"White at heart": making race in Marine Corps recruitment advertising.

This article examines racialized logics in the cultural production of United States Marine Corps recruitment advertisements between 2012 and 2016, situating them within the late-stage war on terror as a racial project. Drawing on interviews with advertising professionals from Wunderman Thompson, the agency responsible for Marine Corps advertising, the study highlights how recruitment materials sought to portray the Corps as racially representative and benevolent while ultimately consolidating Whiteness and privileging a historically White, masculine brand identity. Key themes include the tension between institutional appeals to patriotism (associated with White recruits) and occupational appeals to social advancement (linked to recruits of color), the challenge of balancing racial difference and commonality in recruitment narratives, and the conceptual "Rambo/Bono gap" that frames cultural and political divides in recruitment messaging. The article concludes that despite discourses of diversity and inclusion, Marine Corps recruitment advertising during this period reinforced racial hierarchies embedded in U.S. militarism and national identity.