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US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

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Re: US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

#71

Post by fixermark »

mistermann wrote: post #18
zzzcpan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I'm pretty sure everyone familiar with the subject knows that movie industry is an effective propaganda tool and has been used for this since forever for everything: military, police, democratic values. You just can't hide propaganda even if you want to.

On the contrary, in my experience most people believe that propoganda being used within western countries is a conspiracy theory.

I suspect people assume propaganda is only propaganda if there's a centralized "Ministry of Truth" that (a) has one coherent message, (b) is controlled top-down from a central authority, and (c) has police authority to silence deviations from the playbook by force.

As with so much in Western capitalist democracy, America's style of propaganda doesn't fit that authoritarian rubric, but it ends up having similar effect. Major differences are (a) different departments of the US government are protecting their own interests; to the extent the message is "one coherent", it's the principles baked into the institutions, (b) control is decentralized (every department has its own PR budget), and (c) rather than coercion by force, it's coercion by incentive; if you want the opportunity to get your movie "super right" by having professional on-site advisors or access to authentic hardware, you play by the providers' game (and you do want that, because you believe your audience wants that).

Re: US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

#72

Post by gumby »

altcognito wrote: post #70
gumby wrote: post #61

The money and involvement have had quite an effect. Just look at the percentage of combat films Hollywood makes and compare to 30 years ago. To go by Hollywood the country is on a war footing. And don't forget other entertainment industries like sports. The Pentagon paid millions of dollars a year just for cross promotion with NFL football (not for recruitment advertising): "honor our troops" and the like. On the oth…

53 million over 3 years, or 17 million dollars a year over multiple sports. A far cry from "hundreds of millions of dollars" And I'm pretty sure that advertising in sports is common sense. Advertising during daytime TV isn't likely to have the same bang for your buck. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/defense-military-tribute...

Thanks, I made an editing typo, so updated my comment.

Re: US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

#73

Post by mattmanser »

paganel wrote: post #3

As a movie buff this doesn't surprise me at all. I'm still waiting for THE movie about the US intervention in Iraq, the same kind of movies that Apocalypse Now, "The Deer Hunter" and even Rambo I were for the Vietnam war. I think my wait will be in vain.

As well as Three Kings and Hurt Locker mentioned elsewhere, there's also Jarhead. All great movies.

There was also Green Zone, which was OK.

Re: US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

#75

Post by fixermark »

Tactic wrote: post #28
specializeded wrote: post #5

So in exchange for production support, DOD and IC reserve the right to back out if certain topics are broached, or if they’re represented in a way they don’t approve of. The movies and tv shows come to them, and they’re subsequently influenced as part of the deal. Am I reading this correctly? They’ve really tried to make it scary but I’m left feeling “well, yeah I guess that makes sense, sucks tho I guess”...

I agree the article overplays it. Any organization, be it governmental, corporate or private, would probably do the same. If you want their help and they aren't in the business of movie making, are going to probably refuse it if it casts them in a light they don't like. Hollywood is fully capable, I'm certain, of providing mock-ups and stand ins for much of what the military provides. I'm sure when it comes to the bo…

Also, if you're talking Hollywood specifically:

To a first approximation, movies that cast the government in a positive light sell better, because Americans think of the government as a reflection of themselves and want to feel good. Exceptions exist, but you rarely hit blockbuster numbers with a downer movie with a downer ending.

Re: US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

#76

Post by lotsofpulp »

gumby wrote: post #61

The money and involvement have had quite an effect. Just look at the percentage of combat films Hollywood makes and compare to 30 years ago. To go by Hollywood the country is on a war footing. And don't forget other entertainment industries like sports. The Pentagon paid millions of dollars a year just for cross promotion with NFL football (not for recruitment advertising): "honor our troops" and the like. On the oth…

The ludicrous propaganda of military jet fly overs, national anthem spectacles, huge flags, and people in the military standing on the side of the field at private for profit sports game in a stadium paid for by taxpayers for the team owner's benefit is hilarious.

Re: US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

#78

Post by [deleted] »

subsubsub wrote: post #57
treebeard901 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

James Bond is essentially a franchise built around the psychological need to cope with the collapse of the British empire and all of the associated loss of status that goes with it. In other words, you are correct, Bond movies do not try to hide their nationalism. This is no great revelation.

I think you might be over estimating how much the British care about having/not having an empire. If you can get around the paywall, this might be worth a read: https://www.ft.com/content/a9c45baa-1dc6-11e7-b7d3-163f5a7f2...

[deleted]

Re: US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

#79

Post by gumby »

altcognito wrote: post #70
gumby wrote: post #61

The money and involvement have had quite an effect. Just look at the percentage of combat films Hollywood makes and compare to 30 years ago. To go by Hollywood the country is on a war footing. And don't forget other entertainment industries like sports. The Pentagon paid millions of dollars a year just for cross promotion with NFL football (not for recruitment advertising): "honor our troops" and the like. On the oth…

53 million over 3 years, or 17 million dollars a year over multiple sports. A far cry from "hundreds of millions of dollars" And I'm pretty sure that advertising in sports is common sense. Advertising during daytime TV isn't likely to have the same bang for your buck. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/defense-military-tribute...

> And I'm pretty sure that advertising in sports is common sense.

There are two sorts of advertising. One is recruitment ("join the army, blow shit up, have fun") targeted at potential employees.

The other is a broad-based effort to change public perception in the interests of the advertising organization. "Honor our troops" is an example of this, in the effort of sustaining the military-industrial complex (term coined by a 5 star general officer, FWIW).

Note that the commonplace perception of the US military through the 1970s was one bureaucratic incompetence that nevertheless got the job done (just look at Stars and Stripes even from WWII). Perhaps a necessary burden taken up and then discarded. We made fun of countries like Turkey who exalted their military at the expense of civilian culture.

Now the military, locked in endless remote warfare and sucking up huge chunks of the economy, is the most respected entity in the country.

(and note that the original word for what we call "advertising" was, in fact, "propaganda" -- propagating the message. The name took on some, umm, unsavory overtones and was replaced by "advertising". But remember Goebbels was Germany's minister of "advertising")

Re: US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

#80

Post by fixermark »

autokad wrote: post #21
specializeded wrote: post #5

So in exchange for production support, DOD and IC reserve the right to back out if certain topics are broached, or if they’re represented in a way they don’t approve of. The movies and tv shows come to them, and they’re subsequently influenced as part of the deal. Am I reading this correctly? They’ve really tried to make it scary but I’m left feeling “well, yeah I guess that makes sense, sucks tho I guess”...

yeah exactly. also you didn't need a freedom of information act to know this. I remember generals / DOD officials talking about it in a TV interviews (1996 independence day, 2007 transformers). directors are overly focused on realism for better or for worse, so a lot also goes to providing stock footage for inspiration, advice, and fact checking like 'is this aircraft meant for the role its portrayed in the movie'. e…

Speaking of Bay specifically: Bay is very pro-military and goes out of his way to portray the US military in a positive light.

Observe the scene from Battleship where Lt. Col. Gregory Gadson, the director of the U.S. Army's Wounded Warrior Program, was cast to play a double-amputee soldier who, among other things, fist-fights an alien. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMX3v6exVf8

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