Performance, Politics, and the War on Terror: 'Whatever it Takes' Book

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xii

Acknowledgments xvii

1 Bushismo 1

Bushismo 2

The big picture 4

Bush's performances 6

Truth, "truthiness," and the fake 12

Michael Moore's Oscar, or, the invalidation of the political 15

The real, and fear: 2004 17

The blank slate 18

Back stage: Cheney's dark side 20

Bush in representation from W to Lil' Bush 23

Documentary theatre: perforating "truth," testimony, and evidence 26

Bush's wikiality 31

2 Protest Visible and Invisible 33

Shannon 33

Theorizing secrecy 35

Cultivating fear: reconstructing post-9/11 performances of dissent 39

Uniforms and resistance 44

Uniforms and camouflage: discipline/deception 48

Wearing and telling: Vietnam 51

Wearing and telling: Iraq and Afghanistan 54

Post-9/11 uniform protests 55

Conclusion: uniform protest on video and in games 61

3 War, the Video Game 65

"War is culture" 65

Undercover at the Army Experience Center 66

"War is peace" 73

Games finite and infinite 75

War as game 75

Performing counter-insurgency within the "game" 79

Documentary games 83

Enemies "real" and "unreal" 88

"AU But War Is Simulation" 90

Playing the game 95

Conclusion 102

4 Torture Simulated and Real 103

Scenes from the Coney Island Waterboarding Thrill Ride 103

Real fiction, fake reality 106

"Lookin' for Jack Bauer" 107

Blurring fiction and reality in popular entertainment: 24 110

24 and the representation of torture 113

"Mock Death": waterboarding, performance, exception 124

Waterboarding: the worst form of torture, and our favorite 126

Interrogation training 136

Conclusion 138

5 Obamania 140

Same method, different president 140

"Whatever It Takes": pure theatre 141

The test 144

Freedom isn't free 146

Obamania 154

Barack the badass 155

Notes 160

References 185

Index 201