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Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

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Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#41

Post by sjtindell »

camillomiller wrote: post #25
Barrin92 wrote: post #14

one graphic that stuck with me, that I saw a few years ago is this one ( https://imgur.com/svsB0Ub ) (question being: which nation, according to you, contributed most to the defeat of Germany?" Being German and having Russian relatives the perspective on the war on the continent has always been interesting to me. The sheer scale and brutality of the Eastern front, the war crimes and death (The Soviet Union lost more…

Try asking most people about the Vietnam War, then visit Vietnam, especially the war museum in Saigon. Then pay a visit to the Landmine museum outside of Siam Reap, in Cambodia, to learn about Nixon's secret war that carpeted the border between Cambodia and Vietnam with bombs and landmines without anyone knowing. That's a trip that would make you rethink America big time. It absolutely did for me. As an Italian, I wa…

I can say the same about Americans. In the California Bay Area I have very few friends who think positively of the United States, it’s flag, or it’s history. The facts of the trail of tears, slavery, endless meaningless wars, corporate sabotage of governments and people, selfish oligarchs…that’s what they think when they think “America”. Do I think it’s all bad? Of course not. In fact I personally think any good history is completely forgotten to our extreme detriment. But I see where they’re coming from.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#42

Post by beloch »

giuliomagnifico wrote: post #5
crate_barre wrote: post #2

The other country that is doing this at Hollywood scale is China, and it’s not just their ‘only popular in China’ movies like Wolf Warrior (1 and 2). Some scenes: https://youtu.be/g7y36UIRAjo IP Man 4, which is more well known to western audiences: https://youtu.be/OlW2VphUNd4 https://youtu.be/JFmaPK0JyVQ You get the idea. Americans make movies where America good, everyone bad. China is now making movies where China…

Also Russia is doing it, also because it has a problem with numbers and/of soldiers… “Russia Doesn’t Have the Demographics for War” https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/03/russia-demography-birth...

Russia has been doing it since the dawn of cinema. e.g. Battleship Potemkin. Mosfilm, soviet propaganda, and amazing advances in movie-making have all marched together from the very start. You'd be surprised at how many of the tropes and techniques that form a part of modern movie language have their origin in soviet propaganda.

The thing is, everybody expects a Mosfilm flick to toe the party line. What the U.S. has done was sneakier.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#43

Post by systemvoltage »

ilaksh wrote: post #32
systemvoltage wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of good-vs-evil, do you also see WWII veterans and military history in the same light? They got into war that no one asked for. I cannot imagine if US and allies had lost WWII. It is simply unimaginable. Aside: I find the WWII era military training/propaganda videos pretty entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QgXuhv7-54

Right, because there is this magical line in history where everything was different. It's just that the propaganda for that war was so incredibly effective for so long, it is nearly impossible to find people who see it in a realistic light. Normally the magic line goes the other way -- people think propaganda or such may have existed in the bad old days but in "modern times" of course everything is copacetic.

What people don't realize is that the following:

> In 1939, estimates of the Army's strength range between 174,000 and 200,000 soldiers, smaller than that of Portugal's, which ranked it 17th or 19th in the world in size. [1]

Despite of the abundant resources, it was largely a sleeping nation militarily prior to WWII. Air Force was essentially non-existent. Pearl Harbor was the critical moment that kicked the US Military machine in top gear. It only accelerated in the Cold War where there was serious FUD. It is difficult to put into context without having lived in that era. Propaganda, whatever you think of it, was necessary to convince the tax payer for their own security as well recruit enough people to sustain defense. The allies had seen the eye of evil and walked into its belly so it was straight forward to sell. Today's generation is largely detached from that reality.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#44

Post by anovikov »

camillomiller wrote: post #25
Barrin92 wrote: post #14

one graphic that stuck with me, that I saw a few years ago is this one ( https://imgur.com/svsB0Ub ) (question being: which nation, according to you, contributed most to the defeat of Germany?" Being German and having Russian relatives the perspective on the war on the continent has always been interesting to me. The sheer scale and brutality of the Eastern front, the war crimes and death (The Soviet Union lost more…

Try asking most people about the Vietnam War, then visit Vietnam, especially the war museum in Saigon. Then pay a visit to the Landmine museum outside of Siam Reap, in Cambodia, to learn about Nixon's secret war that carpeted the border between Cambodia and Vietnam with bombs and landmines without anyone knowing. That's a trip that would make you rethink America big time. It absolutely did for me. As an Italian, I wa…

What was bad about it? The idea was to make overland transport through Cambodian territory (which U.S. did not want to outright invade) to supply Vietcong as difficult as possible.

