Endorsement of American Imperialism in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down

Abstract

This research paper examines Ridley Scott’s movie Black Hawk Down to show its role in endorsing American imperialism.It further explores how the use of advanced movie making technologies serve for the filmmaker’s own politics of legitimizing American intervention in the internal affair of Somalia.It also shows the way this movie carries the state-sponsored line of thought which put sit in the basket of propaganda tool to persuade people for approval of American brand of democracy. This paper combines both film theory and post-Marxist approach, especially of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe,Stuart Hall, and Shaobo Xie for the analysis of the movie.This research paper concludes that this movie misrepresents Somalis as well as the incident of Mogadishu for hidden politics of the movie maker.Ridley Scott’s attempt to show American soldiers’ death as a form of martyrdom and that of Somaliancitizensas futile job proves his position as an agent of America for endorsing its imperial mission.Such movie needs to be watched with critical perspective.In short,the finding of the research shows Scott’s advocacy of American imperialism in Black Hawk Down. Keywords: American imperialism; war on terror; stereotyping; propaganda; globalization; liberal democracy; neoliberalism; radical democracy