Gallery: From Independence Day to Parks and Rec: The Best Patriotic Picks for the 4th of July
01Independence Day
With the Fourth of July right around the corner, we've has been pondering our favorite patriotic media. Not just the ones that offer the most jingoism or flag-waving, mind you, but the movies, TV shows, comics and books that best celebrate, critique or embody the issue of American identity. If you're looking for something to read or watch over the upcoming holiday, we offer these humble suggestions for exploring, enjoying or exploding American patriotism, in all its many modern media forms. *Independence Day* ------------------ __What It's About:__ *Independence Day*—possibly the greatest alien-invasion-military-recruitment movie of all time (soon to have a sequel!)—is the harrowing tale of what happens when extraterrestrials attack the United States and it's up to a quirky scientist (Jeff Goldblum), a smart-ass ace pilot (Will Smith), a drunk (Randy Quaid), and the best-coiffed president ever (Bill Pullman) to pull together and save the nation. It might be Roland Emmerich's masterpiece (sorry, *10,000 BC*). It also features Brent Spiner as an Area 51 scientist and a scene where an alien is punched in the face – by Will Smith. __What It Teaches Us About America:__ Like all great flag-waving action flicks, *Independence Day* teaches us that even the FLOTUS (played here by *Battlestar Galactica*'s Madame President Mary McDonnell) and a stripper (played here by Vivica A. Fox) can pull together to save humanity, and that despite any perceived differences we may think we have we're all in this together. But really the true patriotism lies in President Thomas J. Whitmore's rousing speech at the end. "Mankind, huh? Word should have new meaning for all of us, today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom – not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. … Today we celebrate our Independence Day." It's amazing. It's hard not to believe President Obama's speechwriters don't occasionally crank it up for inspiration. Even Robert Loggia chokes up. Basically, that speech embodies everything America wants to be – even if, in this case, America wants to be a nation that bands together with the rest of the world to fight of extra terrestrial invasion. Also, what makes you prouder to be an American than alien punching? *—Angela Watercutter*
02Parks and Rec
*Parks & Recreation* -------------------- __What It's About:__ Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler, is the dedicated deputy director of the Parks and Recreation Department of fictional Pawnee, Indiana (First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity). Her job is a constant uphill struggle, between a hardline-Libertarian boss who's been working his way up the government ladder mostly to impede it, co-workers who range from staunchly apathetic to wildly incompetent and a constituency whose relationship with reality is generally on the shaky side. Nonetheless, Knope usually manages to win the day, and by the current season, she's revived the town's historic Harvest Festival, landed a seat on the City Council, and weathered public scandal in the name of love. __What It Teaches Us About America:__ *Parks & Rec.* may be a satire of local government, but protagonist Leslie Knope's enthusiasm for and staunch belief in the value of public process and her weird little hometown are unbelievably contagious—not just to her fictional colleagues and constituents, but to her audience. This is the America and American government that I want to believe in: eclectic misfits celebrating their differences and working together--if not always smoothly--toward common good. *—Rachel Edidin*
03Team America: World Police
*Team America: World Police* ---------------------------- __What It's About:__ Arguably the greatest love letter to the military industrial complex/political satire/parody of 1960s kids show *Thunderbirds* in the history of the world, *Team America: World Police* is a surprisingly smart, merciless personification of the right wing view of American foreign policy post-9/11, wrapped up in a shameless piss-take of the action movie genre. Oh, yeah, and everyone in it is a marionette, too, because obviously there wasn't enough to make the movie unusual enough as it was. __What It Teaches Us About America:__ In case the movie's theme song doesn't give you enough of a patriotic fervor (Sample: "Terrorist, your game is through/ Cause now you have to answer to/ America, fuck yeah"), you might be won over by *Team America*'s depiction of a strong country that really does keep the rest of the world in line through force and moral superiority... Or perhaps the sly--if not always subtle--way in which creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone manage to ridicule that particular idea of what America's responsibility to the world is. In its own way, *Team America* actually succeeds as patriotic by standing up for America by trying to protect it from being overrun by empire builders.
