See: Full Metal Jacket, GI Jane, Basic

Basic sucks and then you die.

Hollywood teaches: Hollywood hates the military, it has ever since John Wayne died, but these days Hollywood especially hates the people within the military who train other soldiers and marines to go kill babies. Drill instructors are inevitably shrieking monsters who spew racial epithets and gladly proclaim they are getting an erection as they kick somebody doing push ups. The cruel process of military training dehumanizes recruits until they either go completely insane or are ready to willingly bayonet children.

The reality: Basic training is less about screaming pointlessly and kicking people and more about teaching recruits how to shoot bad guys without shooting each other as quickly as possible. US troops are evil, of course, but it's the kind of low grade evil of boredom where troops get Iraqi kids to say things like "please bomb my house" or throw water bottles at their heads.



See: Syriania, The Kingdom, Delta Force, The Marine

Who will kill you? The CIA? Terrorists? Oil companies? Welcome to the Middle East!

Hollywood teaches: The Middle East is complicated. It's a place where terrorists, American oil companies, and the CIA have joined forces to ruin the lives of humble and well-meaning Middle Eastern families. Middle Eastern people are similar to space aliens and the only way to reason with them is with your face covered in camo paint and talking with an Uzi. If you are a white person in the Middle East you are probably going to get tortured or murdered, so don't bother with a two-way plane ticket.

The reality: Hollywood is pretty much right, the only omission is that they don't ever show Middle Eastern people in the Middle East making shaky videos of themselves yelling "Allahu Ackbar!" to post on the Internet. When they are not busy being oppressed by America that seems to account for about 90% of their free time.

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