Iwo Jima Pose



A Stock Poses paying Homage to the famous photograph of on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II (also turned into a statue in Arlington Cemetery near Washington DC).

It usually makes appearances in works with political overtones, usually relaying a message about military action or calling attention to one political cause or another.

More rarely, it may be invoked as a visual metaphor for someone/something actually laying claim to being Number One in or making great strides in their media field or genre.

Other times, it may not be symbolic at all but rather just a way for making something look cool and badass.

Regardless of the reason for why a work may make reference to this photograph (or whether or not doing that is entirely appropriate or tasteful) this is one of history's most famous and most recognized images and it's unlikely that it will stop being referenced any time soon.

Anime and Manga

 * The Animatrix's "Second Renaissance" has a scene where the UN soldiers pull this off. The catch is that by that point, they were losing badly to the Machines.

Comics

 * 2000 AD had some of its most popular characters raising a flag bearing the magazine's title on top of a pile of comics for its Prog 2000 issue cover.
 * Young Justice's tie-in to the "Our Worlds at War" event featured on its cover a few members of the team (and infamous criminal The Persuader) raising The Persuader's atomic axe in victory.
 * Marvel Comics's G.I. Joe comic did this on the very first page of the very first issue.
 * This promotion image for Block 109.

Fan Art

 * The cover of an X-rated Strike Witches doujin had Gertrude, Yoshika, and Lynette raising a pair of panties on a pole like this.
 * This cover to a Transformers fancomic.

Film

 * Featured on the movie poster for Flags of Our Fathers; the film's plot revolves around the lives of the Marines who planted the flag and how they handled being turned into a propaganda symbol by the American media.
 * Seen in Starship Troopers.
 * In Independence Day, a statue of the marines from the original WWII photograph is briefly seen in Washington.
 * Parodied in The High Crusade with a brief shot of Muslim forces raising their own flag when conquering Jerusalem.
 * A group of National Guardsmen are seen reenacting this pose briefly in First Blood.

Literature

 * Appears on the book cover For Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment.
 * The cover for Mark Baurlein's book The Dumbest Generation features the Gundam and two Captain Ersatz Transformers raising the American flag.
 * In the Star Wars New Essential Chronology, there is a picture of Rebel soldiers hoisting the Phoenix Flag over a liberated Coruscant.
 * The novel Flags of Our Fathersm which was later adapted to film above.

Live-Action TV

 * In the Doctor Who episode "Victory of the Daleks", the British soldiers raise a flag this way after they defeat the Daleks.

Music

 * The political punk band Anti-Flag has four punks raising the American flag upside-down on the cover for their album A New Kind Of Army.
 * The cover of Savatage's Fight for the Rock.

Print Media

 * There was an article in Newsweek that had a photo of the cast of Jersey Shore in this pose.
 * One TIME Magazine cover for an article on "How To Win The War On Global Warming" replaced the flagpole in the original photograph with a tree.

Professional Wrestling

 * In WCW, Shane Douglas' Revolution stable would plant their flag into a defeated opponent in a send-up of this pose.

Other

 * Has appeared in not one but two of the works from guerrilla artist Banksy.
 * The Adult Video Association replaced the US soldiers with scantily clad women for a poster promoting an anti-censorship campaign they were sponsoring.

Tabletop Games

 * One Games Workshop "Golden Demon" contest entry featured a group of Warhammer orcs doing this.

Video Games

 * The Good Ending of Wing Commander features an Iwo Jima-style flag raising.
 * Players in Modern Warfare 2 can be rewarded an emblem resembling the flag planting at Iwo Jima for killing a bomb-carrier in Sabotage or Demolition multiplayer game modes.
 * Red Faction: Guerrilla includes an Iwo Jima-like monument that can be found in Oasis.
 * The American ending for End War has one of these.

Western Animation

 * The Simpsons did a send-up of the pose in the episode "New Kids On The Blecch" in which Bart, Milhouse, Nelson, and Ralph form a Boy Band that's being used as a recruitment tool by the US Navy.
 * In "Selma's Choice", among Aunt Gladys' collection of potato chips resembling famous people is one that looks like the flag planting at Iwo Jima. Homer eats them as quickly as they're shown on screen.
 * In another episode, a group of veterans from Iwo Jima are guest speakers at Springfield Elementary. As one can guess, Bart just happened to accidentally knock down the school's flag pole while they were walking by, but the veterans know exactly what to do...
 * And there was also that time when Smithers presented a slideshow of Mr Burns' life on his birthday, one of the shots was of the Iwo Jima Pose with Mr Burns' face superimposed onto all of the Marines.
 * One of the photos in the "Heist" portion from Over the Hedge.
 * Shown when Robot Chicken discussed G.I. Joe's battle for the Weather Dominator; the narrator states "G.I. Joe had emphatically placed an American flag in Cobra's ass- both metaphorically and in one unfortunate case, quite literally."

Real Life

 * While it was not an intentional homage, the photographer who took the picture of the firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero following the September 11 attacks immediately recognized the similarity. Everyone else did, too.