Over the past week, a growing list of entertainment figures and intellectual property owners have found their work co-opted by the White House in a series of social media videos celebrating military strikes on Iran. The videos, posted to X with captions like "Justice the American Way," splice real wartime footage with clips from blockbuster films, anime, and video games in what critics describe as a brazen attempt to weaponise pop culture.
The White House has posted videos combining real footage from the war in Iran interspersed with footage from movies and video game clips, with clips from superhero movies, anime films, "Top Gun" and "Braveheart" alongside electronic music before cutting to footage of strikes on Iran. The videos end with voiceovers saying "flawless victory" from the video game "Mortal Kombat."
What distinguishes this moment is not the White House's willingness to use entertainment imagery; it is the speed and scale at which rights holders are now refusing consent. Voice actor Steve Downes, best known as the voice behind Halo's Master Chief, denounced a White House social media video that contained a clip of his character, with Downes's Master Chief uttering "Finishing this fight" immediately followed by footage from an airstrike. Downes stated that he did not participate in nor was consulted, nor did he endorse the use of his voice in the video, or the message it conveys.
The Yu-Gi-Oh anime brand itself issued a statement in Japanese and English, directly addressing the unauthorised use. A post on the White House's official X account used footage from the anime series Yu-Gi-Oh without any authorization from the rights holder, and no one associated with the manga or anime had any involvement, nor permission was granted for the use of this intellectual property. The statement's significance deepened when observers noted that series creator Kazuki Takahashi was found dead in the water off the shore of Okinawa, with his cause of death determined to be drowning. Takahashi died while trying to save three others from drowning.
Dan Green, the voice of Yami Yugi in the original anime series, released his own statement condemning the video's use of his character and voice, calling it disrespectful to Takahashi's memory. Actor Ben Stiller called on the White House to remove a clip from his movie "Tropic Thunder" featured in a video montage on X.
The central issue at stake is straightforward: intellectual property law prohibits the use of copyrighted material without authorisation, yet the White House has adopted what amounts to a copy-and-remix strategy with little apparent fear of legal consequence. The videos also include phrases like "wasted" over images of explosions. The videos were posted on Thursday, less than a week after an airstrike killed dozens of children in an Iranian elementary school, and one day after the Pentagon named two of the six American soldiers killed by a drone.
What makes this pattern significant for Australian observers is what it reveals about how governments now treat entertainment IP: as raw material for propaganda, deployed with the assumption that copyright holders lack either the will or the political standing to challenge government use. Microsoft has offered no public comment on the White House's posts. The Pokemon Company, Rockstar Games, and other studios have all voiced objections; yet the videos remain live, viewed tens of millions of times.
The absence of swift legal action by major studios suggests something more troubling than mere copyright infringement. It suggests an environment in which government agencies calculate that the political cost of defending intellectual property rights has become too high to bear.