Starship Troopers (1997)
By Ciara Midreé — October 6, 2017
I like thinking about what movies are trying to sell me. Particularly romantic comedies. What standards of heteronormativity did I mindlessly absorb just because I watched The Wedding Planner one too many times? I considered devoting this post to Love Actually and it’s blatant heterosexual propaganda (nine storylines– NINE– and not one of them describes anything other than boy-gets-or-loses-girl. Although I guess technically the one with the guy going to America may have counted as a polyamorous situation). But I eventually had to admit that no movie fits the propaganda bill better than Starship Troopers.
I seem to be a big fan of movies that walk that fine line of satire without explicitly stating their intent. You know, the type of films that may be confusing, upsetting, or even encouraging to those who don’t understand that the movie is actually criticizing what it’s depicting. Starship Troopers is one of those movies. If right-wing politics, fascism, and gung-ho militarization weren’t already on your shit-list, you probably won’t understand that Troopers is satirizing these topics.
For years as a baby film lover, I lumped Starship Troopers in with films like Gigli (2003) and Howard the Duck (1986) as movies that are just the worst– and I hadn’t even seen it. I based my opinion off of the “popular opinion” of people who clearly didn’t get what director Paul Verhoeven was going for. When you see the film, you can see that the actors are ridiculously attractive and they speak mostly in cliches and catchphrases because those are the tools of a propaganda machine, what they use to hook an audience. You later find that the characters are empty shells who engage in ridiculously tragic action, because the most potent propaganda is ultimately a facade for devastating, unreasonable deeds. (You should definitely watch this clip and LISTEN to what the teacher says. Don’t just watch Rico draw— the trick, always, is not to get distracted.)
In one of the most telling sequences, we see the bugs and the humans mirror each other exactly. In an attempt to better understand the bugs, Neil Patrick Harris’s character punctures a bug’s brain to gain its knowledge. Later, we see a bug do the exact same thing to a human, in exactly the same manner. There are some who may have watched this film and seen the bugs only as some monstrous Other, but here Verhoeven clearly points out that the bugs and the humans are one and the same— the humans are just as monstrous, just as destructive, and just as dumb.
The recent teaser trailer for Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) has a similar jingoist feel to the Would You Like to Know More? segments in Starship Troopers, but I fear it has none of the satirical intention. That’s why watching and understanding movies like Starship Troopers is weirdly important. Starship Troopers is horrifically violent not because it looks cool but because mindless, endless killing is horrific. It’s funny not because it’s corny but because jingoistic fascist ideals are like some sick joke. The film is a must-watch especially with the terror of 45 and the rise of alt-right misinformation. #educateyourself
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