers to complete tasks (Davidson, 2007). They used Prague’s Barrandov Studios, Milk and Honey Films, and Stilking Films to shoot parts of the film and rented parts of Prague from the municipal government as “naturalistic” set pieces for xXx’s action (Green, 2003). Hollywood’s runaway productions rarely recognize the specificity of the place of shoots, preferring instead to make over local landscapes into U.S. cities, but xXx represents Prague as a foreign stage for clandestine American warfare.

 

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In addition to being trans-nationally produced, xXx was trans-nationally marketed and distributed. Media buzz for xXx was built in the lead up to and first weekend of xXx’s worldwide release. “xXx” posters were plastered on billboards and buses in major global cities and xXx TV promotions and web-based advertising invited viewers from Los Angeles to Tokyo to anticipate Diesel’s role as Xander Cage and “a new breed of secret agent”(“Buffed, Bold & Bad,” 2010). The Los Angeles International Airport—a central transit point for the arrival and departure of Hollywood tourists, actors, and media managers—was used to promote xXx. Arriving airplanes flew directly over a giant airport rooftop emblazoned with a fifty thousand square foot xXx logo, which for two months exposed the eyes of captive passengers to xXx’s August 9 2002 release date. Prior to xXx’s worldwide release, Diesel himself took flight in a twelve-country tour to promote the film (Wasko, 2003, p. 195). Before xXx’s release in the United Kingdom, Diesel appeared on the magazine covers of Empire, Esquire and GQ (Berra, 2008, p. 67). xXx was trans-nationally distributed as well. Screened on four continents in more than forty countries including Argentina, Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, xXx’s box-office return surpassed its production budget of $70,000,000. Roughly half of xXx’s total revenue came from the U.S. box office ($142,109,382); the other half came from foreign box office receipts ($135,339,000) (Box Office Mojo, 2010).   xXx was ranked 15 of 100 highest grossing box office hits in the U.S. in 2002; it was ranked 14 of the 100 highest grossing films in the global box office in that same year (Box Office Mojo, 2010). This brief account of xXx’s trans-national production, marketing and distribution shows that “Hollywood” is not contained by the territorial borders of the U.S nation-state, but has global reach. Political-economy helps show xXx to be a global as opposed to distinctly American film commodity, but how and why did Hollywood design xXx’s text to be popular among viewers in more than one country? xXx: Globally Popular Film, by Design As Hollywood went global in pursuit of profit, its companies stopped privileging “a special relationship with the national American audience” and focused more and more on creating films for the U.S. and transnational audience (Wasser, 1995). To go global, studios strive to overcome the “cultural discount” when making movies. In the business of audio-visual trade, the “cultural discount” refers to how films that are too nationalistic, too local in their storytelling, and too sensitive to one’s culture will not have global viewer resonance and market appeal (Hoskins, McFayden, and Finn, 1994). In the 21st century, Hollywood studios still produce films that represent America, but they also design global blockbuster films to overcome the cultural discount (Mirrlees, 2013). While U.S. youth (teenagers particularly) have long been Hollywood’s target demographic, the category of “global youth” is global Hollywood’s 21st century focus. In this section, I examine xXx’s “globally popular” design, namely, the textual elements encoded in xXx to overcome the cultural discount and resonate with viewers from many countries. One globally popular design element in xXx is its “mixed-race” star: Vin Diesel. Global Hollywood’s casting of star actors play a central role in pre-selling its films because featured stars act as a global box office draw. Due to Diesel’s father being an African-American and his mother being of Irish-American descent, this actor is often promoted as a mixed race, multicultural “New American,” global Hollywood’s “first bona fide action star of the new millennium”(Carter, 2008, p. 210). Diesel films are sometimes said to be globally resonant because of this star’s multi-racial and thus universalistic persona (Nakamura, 2008; Willis 2010,  

