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This book offers an introduction to the study of popular culture, both historical and contemporary. Beginning from the assumption that cultural systems are dynamic, contradictory, and hard to pin down, the author explores the field through a survey of important questions, including: What is popular culture? How has it developed over time? And what functions does it serve?

This essay considers representations of wounded US Iraq veterans on US broadcast television, in order to determine the role entertainment media are playing in the management of imperial relations in Iraq. Covering reality programs such asThe Montel Williams ShowandExtreme Makeover: Home Edition, and the scripted dramas,BonesandWithout a Trace, it demonstrates how the presentation of soldier-suffering effaces the Iraqi victims of US violence and channels public anger and frustration towards emotional support for US troops. Ultimately, such representations produce a form of empty empathy that disables attempts to translate the fact of human vulnerability into a basis for non-military political action.

Introduction: living room wars / Anna Froula and Stacy Takacs -- World War II on the small screen. "Bilko's bombers": anti-militarism in the era of the "new look" / Lisa Mundey -- The long fight: combat! and the generic development of the tv war drama series / David Pierson -- 12 o'clock high and the image of American air power, 1946-1967 / Sam Edwards -- Nervous laughter: Hogan's heroes and the Vietnam War / Robert Shandley -- Baa baa black sheep and the last stand of the WWII drama / A. Bowdoin Van Riper -- A waltz with and for the greatest generation: music in Band of brothers / Todd Decker -- Korea and Vietnam on the small screen. The American Forces Korea Network: "bringing troops a touch of home" / Sueyoung Park-primiano -- "Everybody here is crazy": images of the disabled on television's M*A*S*H / Kelly J.W. Brown -- Drinking the war away: televisual insobriety and the meanings of alcohol in M*A*S*H / David Scott Diffrient -- Small-screen insurgency: entertainment television, the Vietnamese Revolution, and the Cold War, 1953-1967 / Scott Laderman -- China Beach and the good series death / Christine Becker -- Contemporary conflicts on the small screen. Imagining the new military of the 1990's in Babylon 5's future wars / Kathleen Kennedy -- Jag, melodrama, and militarism / Stacy Takacs -- Political amnesia over here and imperial spectacle over there / Anna Froula -- Generation kill and the new screen combat / Magdalena Yüksel and Colleen Kennedy-Karpat -- "Don't ask, don't tell" and its repeal in Showtime's The l word and Lifetime's Army wives / Liora Elias

This is a necessary and urgent read for anyone concerned about the United States' endless wars. Investigating multiple genres of popular culture alongside contemporary U.S. foreign policy and political economy, Imperial Benevolence shows that American popular culture continuously suppresses awareness of U.S. imperialism while assuming American exceptionalism and innocence. This is despite the fact that it is rarely a product of the state. Expertly coordinated essays by prominent historians and media scholars address the ways that movies and television series such as Zero Dark Thirty, The Avengers, and even The Walking Dead, as well as video games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops, have largely presented the United States as a global force for good. Popular culture, with few exceptions, has depicted the U.S. as a reluctant hegemon fiercely defending human rights and protecting or expanding democracy from the barbarians determined to destroy it