We previously reported on the Pentagon using X-Men: First Class as a recruiting tool, by sponsoring the movie and producing recruitment ads comparing joining the X-Men with  soldier’s life.  There’s no argument that soldiers are part of the folks I’d put in the “hero” category, it was a bit of a stretch for me.  When reading an article today by David Sirota about military propaganda and movies this stuck out to me about that recruitment drive:

The spots played in cinemas, and exit polls of 17- to 24-year-olds leaving the movie theater found that those who saw the ad were 25% more likely to say they would consider joining the Army than those who didn’t, according to U.S. Army Accessions Command Chief Marketing Officer Bruce Jasurda.

“We get asked all the time, ‘Why do you market?'” said Jasurda. “We’re a nation at war going on 11 years, which is … the longest period of consistent conflict that the U.S. Army’s ever been involved in, that the nation’s ever been involved in, longer than any war we’ve been in…That’s why we market. We want to make sure people understand the full nature of this product. The Army is the ultimate considered purchase.”

So, after seeing the movie and recruitment spots, did any of you feel more like joining?