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n.p.). As Diesel says, “The world has become this big melting pot, and I think people are ready for a hero who is more ambiguous” (cited in Thrupkaew, 2002). With its culturally “ambiguous” hero, xXx expresses a global Hollywood strategy that attempts to attract American and transnational viewers labeled as part of “Generation Ambiguous”(La Ferla, 2003) and “Generation Mix”(Sood, 2005). While Diesel’s star role can be celebrated as a sign of Hollywood’s recognition of the multicultural diversity of the U.S., with its millions of new immigrants and mixed-race families, it also supports global Hollywood’s business strategy of “mixploitation,” or, a studio’s use of so-called “mixed-race” actors to pre-sell films to viewers in many national markets (Carter, 2008). A second globally popular element of xXx is its international actors. Global Hollywood often casts trans-nationally recognizable stars to enhance the trans-national appeal of its products (Holson, 2004). In xXx, U.S. stars Vin Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson are joined by a cast of internationally renowned actors familiar to trans-national viewers. Marton Csokas, a New Zealand citizen (featured in Lord of the Rings and The Bourne Identity) is cast as Yorgi, leader of “Anarchy 99.” Asia Argento (a multilingual Italian actor who has starred in numerous Italian, French, and British art house films) is cast as Yelena, an undercover agent for Russia’s secret police. Actors from both Eastern and Western European countries were also cast in xXx (Germany’s Richy Muller and Werner Daehn, and the Czech Republic’s Petr Jakl, Jan Filipensky, Martin Hub, Radek Tomecka and Martina Smukova). “[T]hough familiar to viewers in their own countries” said Cohen, these actors “would be entirely fresh to American audiences” (“Production Notes” 2002). A third globally popular element of xXx is its genre hybridity. Global Hollywood uses genre categories to establish viewer expectations and attract niches of viewers to film commodities (King, 2002, p. 122). Genres are not stable, but combine and recombine textual elements of pre-existing genres, sometimes resulting in new genres (Altman, 1999). xXx is a hybrid inter-text of globally familiar genre elements. xXx updates the classic James Bond spy film formula: a macho secret government agent (Cage) infiltrates and stops an enemy (Anarchy 99) from destroying the world. To do so, Cage uses high-tech weapons (X-ray binoculars, a dart revolver gun, a two-way mobile communicator and exploding bandages) and sleeps with women. xXx is also an action film that incorporates recognizable feats from global sports entertainment. The linear narrative is hero-centered and motivated by fast paced action sequences involving car chases, snowboarding, skateboarding, skydiving, water-skiing and motor-cross. In xXx, eXtreme sports celebrities—Tony Hawk, Jason Ellis and Colin McKay (skateboarding stars), Matt Hoffman and Rick Thorne (BMX bike superstars), and Brian Deegan (motocross star)—make cameo appearances. A fourth globally popular element of xXx is its trans-nationally recognizable MTVaesthetic. MTV Networks International reaches at least a billion young people daily with a global-local hybrid fusion of popular music, fast talking video jockeys, rapid editing, and advertising messages (MTV Networks International, 2006). xXx capitalizes on the visual, sonic and commercial features of the globally familiar MTV-aesthetic by looking, acting and sounding like an MTV music video. Throughout the film, the heavy metal sounds of Rammstein, Hatebreed, and Queens of the Stone Age, the electronica beats of Moby, Orbital and The Crystal Method, and the hip-hop rhythms of Missy Elliot and P. Diddy accompany Cage’s military action. xXx even cross-promotes some of the bands on the xXx soundtrack by scripting them as “live-acts.” By featuring fast-cutting visual editing, playing metal and rap music, and marketing

 

