My child wanted to watch an animated green lantern series recently so we checked it out. Of course the main character who is the human green lantern is a fighter pilot who does a bunch of sweet fighter pilot flight maneuvers in the opening sequence. I told my child that shows like this often show the military being cool and doing cool stuff, but that in real life what fighter pilots actually do is drop bombs on children. I'm only human, I also enjoy (some) military action movies, but I know it's cotton candy brain poison too.
I hate how many children's shows have pro military pro cop propaganda. How do others talk to their kids about it to inoculate them against brainworms? I usually describe the military and the cops as being like a gang of bullies - they do things to make themselves look cool but really they just exist to hurt people and take their shit.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I think there is a difference between belittling like your mom did and warning though. We have age appropriate conversations about colonialism, racism, LGBT issues, veganism already so I'm not sure that this is so dramatically different in tone. The big difference to me is that the military and the cops are massively and explicitly promoted in children's media while the other things I listed are either not mentioned at all or are described in a generally positive (if lib) way. I'd like this to be more like a "safe sex" conversation.