Daddy Sam Wants You

is a series of satirical U.S. army recruitment propaganda posters. This work puts a critical lens on both U.S. war propaganda as well as on white LGB people in the military. This work is in conversation with Dr. Jasbir Puar’s framework of “homonationalism,” which describes the ways imperialist states use queerness to signpost modernity and morality while, and in order to justify, enacting colonial violence. These posters’ texts directly address white LGB people, sensually representing the military while simultaneously underscoring the global imperial violence they will be engaging in should they join.

Playing with hypersexual tropes of gayness to contrast military macho and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” invisibilizing of sexuality, I invoke humor and repulsion from those who understand the military as a crucial site in constructing cishetero masculine space representative of a patriotic America. At the same time, I question the actions of the United States military, directly implicating white LGB people in global war crimes in their endeavors to achieve national belonging.