NAMELESS ENEMY, INVISIBLE GEOGRAPHY: TOP GUN: MAVERICK AND THE CINEMATIC REPRODUCTION OF THE AMERICAN WAR MACHINE

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) transcends the boundaries of a commercial blockbuster to function as a strategic instrument of Soft Power, encoding contemporary US foreign policy crises regarding nuclear proliferation and “rogue states.” This study aims to explore the mechanisms by which the film’s configuration of a “nameless enemy” and “invisible geography” legitimizes military intervention, framing it as a “technical necessity” and “moral duty” rather than a political violation. The research employs a discourse analysis approach to interrogate the latent meanings within the cinematic text. The theoretical framework synthesizes Eurocentric criticism, the Frontier Myth, and Dromology to elucidate the decontextualization of the non-Western world and the aestheticization of martial destructiveness. The findings indicate that the narrative reserves nuclear capacity solely for “civilization” while dehumanizing enemy geography through Orientalist codes. Equally significant, the analysis demonstrates that the film reframes 'military intervention as a “civilizing policing activity.” The article concludes that this narrative exemplifies the collaborative strategy between the Pentagon and Hollywood to manufacture global consent, transforming the cinema audience into complicit subjects of the war machine.