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the xXx soundtrack, xXx integrates the globally familiar MTV-aesthetic in hopes of achieving global popularity. A fifth globally popular element of xXx is its promotional showcasing of globally recognized brands for global capitalism. Global Hollywood regularly acts as a shill for global corporate brands (Wasko, 2003) and the blurring of Hollywood entertainment into advertisement happens in xXx scenes which transform Cage into a live-action mannequin for commodities. Cage kicks, jumps, and climbs his way through a number of high-intensity action sequences wearing a Rocket Phoenix leather jacket, Billabong beach wear, and Vans brand skate shoes (Pinsker, 2002). Also, Cage uses technology such as Motorola video cell phones, Kodak equipment, Sony Playstation 2 game consoles, Sony VOAI, IBM computers and Microsoft products as tools for expressing himself on the Internet and to achieve his clandestine military objectives. xXx also promotes the automobile industry, with Cage driving the Corvette, Jeep, and 67’ Pontiac GTO. The sixth globally popular element of xXx is visual spectacle. Global Hollywood knows that spectacles of violent aggression, explosions, death-defying conduct, and property destruction undertaken by hyper-masculine and buff protagonist-stars translate well across borders and appeal to young people (Acland, 2003, p. 35; During, 1991). xXx is loaded with visual spectacle: Cage motocross jumps over an exploding canyon in the middle of a Columbian jungle, races against a grenade-induced mountain avalanche on a makeshift snowboard, and para-glides his way on to a fast-moving weaponized hydrofoil after being ejected from a moving car. Minimal dialogue is employed in xXx. Diesel grunts a number of one-liners: “Never trust anyone over 30”; “Welcome to the Xander Zone”; “I live for this shit.” xXx’s privileging of visual spectacle over complex dialogue reduces costs associated with dubbing and aims to make the film attractive to youthful viewers. The seventh globally popular element of xXx is its working service class empathies and cultural populist themes. In one scene, Cage (a symbol for the trans-national system’s diverse and young service workers) is pit against Dick Hotchkiss (a symbol for conservative cultural elitism, racism and classism). Cage poses as a hotel valet clerk—a low-paying service job occupied by young people—to humiliate Dick with a prank. Dick, accompanied by his stereotypically beautiful blonde girlfriend, tosses the keys to his red Corvette at Cage and racially profiles him: “Where are you from, Tijuana?” Dick “others” Cage as foreign indentured labor: “Keep it (my car) out of the sun. I don’t want the paint to fade. I pay enough for you people.” Keys in hand, Cage hops in Dick’s car and speeds away. Pursued by a police car, Cage speaks to the dashboard-equipped camera: Obviously the car doesn’t belong to me, it’s not my style. It belongs to Dick Hotchkiss, the California state senator. You remember Dick? He’s the guy who tried to ban rap music because he feels that the lyrics promote violence. It’s music, Dick! He’s also the guy who wants to pull every video game off every shop in the country, because he feels that video games are diminishing the intelligence of youth. Come on, Dick, it’s the only education we got. Dick, you’re a bad man. You know what we do to bad men? We punish ‘em. Dick, you've just entered the Xander zone. To punish Dick for trying to stigmatize and censor youth consumption of popular culture, Cage crashes Dick’s Corvette off a cliff, skydives out of it, and then uploads the resulting action video to his “Xander Zone” website. xXx’s U.S. and trans-national viewers are invited to enjoy the digital spectacle of Cage posing as a member of the dis-enfranchised trans-national service class  

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and then challenging, stealing from and destroying the private property of an elitist political authority figure. xXx’s spectacular violence is also directed at old classist cultural distinction making processes. In old bourgeois Europe, high culture’s primary social function was to mark one’s class position (Bourdieu, 1984). In xXx, Cage demolishes symbols of European high culture and bourgeois nobility. In one scene, the Czech State Castle, at Vranov nad Dyjí, is transformed into a party zone. Anarchy 99 takes over a huge Baroque rotunda with a massive ceiling covered end to end with rococo frescoes and statues of grandees. Littered with CDs and ripped magazines, discarded cigarette butts and broken booze bottles, the hall has been converted from a space of elite order and good taste into a place of popular leisure—a makeshift bowling alley. Cage tosses bowling balls at antique sculptures and relics, destroying their economic and symbolic value. In another scene, Cage meets NSA agent Gibbons at an Opera House (the Prague State opera house), where a rehearsal of Mozart’s revered Don Giovanni is underway. Cage can’t stand it. He mocks the opera, telling Gibbons that the sound is “cruel and unusual”(affirming perhaps the value of xXx’s heavy metal-rap soundtrack). In yet another scene, Cage is pursued by assassins at a high-end restaurant. To escape, he steals a silver platter that is being used to serve wealthy patrons; he uses it as a weapon to bash a snooty waiter in the face and then transforms it into an ersatz skateboard. xXx invites viewers to derive pleasure from spectacularly populist action sequences in which symbols of U.S. and European racism, classism and cultural elitism are mocked, refashioned and smashed. In sum, xXx’s textual content conveys numerous “globally popular” elements—a mixed race star, international actors, genre hybridity, the MTV-aesthetic, global brands and violent spectacles of populism—that may have contributed to its global appeal and resonance among young viewers. xXx: U.S. Nationalist Imperial Ideology Though global Hollywood designed xXx to be a globally popular film, xXx may be misrecognized as a form of distinctly “American” imperial culture because it carries numerous banal nationalist representations. It depicts landmarks including the Washington Monument and the White House. It displays a U.S. national security agency (NSA) Intelligence Facility, located in Mt. Weather, Virginia, as the center from which Cage’s trans-national action is directed. It scripts Cage is a U.S. NSA protagonist who serves U.S. strategic interests. In this section, I examine how xXx’s representation of U.S. foreign policy, national identity and culture promotes the U.S. Empire. xXx communicates the imperial foreign policy doctrine of U.S. exceptionalism—the idea that the U.S. is unique and has a special role to play in world affairs. In exceptionalist discourse, the U.S. claims the sole right and responsibility to lead and shape world affairs. The doctrine of exceptionalism is communicated through xXx’s “national security narrative” (Valantin, 2004), which conveys cause and effect relationships and a linear chain of events that move from beginning to middle to end, from conflict to resolution. xXx imagines “threats” to U.S. security— the basis for the legitimization of U.S. power. At the beginning of xXx’s narrative, U.S. security is destabilized by the threat of “Anarchy 99,” a terrorist organization of young Russian ex-militia members that plot to destroy the world’s major cities. Throughout the 1990s, “terrorists”—nonstate actors that use violence against civilians to achieve political, religious, personal, or ideological objectives—were generalized as the post-Cold War threat (Valantin, 2005, p. 50). In the late 1990s, Hollywood action films portrayed Columbians, neo-Nazis, Russians, Bosnians,  

