E90: reel:verb - Civil War (Garland, 2024)

re:verb

Spoiler Alert: This episode contains numerous plot spoilers for Civil War.

On today’s show, we inaugurate a new episode series called reel:verb, in which we rate, review, and analyze a recent movie from the perspective of politics, culture, and language in action. In the first installment, Alex, Olivia, and Calvin tackle the 2024 dystopian thriller Civil War, directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation). Civil War depicts a near-future US torn apart by domestic warfare, as seen from the perspectives of a small group of journalists (played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, and Stephen McKinley Henderson, respectively) who are documenting the fighting and plotting to photograph and interview the besieged US president (Nick Offerman).

We begin by providing our individual ratings of the film (out of 5 verbs), and then we recap the major plot points and set pieces that take place along Dunst et. al’s roadtrip from hell. We conclude with a wide-ranging analysis of the film’s politics and rhetoric, in which we unpack how it depicts journalism (and journalists) and consider its social significance in the midst of ongoing US-backed conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. Ultimately, we argue, this film’s vision of civil war is too far-fetched, abstracted, and underdeveloped to serve as a true cautionary tale for US audiences – perhaps because Garland, like his cast of photojournalists, is apparently more invested in aestheticizing violence than cogently critiquing it.

Works and Concepts Referenced In this Episode

Chouliaraki, L. (2005). Spectacular ethics: on the television footage of the Iraq war. Journal of language and politics, 4(1), 143-159.

Cloud, D. L. (2018). Reality bites: Rhetoric and the circulation of truth claims in US political culture. The Ohio State University Press.

Foucault, M. (1984). The Foucault reader. Vintage.

Our previous episode with Dr. Roger Stahl on US military cooperation in entertainment products

Reuters photographer [Mohammed Salem] wins World Press Photo of the Year with poignant shot from Gaza

Transcript of Pod Save America episode featuring Alex Garland (interview begins at 38:50)

An accessible transcript of this episode is available upon request. Please reach out to us via email (reverbcontent[AT]gmail.com), social media, or our website contact form to request a transcript.