04The West Wing
*The West Wing* --------------- __What It's About:__ An NBC political drama that ran from 1999-2006, *The West Wing* took viewers inside the fast-talking, occasionally bombastic Oval Office of fictional Democratic President Josiah Bartlet, primarily by looking through the eyes of his senior and junior support staff as they tackled contemporary issues ranging from terrorism to same-sex marriage. __What It Teaches Us About America:__A moderate Democrat and devout Catholic, President Bartlet was nonetheless a wish-fullfillment dream for liberals: an erudite Nobel Laureate who expounded on the joys of ancient history and literature between executive decisions in stark contrast to the anti-intellectual bent of real-life president George W. Bush. Particularly after 9/11, as the larger world of politics became increasingly dominated by fear, cynicism and partisan politics, *West Wing* fired the imaginations of viewers with a White House that was fueled by optimism, idealism, human goodness -- and ok, still partisan politics. Sure, *The West Wing* was an unapologetically left-leaning show, but it was also a deeply patriotic one that believed not only in America's exceptionalism but in the ability of its political system to accomplish good. At the very least, it allowed viewers a glimpse into a world where the people running the country served the interests of America first and politics second, not the other way around. And even if it's fiction, that's an alternate universe worth imagining. *-Laura Hudson*
05Veep
*Veep* ------ __What It's About:__ *Veep* is a biting half-hour political satire on HBO about vice president Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her (mostly) power-hungry and bumbling staff. From her doofus director of communications Mike McLintock (Matt Walsh) to her ruthlessly funny chief of staff Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky) to her White House liaison Jonah Ryan (Timothy C. Simons), everyone on the show is an eerily familiar-looking parody of someone we've probably seen on the news or read about in *The Washington Post*. __What It Teaches Us About America:__ Seeing as it's an odd-couple kind of show that pairs one of the most powerful offices in the land with the concept of a workplace comedy, it's hard to imagine this show should be taken too seriously. However, if you think deeper than the malarkey and (albeit priceless) VP quotes like "I hate impeachments – they're so '90s," there is actually a celebration of American democracy in *Veep*. We've all read about enough political gaffes and D.C. backstabbing at this point to know that politics in America is both funny and *messy*, and by portraying the office as exactly that-and even adding a little bit of drama in Season 2--HBO's smart comedy has humanized the largely ceremonial office of the Veep in an amazing and memorable way. After all, when your Vice-President is a woman who can whip out a phrase like, "He's busting my fucking lady balls" with ease, she becomes pretty hard to forget.*—Angela Watercutter*
06Top Gun
*Top Gun* --------- __What It's About:__ *Top Gun* is the best military recruitment video ever. Set during the Cold War, the movie is about a cocky pilot named Maverick (Top Cruise, natch) and his RIO Goose (Anthony Edwards) who go off to Top Gun, an elite school for fighter pilots and learn a few lessons about life, death, and love in the process. (However, if you ask Quentin Tarantino it's actually about a "[man's struggle with his own homosexuality](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzY9a-WmE6o).") There's also a lot of Tony Scott-directed amazing dogfights. __What It Teaches Us About America:__ *Top Gun* was released right in the middle of the Reagan '80s, and it's evident in every frame (and not just because of the excessive hair product). It's the perfect *rah-rah USA!* film. All of the pilots are so cocksure and prepared for anything they make any red-blooded American want to enlist just so they can fly inverted, flip-off random MiGs and write checks their bodies can't cash. The Top Gun pilots are so confident in their country's military prowess that when they're told they're going into a dogfight to save a communications ship that's "wandered into foreign territory" they don't even ask whose foreign territory it is (they're probably bad dudes, right?). Confidence beyond comprehension: What's more awe-inspiringly American than that? But seriously, the patriotic notions of *Top Gun* can be incredibly hard to parse—simply because the "bogies" (or their military motivations) are never really identified. All we know is that the climactic dogfight—the one where the Navy fighter pilots actually blow up enemy planes—happens somewhere in the Indian Ocean and, well, those guys fired first. Presumably, the fact that Maverick et al won the day should make us proud of our boys in uniform for saving that disabled ship. But would that fist-pumping, bro-hugging ending feel the same way if it turned out that "communications ship" was full of American spies? *—Angela Watercutter*