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the Irish and Muslims as “terrorists” (Hoberman, 2001; Shaheen, 2003). In the interim between the Cold War (1945-1991) and the post-9/11 “war on terror,” xXx frames trans-national anarchists (“Anarchy 99”) as terrorist threats to U.S. national and transnational security. xXx was conceptualized at the turn of the millennium, when the Clinton Administration’s “Washington consensus” had made the world safe for global capitalism by promoting neoliberal policies of privatization, deregulation, and liberalization through global trade institutions like the IMF and World Bank (Bacevich, 2002). During Clinton’s presidency, supporters of anticorporate globalization movements (unionists, environmentalists, socialists, anarchists) were coded by the news media as “threats” to a U.S.-backed neoliberal capitalist world order following a number of major protests in trans-national cities, the most famous being the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” against the World Trade Organization (WT0). xXx’s representation of “Anarchy 99” perpetuates the media’s negative stereotyping and vilification of anarchists as being inherently violent. xXx’s Anarchy 99 rejects state power and nationalism, but instead of struggling for global grassroots democracy and social justice, it uses black market capitalism to finance depoliticized violence. xXx addresses trans-national viewers, not just U.S. viewers, as a possible victim of this pseudo-anarchist “threat.” To secure the world, the NSA recruits Cage and dispatches him. Cage struggles to defeat Anarchy 99. To do this, he undermines the sovereignty of other states. In Prague, Cage learns that local police do not want the U.S. to interfere with their criminal investigation of Anarchy 99. “You are here because your government is putting pressure on my government. This is an internal affair,” says a Czech cop. “Get whatever information your government needs and get out.” In response to the Czech cop’s declaration of juridical sovereignty over his country’s internal security, Cage responds: “You may not want me here, but I don’t want to be here. I’ve never been under anyone’s jurisdiction.” Cage’s statement reproduces the myth of “America the reluctant sheriff” (Bacevich, 2002). The U.S. does not want to be a global superpower, but it must because it has the unique intelligence and military ability to identify and eliminate threats to world security. As the reluctant but enlightened global sheriff, the U.S. refuses to be “under anyone’s jurisdiction.” Sure enough, Cage’s NSA intelligence is correct. Anarchy 99 is a much greater threat than the Czech policeman fathomed. The U.S.’s “pressure” on the Czech state no longer appears as an external intrusion, but a benevolent and necessary intervention by a stronger power. Cage’s exceptional actions ultimately eliminate the threat of Anarchy 99, restoring security to the U.S., the Czech Republic and the world. xXx thus represents the U.S. as an exceptional yet credible power, a state that has the sovereign right to lead. Throughout xXx, Cage violates the internal sovereignty of other states in pursuit of American “national security,” which by the end of the narrative, is rendered as equivalent with “world security.” xXx glorifies covert acts of state coercion that might normally be viewed as threatening, even illegal. xXx’s representation of U.S. military exceptionalism supports the post9/11 “Bush Doctrine”(Daalder, 2003) by affirming a foreign policy of pre-emptive warfare, unilateralism, extra-territorial sovereignty and full spectrum dominance. xXx, however, is not a classic war film. Cage is not a traditional U.S.-state soldier deployed on foreign soil in a fight against state-based enemies. Nor is xXx like the post-WWII western, which depicted territorial frontiers of vast, uncluttered landscapes as metaphorical stages for U.S. imperial expansion (Corkin, 2000). xXx represents the U.S. as the exceptionally sovereign and supra-territorial state. Cage, like the post-9/11 U.S. state, ignores the sovereignty of other states by unilaterally traversing borders in pursuit of security.