Vietnam war may have been brutal, and eventually lost, but it disincentivised everyone else in the Southeast Asia from turning to Communism, so in the end it was a net benefit for the free world.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#45

Post by 14 »

I am very interested to ready the comments and see where the votes land. From my experience any time you criticize the US here on HN you are heavily criticized or downvoted. Sometimes after making a valid point. I have learned to not take it personally and have always told myself I am sure there are state actors from many nations on many forums trying to persuade a perspective. If someone wants to downvote but not provide a rebuttal they probably are just offended by the posters comment or part of some mechanism trying to sway a narrative. I don’t think it is just state actors but also commercial interests.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#46

Post by kzrdude »

systemvoltage wrote: post #13
heavyset_go wrote: post #7

Once this was pointed out, I can't unsee it. It's kind of ruined movies that involves the military or military equipment for me, since it can be really obvious when creators toe the line for the military. When I see military equipment my gut reaction is to anticipate the other shoe dropping, and to look for shoehorned hero worship or some good-versus-evil plot point.

Speaking of good-vs-evil, do you also see WWII veterans and military history in the same light? They got into war that no one asked for. I cannot imagine if US and allies had lost WWII. It is simply unimaginable. Aside: I find the WWII era military training/propaganda videos pretty entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QgXuhv7-54

That's an example of a well-cemented "good-vs-evil" dichotomy in the sense that the story of good vs evil in WWII has been told and retold so many times, that people can't imagine arguing with it.

The concepts of "good" and "evil" are interesting, for example the discussion of the Banality of Evil (Arendt) etc.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#47

Post by agumonkey »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #16
heavyset_go wrote: post #7

Once this was pointed out, I can't unsee it. It's kind of ruined movies that involves the military or military equipment for me, since it can be really obvious when creators toe the line for the military. When I see military equipment my gut reaction is to anticipate the other shoe dropping, and to look for shoehorned hero worship or some good-versus-evil plot point.

Americans love that stuff though, it’s not necessarily propaganda forced down our throats. We’d still want to see the badass, all American commando on a 100 kill streak.

My bet is that most groups have this in them. Being right, being the hero. America just had the lead in entertainment and tech

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#48

Post by random314 »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #21
crate_barre wrote: post #2

The other country that is doing this at Hollywood scale is China, and it’s not just their ‘only popular in China’ movies like Wolf Warrior (1 and 2). Some scenes: https://youtu.be/g7y36UIRAjo IP Man 4, which is more well known to western audiences: https://youtu.be/OlW2VphUNd4 https://youtu.be/JFmaPK0JyVQ You get the idea. Americans make movies where America good, everyone bad. China is now making movies where China…

Shit, China influences US film too. Many films avoid showing LGBTQ main characters or China in a bad light so they can sell into the Chinese market. A good example is the recent remake of Red Dawn. It was supposed to have the Chinese as bad guys but instead they used the extremely implausible North Koreans as antagonists.

Or the fact that Dr. Strange trains in Nepal, instead of Tibet. Just mentioning Tibet is verboten.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#49

Post by heavyset_go »

Barrin92 wrote: post #14

one graphic that stuck with me, that I saw a few years ago is this one ( https://imgur.com/svsB0Ub ) (question being: which nation, according to you, contributed most to the defeat of Germany?" Being German and having Russian relatives the perspective on the war on the continent has always been interesting to me. The sheer scale and brutality of the Eastern front, the war crimes and death (The Soviet Union lost more…

There are some inadvertent reflections, though, since some of the communism death count figures include both the Soviet and Nazi casualties from the Eastern front.

Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda

#50

Post by crate_barre »

JetAlone wrote: post #37
crate_barre wrote: post #2

The other country that is doing this at Hollywood scale is China, and it’s not just their ‘only popular in China’ movies like Wolf Warrior (1 and 2). Some scenes: https://youtu.be/g7y36UIRAjo IP Man 4, which is more well known to western audiences: https://youtu.be/OlW2VphUNd4 https://youtu.be/JFmaPK0JyVQ You get the idea. Americans make movies where America good, everyone bad. China is now making movies where China…

Yeah, I find it ironic that the commenters in the ad whine about the "Netflix Original Trailer" looking "Emma" ad in favor of the "Video Game" ad. "No, give me back the old propaganda for an imperialist death machine that will grind up my life and spit on my retired body if I survive once I'm too old and helpless to do anything about it, this one is going to appeal to my political enemiiiieeeeeees and then they'll ge…

That ad is the equivalent of showing college applicants a glorified video of a Film Studies major buying a ticket straight to Hollywood after graduation and winning an Oscar for best director.

It’s false advertising at best, predatory at worst. Do you know who are selling a bag of dreams to? Do you care? You’ll take their time, money and lives, and it won’t matter to you in the least, will it?

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