Stories and rumors about the latest “Rambo” movie have been circulating in Burmese newspapers and on web sites since filming began in Thailand. Burmese activists hoped it would help internationalize the political situation in Burma.

The movie, the fourth in the series, but simply titled “Rambo,” had its world premier last Friday. Several Burmese organizations sent out e-mails encouraging people to go watch the movie, endorsing it as “thrilling.”

Like other Hollywood films, “Rambo” has a tradition and a global strategy. That is, the message it carries is less about Burma and more about the United States. There is almost no plot and no political intrigue, only a band of butchers, and wannabe saviors (from the West, of course). What “Rambo” really does is reveal the ideas that serve to bring Western power and rationality to realization; think Edward Said’s “Orientalism,” a favorite concept of postcolonial and literary critics.

We should not feel content with “Rambo” just because it shows the sick side of the Burmese junta (which has no good side anyway). We cannot ignore the film’s perpetuation of the ideas that justify the US’s domination and oppression in many parts of the world.

So, what ideals does this film portray or reinforce in the global arena? How can we relate it to the power, domination and oppression of powerful nations in this neo-colonial era?

Of course, every form of domination involves oppression. How can it be that supposedly “modern” and “civilized” nations like Britain murdered and enslaved people and conquered foreign lands? How do supposedly liberal democratic states such as the US slaughter civilians in Iraq and get away with it?

Indeed, the ability to justify oppression rests with the power to espouse ethnocentric rhetoric about the people they are fighting against. Let us not forget that Western domination, be it colonial or neo-colonial, is never possible without stereotypical representation of non-Western societies and cultures. Also, we must not lose sight of the fact that Hollywood movies and their imagery are just another part of this cultural stereotyping process.

Historically, colonial Europe produced distorted images of non-Western societies as immoral, barbaric, savage, dangerous, and so on. Once these images were juxtaposed against the West itself, they came to define the West as moral, modern, rational and civilized. The West then assumed moral responsibility to assist and civilize the “savage.”

Ironically, genocide and oppression often took place in the name of civilization through Christian missionaries. Oppression was—and still is—justified on the basis that “We are right” and “They are wrong.”

In the new film, Rambo’s brutal murders are justified when he mutters: “When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing." Another time he quips to a group of mercenaries: “Live for nothing or die for something."

It all goes back to the same old cliché—once Western people get into trouble, things suddenly become “This is who we are and this is what we do.” Such a colonial mindset.

In the real world, we see a similar mindset at work. We witness every single American soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan mentioned on television. We watch national leaders mourning for their deaths. Meanwhile, countless missiles rain down on civilians in residential neighborhoods and anonymous victims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Look at how non-Western places and people are portrayed in Hollywood movies. Take any James Bond or Indiana Jones movie; or the contemporaries—“The Mummy” (1991) or “The Scorpion King (2002), not to mention various CIA-inspired or Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. The bad guys shown as cruel and despicable; the ordinary native people are naïve, inferior and untrustworthy.

Perhaps the most disturbing scene in “Rambo” is the final scene, one of the few that is not bloody. Hero John Rambo is back in his hometown in the US and walks off into the sunset. Stopping on the side of the highway, he turns and looks around—no “bad guys,” no guns, no savages: just the highway, the trees and the open fields. Rambo chuckles to himself. Perhaps he is thinking what a sweet and peaceful world this is: how unlike the non-West.

Maybe “Rambo” deserves some credit for bringing the issue of Burma to an international audience. But it does more to reinforce the idea that the West is rational, moral, powerful and superior; whereas non-Western areas are places of immorality, savagery and powerless victims.

Perhaps those who had hoped that Hollywood would internationalize Burma’s political crisis will be more cautious next time.