 

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xXx also conveys the trope of multicultural militarism. Throughout the 1990s, “a highly selective idea of multiculturalism became central to the imagining of U.S. national identity in Hollywood cinema” that was articulated to “exceptionalist and even, imperialist U.S. nationalism”(Davies 2005, p. 397). The U.S. military was often represented as the site of U.S. multicultural nationalism; it effectively integrated new recruits who had migrated to the U.S. from many parts of the world and then actively recognized, managed and utilized their diversity (Evans, 2003). In many, the U.S. military was one; it melted the race and class differences of its new recruits into a nationally cohesive and trans-national fighting force. For McAlister (2001), media representations of militarized multiculturalism legitimize U.S. military power to U.S. citizens and foreign publics: “the diversity of its armed forces made the United States a world citizen, with all the races and nations of the globe represented in its population. As the military would represent the diversity of the United States, the United States, as represented in its military, would contain the world”(p. 250). In this framing, the U.S. military is at once exceptional (it has a unique capacity to integrate and mix multiple cultures together yet still cohere as national fighting force) and universal (its personnel reflects the diversity of global culture). The U.S. military is fit to lead, not only because it is a unique multicultural model of integration, but also, because it contains a hybrid mix of world culture. Kraidy (2005) argues that “hybridity” is not just a mixed cultural condition, but a concept that is contextually articulated by a variety of actors to a number of different economic, geopolitical and cultural goals. There is no necessary or natural connection between mixed-race hybridity and U.S. foreign policy, but xXx puts mixed-race hybridity in the service U.S. foreign policy promotion. xXx’s protagonist might therefore be viewed as “prefiguring” U.S. President Barack Obama’s appealing image of a global, multi-racial and cosmopolitan America (Beasley, 2008; Brooks, 2008; Parameswaran, 2009). In xXx, Cage is a symbol for the U.S.’s nationally exceptional yet transnationally mixed multicultural military. Cage is distinguished from Britain’s highbrow, middle-aged and AngloSaxon spy, James Bond. At a Rammstein concert, a tuxedo clad James Bond caricature is shot in the back by one of Anarchy 99’s henchmen and then tossed around in a mosh pit. xXx’s NSA wants to recruit an “unconventional agent” (someone more immersed in popular media, youth savvy and able to flexibly adapt to trans-national conditions) to fight a war against an “unconventional enemy”(Anarchy 99 and its trans-national terror). Cage is selected. After being arrested for destroying Senator Hotchkiss’s car, the NSA gives Cage an option: go to jail or serve the U.S. military. “This is your chance to pay back Uncle Sam for all the freedoms you enjoy,” says NSA agent Augustus Gibbons. “If you do what I want, I’ll make all your little criminal transgressions go away so you can get back to your pathetic excuse for a life.” Cage consents. The NSA instrumentalizes Cage’s diverse attributes. Cage’s ambiguous identity and subcultural style (shaved head, tattoos and urban argot) help him traverse borders, infiltrate Anarchy 99 and pass as the enemy. In xXx, U.S. military coercion is imaged as a life-affirming ritual of eXtreme selfactualization that is interactively “played” for fun by macho multicultural men (Stahl, 2010). In one scene, Cage yells: “Stop thinking Prague Police and start thinking Playstation. Blow shit up!” In addition to promoting Sony’s video game console, xXx depicts the experience of war as a pleasurable video game. Appropriately, xXx’s production notes refer to Cage as “the adrenalinjunkie Bond of the Playstation generation.” In xXx, military service is as exciting but more dignified than Xtreme sports. “I’ve been risking my life for a lot of stupid reasons” says Cage.

