The "problem" with Iron Man (and I put it in quotes) is that it fuels the American fantasy of technology solving all our problems in a quick and easy manor.
Another good example of this is the phrase "smart bombs." It lets us believe that war is easy, clean, and safe. We don't have to worry...the bombs are SMART!
All this kind of stuff leads to the our current situation where we can have a war going on and the population at large doesn't even have to think about it. Forget the "we're in this together" attitude of WWII. Nope. These days the general feeling is "War? What war? Oh right...I remember, I guess."
We are insulated and our view is sanitized so we just don't have to think about it. It's a real shame and an insult to everyone who's died on BOTH sides. How many American deaths have you seen on the news lately? They make it real easy to pretend they're all over there playing superhero...all action-movie stars who never die. That's a pretty poor view to hold, but it's an easy one to maintain these days.
So, back to Iron Man...the film just fuels this fantasy of an "easy war" where ONLY the bad guys die because our technology can just fly in, blow them up, and fly back out. It's the whole Superman mentality.
Now, I LIKE superhero movies. I like Superman. I like Iron Man. They're fine films and I don't want them to change. I'm just saying that Americans remain FAR too insulated from reality, and these films are playing into that a bit.
It's not the films' fault, but there it is.
I actually agree with a fair amount of your point there, but disagree almost entirely on one KEY point.
It's generally the folks who are not "insulated" who are the most positive about these things. Folks who've spent time outside of their local cul-de-sac, folks who've traveled internationally and experienced more of the world... and yes, people who've served in the military... who are the least "anti-war."
The people who believe that "smart bombs" are somehow supposed to be clean are almost universally the anti-war types. "Smart Bombs," however, are FAR CLEANER than the historical alternative... as anyone who knows the history of, say, Dresden can tell you. Taking out a target means destroying and killing... but it DOES limit the scope of the destruction necessary to accomplish the necessary task. If you want to take out a factory... you take out the factory, not the entire city in which the factory is located.
For the record... I'm not "pro-War" as a concept, but I'm absolutely not "Anti-War" either. I can't remember it word-for-word right now, but there's a quote that I've always loved... and I'll paraphrase it here.
"War is a terrible thing, but not the MOST terrible thing. Far worse is the state of being where a man sees nothing as being worth fighting, much less dying, over. Such men have their freedom only because of the efforts of far better men than themselves."
I agree wholeheartedly.
The thing is, it's usually the people who are anti-war who are the most likely to not understand the realities on the ground, and who are most likely to treat the soldiers as "fictional characters" rather than as actual human beings.
I'm very much in favor of SOME form of compulsory national service. It wouldn't necessarily have to be the military... if you're a conscientious objector, there are other things you can do (peace corps, forestry service, whatever..) but EVERYONE who is able to do so should be required to spend two years of their life serving others in some organized, regimented form. If this were the case, the attitudes of the population would be far less egotistically-self-centered, and far more realistic about how the world actually works.
