Critics say the propaganda-style clip misreads films like Gladiator and Braveheart.The official White House account posted a propaganda video mixing Hollywood epics with footage of real bombings. The only problem? They clearly never watched the films.Ridley Scott’s Gladiator opens in darkness and mud. It is 180 AD, and the Roman army is massed on the edge of a Germanic forest, preparing to annihilate a tribe that has refused to submit to imperial rule. Maximus Decimus Meridius, general, soldier, loyal servant of Rome, rides along his lines and gives the order. Catapults launch. The forest burns. Roman cavalry charges into the smoke and slaughters everyone it finds. It is the very first scene of the film. And it is a scene about a superpower invading a foreign people on their own soil. This is the clip the White House chose to celebrate airstrikes on Iran. The Video On 6 March 2026, the official @WhiteHouse account on X posted a video set to a hip-hop track by Childish Gambino, himself an outspoken progressive artist who has never expressed any affinity for the current administration. The video intercut real footage of US airstrikes on Iran with clips from Hollywood blockbusters: Braveheart, Gladiator, Call of Duty killstreak notifications, and more. Each time an American bomb hit an Iranian target, a “+100 points” graphic flashed on screen. The bombings killed hundreds of people, including children, in the first day alone. The video was not posted by a teenage fan account. It was not a parody. It was official communication from the executive office of the United States government. JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. pic.twitter.com/0502N6a3rL — The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 6, 2026 A Brief Guide to the Films They Chose The internet was quick to point out what the video’s creators apparently were not: that almost every cultural reference in the video actively undermines the message it is trying to send. Take Gladiator. The specific clip used is from the opening battle sequence, in which the Roman army launches a devastating assault on a Germanic tribe on their own territory. Historians have long read this scene as an ambivalent portrait of imperial conquest, spectacular, brutal, and morally uncomfortable even as it is cinematically thrilling. Maximus is not a liberator. He is the instrument of an empire expanding its borders by force. The parallels with a US airstrike on a sovereign nation require no elaboration. Then there is Braveheart. William Wallace, face painted blue, sword raised, screaming into the Scottish hills, is the figurehead of a people resisting violent occupation by a more powerful imperial force. As one widely-shared reply to the video put it with admirable economy: “We are the empire.” The video also featured Walter White and Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, two characters whose entire narrative purpose is to illustrate the rot at the heart of the American dream. And Keanu Reeves, who was born in Beirut, raised partly in Australia, and holds Canadian citizenship. A curious avatar of American might. Christopher Reeve also appeared. He died paralysed after a horse-riding accident, having spent his final years campaigning for stem cell research, a cause the American right largely opposed. The Aesthetics of Not Watching the Film There is a particular kind of cultural illiteracy that comes not from ignorance but from consuming only surfaces. These are people who have seen the poster, heard the quote, absorbed the vibe, but never sat with the meaning. Maximus is cool. Wallace is fierce. Reeves is iconic. The actual substance of what these figures represent is irrelevant, because the substance was never the point. What matters is the feeling: strength, dominance, the hero who cannot be stopped. The bombs become a killstreak. The dead become points. The war becomes a film that a twelve-year-old would make if given access to the official communication channels of the most powerful military on earth. This is propaganda for people who learned history from trailers. Back in that Germanic forest, the trees are burning and the Romans are winning. It looks extraordinary on screen. Ridley Scott knew exactly what he was showing us: the awesome, terrible machinery of an empire that believes its violence is civilisation. The White House posted it as a highlight reel.

The official White House account posted a propaganda video mixing Hollywood epics with footage of real bombings. The only problem? They clearly never watched the films. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator opens in darkness and mud. It is 180 AD, and the Roman army is massed on the edge of a Germanic forest, preparing to annihilate a tribe that has refused to submit to imperial rule. Maximus Decimus Meridius, general, soldier, loyal servant of Rome, rides along his lines and gives the order. Catapults launch. The forest burns. Roman cavalry charges into the smoke and slaughters everyone it finds. It is the very first scene of the film. And it is a scene about a superpower invading a foreign people on their own soil. This is the clip the White House chose to celebrate airstrikes on Iran. On 6 March 2026, the official @WhiteHouse account on X posted a video set to a hip-hop track by Childish Gambino, himself an outspoken progressive artist who has never expressed any affinity for the current administration. The video intercut real footage of US airstrikes on Iran with clips from Hollywood blockbusters: Braveheart, Gladiator, Call of Duty killstreak notifications, and more. Each time an American bomb hit an Iranian target, a “+100 points” graphic flashed on screen. The bombings killed hundreds of people, including children, in the first day alone. The video was not posted by a teenage fan account. It was not a parody. It was official communication from the executive office of the United States government. JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. — The White House (@WhiteHouse) The internet was quick to point out what the video’s creators apparently were not: that almost every cultural reference in the video actively undermines the message it is trying to send. Take Gladiator. The specific clip used is from the opening battle sequence, in which the Roman army launches a devastating assault on a Germanic tribe on their own territory. Historians have long read this scene as an ambivalent portrait of imperial conquest, spectacular, brutal, and morally uncomfortable even as it is cinematically thrilling. Maximus is not a liberator. He is the instrument of an empire expanding its borders by force. The parallels with a US airstrike on a sovereign nation require no elaboration. Then there is Braveheart. William Wallace, face painted blue, sword raised, screaming into the Scottish hills, is the figurehead of a people resisting violent occupation by a more powerful imperial force. As one widely-shared reply to the video put it with admirable economy: “We are the empire.” The video also featured Walter White and Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, two characters whose entire narrative purpose is to illustrate the rot at the heart of the American dream. And Keanu Reeves, who was born in Beirut, raised partly in Australia, and holds Canadian citizenship. A curious avatar of American might. Christopher Reeve also appeared. He died paralysed after a horse-riding accident, having spent his final years campaigning for stem cell research, a cause the American right largely opposed. There is a particular kind of cultural illiteracy that comes not from ignorance but from consuming only surfaces. These are people who have seen the poster, heard the quote, absorbed the vibe, but never sat with the meaning. Maximus is cool. Wallace is fierce. Reeves is iconic. The actual substance of what these figures represent is irrelevant, because the substance was never the point. What matters is the feeling: strength, dominance, the hero who cannot be stopped. The bombs become a killstreak. The dead become points. The war becomes a film that a twelve-year-old would make if given access to the official communication channels of the most powerful military on earth. Back in that Germanic forest, the trees are burning and the Romans are winning. It looks extraordinary on screen. Ridley Scott knew exactly what he was showing us: the awesome, terrible machinery of an empire that believes its violence is civilisation. The White House posted it as a highlight reel.