 

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“This is the first one that makes sense to me.” xXx’s multicultural military is the source of subcultural cool, conflating “war, rebellious consumerism, [and] extreme sports”(Stahl, 2010, p. 61) and offering its target viewers the fantasy of “utilizing the [global] battlefield as a gigantic extreme sports playground”(p. 62). Cage represents Global Hollywood’s affirmation of militainment’s new imperial subject: the “virtual citizen-soldier”(Stahl, 2010). Cage’s capacity for deliberative dialogue about the uses of state power is debilitated as result of his immersion in the spectacle of war. By crossing borders, Cage even contributes to the U.S. multicultural military’s transnational recruiting effort. While covertly infiltrating Anarchy 99 in the Czech Republic, Cage meets Yelena, a Russian spy. Cage and Yelena become romantically involved; she says that she will work for the NSA if Cage negotiates a U.S. citizenship deal for her. While Cage receives a get out of jail free card in exchange for military service (joining the army or going to jail is an actual option that some U.S. judges offer to youthful felons), Yelena gets U.S. citizenship rights in exchange for serving the NSA. In xXx’s denouement, Cage and Yelena get married and vacation on Bora Bora. xXx thus represents an attractive image of the U.S. as a land of militarysupported immigration and cultural blending. The U.S. military’s global presence is not ominous, but represented as a gateway to immigration. Though the U.S. military is actually mandated to “secure” a distinct territorial entity (“the U.S.”) from foreign threats, xXx refashions the U.S. military into a symbol of cosmopolitan openness and multicultural globality, a path to the “American Dream.” The America represented by xXx (and secured by the NSA and Cage) is an expansive market, a 20th century source of U.S. soft power, especially in Europe (De Grazia, 2004). The U.S. yoked concepts of freedom, democracy, and individualism to market access, giving rise to the discourse of market populism. This represents the market as a democratizing force that levels social class inequalities and destabilizes elites by giving the people, who always know what’s in their best interest, what they want (Frank, 2001). xXx appeals to transnational viewers with an image of the U.S. as a boundless media market, where Cage and other young people have fun. Cage’s identity is forged through entertainment (heavy metal and rap music, television shows, and video games), information and communication technologies (computers, Playstation 2 consoles, cell phones, and camcorders), and the experience of extreme sports (sky-diving, snowboarding, motorbiking and skateboarding). In the U.S. media market, urban multi-racial youth party, express themselves, stick it to the elitist suburban white man, and post do-it-yourself videos on the web. While xXx dismantles the high culture/low culture distinctions of a bygone era by attacking residual taste/class formations, it reproduces a consumerist view of the U.S. which supports the profit-interests of media corporations. Class inequality, debt and poverty— social problems that daily afflict and limit the opportunities of millions of young U.S. citizens— do not exist in xXx’s imagined U.S. In sum, xXx is encoded with attractive images of U.S. military exceptionalism, multicultural militarism, and media market populism that popularize or at least make U.S. Empire seem cool. xXx: Global Imperial Pop Harvey (2005, p. 27) describes the new imperialism as a complex and often contradictory fusion of the economic imperatives of capitalist accumulation (production, trade, commerce, labor and speculation flows of trans-national corporations as they seek to maximize global profitability) with the geopolitical imperatives of a state (political, diplomatic and military strategies of a state  

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as it struggles to assert its interests and achieve goals in the world). xXx is an example of how entertainment that is owned, produced, exhibited, marketed and distributed by a global Hollywood conglomerate communicates a mix of globally popular imagery and nationalist imperialist messages that align with U.S. state struggles for hegemony in world affairs. In view of this, xXx does not support cultural theory’s periodizing argument that trans-national media capitalism marks the decline or end of nationalist imperialist media representation (Appadurai, 1997). Trans-national, post-fordist and postmodern media production logics including glocalization, global TV formatting and global blockbusters do, in some instances, support a global post-national “superculture”(Lull, 2001, 157). But xXx blends global supercultural imagery with nationalist- imperialist messages. Between the de-territorialized post-nationalist supercultures and territorial nationalist cultures, xXx is a global Hollywood film commodity that promotes exceptionalist representations of U.S. foreign policy, culture and values in the spaces of world politics and markets. As a form of global imperial popular culture, xXx integrates appealing elements of global culture into an overarching American imperial vision of world order.

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AUTHOR DETAILS: Tanner Mirrlees, Communication Program, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 55 Bond Street East, Oshawa, ON, L1G 0A5; E-mail: [email protected]

 

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