07The Colbert Report
*The Colbert Report* -------------------- __What It's About:__ For eight years, Stephen Colbert's companion program to *The Daily Show* has been serving up Colbert's faux-conservative take on the politics of the day. It also has bangin' eagle graphics. __What It Teaches Us About America:__ Since its inception, *The Colbert Report* has been pulling a sneak attack on the American comedic political commentary vortex. Instead of just skewering the hypocrisy of politicos à la *The Daily Show*, the *Report* plays it a little more straight--or at least tries to--by riffing on the contradictions on cable news itself. As host, Colbert pretends to take the position of a cocky conservative Fox News-type anchor and spouts his opinions as if they're the only way to be a true American patriot -- and uses parody to show just how ridiculous that idea -- and the idea of a "[real America](http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-10-22/politics/36799399_1_hayes-bachmann-write-in-campaign)" -- really is. Take his comments on the recent Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act that required states to get preclearance before changing voting procedures, a measure that was there to prevent racist voting restrictions. "Ladies and gentlemen, as a son of the South, from one of the states covered by the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act, I want to thank the Supreme Court for finally setting my people free," Colbert noted (above). "We don't need it now, because apparently racism is over." By making a joke of ridiculous cable news rhetoric his humor, in turn, ends up being one of the most patriotic acts of comedy on cable. *—Angela Watercutter*
A row of small trebuchets and one really big one.08Captain America's Bicentennial Battles
*Captain America's Bicentennial Battles* ---------------------------------------- __What It's About:__Published in 1976 during the 200th anniversary of the founding of America, the Marvel Comics storyline featured super-soldier Captain America being sent through time by the mysterious "Mister Buda" to visit the past, present and future of the country he's sworn to protect. Thrill to the team-up of Cap and Benjamin Franklin! Chill to the dangers Cap faces in the great Chicago fire of 1871! Feel entirely conflicted by the sight of Cap dealing with the increasing showbiz world of today! It really is all here, albeit in a genuinely surreal way that has to be seen to be believed. __What It Teaches Us About America:__ There's no denying that *Bicentennial Battles* is something of a camp classic, what with writer/artist Jack Kirby bringing his traditional bombast and lack of subtlety to the work, but there's a sincerity about the book that's hard to miss, and that charm mixed with the genuinely educational elements of history it contains turns this into a weirdly wonderful history book for the United States that's at once entertaining and even a little inspirational. Admittedly, some of the facts are fudged to say the least -- it claims at one point that Captain America's costume was the inspiration for the original Stars and Stripes, among other things -- but while it may not be a totally accurate American history, per se, it's a certainly a highly entertaining one. *—Graeme McMillan*
Ready to fire!09The Collected Works of Sarah Vowell
*The Collected Works of Sarah Vowell* ------------------------------------- __What They're About:__Author and journalist Sarah Vowell manages the seemingly impossible: She makes history fun to read about. In *Assassination Vacation*, *The Wordy Shipmates* and *Unfamiliar Fishes*, she makes (in order) the history of assassinated U.S. Presidents, the journey to--and impact on--America by the New England Puritans and annexation of Hawaii by the United States not only fun, but easily understandable for a contemporary audience that may otherwise have no interest in American history. __What It Teaches Us About America:__ Vowell isn't just offering history with each of her books. Instead, she offers an insight into American values of old, and allowing readers a chance to see where this country actually came from, clear of sentimentality or after-the-fact whitewashing (occasionally literally). More than that, she makes a point of finding contrasts with today's America, whether in contemporary attitudes, events or overall cultural trends. Vowell doesn't just bring history to life--although she does that effortlessly--she makes the reader aware of the way in which we all belong to history, and that the United States is a country built on, and continually dealing, its own history and tendency towards self-mythologizing. She makes you proud of America and want to do better, all at the same time.*—Graeme McMillan*
