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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

#201

Post by mhh__ »

throwaway4good wrote: post #125
mhh__ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for st…

Why just Henry Kissenger? Do you really think this boils down to a single person?

I think the point is that just because Kissinger was a very influential diplomatic who as far as I'm aware revolutionised that field, people have glossed over the effects of his actions on places like Cambodia.

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

#202

Post by pdimitar »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #200
pdimitar wrote: post #152

I hope this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone. At least for a lot of people outside the USA it was super obvious that the mainstream movies in the cinema are painting an overly optimistic picture of the US.

Propaganda probably still works even if you're aware what's going on.

Definitely not on me but I know people for whom that applies, yeah.

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

#203

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #81
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Hollywood is lot less subtle now at trying to push political propaganda I think the past efforts were pretty blatant. I think we just know more about how they operate and so it becomes easier to see. > wokeism Would love to know what this means.

For all the feigning of ignorance, 'woke' is well entrenched in in mainstream language now. It would definitely have made it to one of those "word of the year" things within the past few years if it wasn't for wokeism. Urban dictionary can help you out if you really don't know https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woke Pretending to be bravely battling fascism and tyranny on behalf of the oppressed while ce…

[deleted]

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

#204

Post by boomboomsubban »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #197

At the moment there seem to be many more (or at least many) 'anti' government movies around - those portraying the CIA and other organisations as corrupt, self serving or incompetent - the Bourne series etc. Even "Eye in the Sky" gave me an overwhelming sense that the military use of drones was poorly managed and the decision making process was incompetent.

>the Bourne series

The series where the protagonist is a CIA super agent who throws away his career because his morals get in the way.

You may not leave with the impression that all of the CIA are moral, but it does spread the idea that the CIA is incredibly capable and individuals can sway overall policy. Which is nonsense.

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

#205

Post by ajb »

Some amount of promoting "we are the good guys" seems inevitable. Where I think this becomes really despicable is when you have productions like "24" or "zero dark thirty" propagandising the use of torture. It would be interesting to know how directly the military or security services were the source of that.

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

#206

Post by polytely »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #197

At the moment there seem to be many more (or at least many) 'anti' government movies around - those portraying the CIA and other organisations as corrupt, self serving or incompetent - the Bourne series etc. Even "Eye in the Sky" gave me an overwhelming sense that the military use of drones was poorly managed and the decision making process was incompetent.

but those movies (at least the bourne ones, haven't seen eye in the sky) Didn't require a lot of military hardware to make, so they aren't entangled with the propaganda people I would guess.

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

#207

Post by namdnay »

nsonha wrote: post #161
namdnay wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main thing that gets people accused of being shills it using new accounts to send shrill calls to action

I would not publish any of my political views with my identity in this cancel culture. It makes sense some people want to be anonymous with those statements.

most of us are anonymous here I think? And the cancel culture has been here for at least 20 years, I remember what it was like to dare say that you didnt think it was a good idea to invade Iraq..

my comment was more on suspicious accounts that single post over the top propaganda and then disappear

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

#208

Post by avgcorrection »

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

You’re proving the point, are you not?

The Nazis were evil, but that doesn’t imply that the allies fought against the Axis powers because they were good. You can do the right thing for the wrong or neutral reasons.

“US and allies”—that the US fought the whole war with the rest of the allies as support is another artifact of Hollywood’s portrayal of WWII. Although it’s understandable that there are less American movies about the Eastern Front, so it’s not like that has to be caused by some propaganda effort.

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

#209

Post by TaylorAlexander »

elefanten wrote: post #91
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Hollywood is lot less subtle now at trying to push political propaganda I think the past efforts were pretty blatant. I think we just know more about how they operate and so it becomes easier to see. > wokeism Would love to know what this means.

> Would love to know what this means. You saying you’re completely baffled by this term, or asking for the poster’s particular meaning? I’d draw a parallel to “White supremacy”. Given the wild range of applications for the term, you need to get a sense of what any one wielder really means. But it’d be quite obtuse to reply “what’s White supremacy?”

White supremacy is the belief that white people and whiteness should hold power over black and brown people.

No one in my social circles uses “wokeness” at all, certainly never seriously. It always seems like people upset at “wokeness” are actually just upset that people producing popular media support very simple concepts of diversity. Like when black actors get representation in media previously dominated by white people, to me that is just a good thing, but I see reports that many think this is “wokeness”, which they think is bad. This ultimately reveals that they simply do not like it when white people have to share space with people of other skin tones. Their concerns always seem to me to be… misplaced. In other instances the person may be unhappy about female representation, or trans, queer and non-binary representation. Those are all thinks I think are great. I’m non-binary and it’s really meaningful to me. So when someone calls those things “wokeism” I don’t actually see “wokeism” as the problem I see that persons ideas as the problem.

Hope that answers your questions!

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

#210

Post by Fricken »

Yoric wrote: post #85
fvdessen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, All the President’s Men, or The Post Those movies are also propaganda, but in a more subtle and effective way; The message of these movies being that while america sometimes makes mistakes, in the end the american has a good heart and conscience and should be forgiven. You don’t see in these movies american soldiers raping civilans, laughing about it, and suffering no ill conseque…

> You don’t see in these movies american soldiers raping civilans, laughing about it, and suffering no ill consequences Have you watched Apocalypse Now Redux? Because I can remember a scene that is very similar to that description. In this movie, the American military or government has no good heart, no conscience and breeds madness and senseless death.

When I joined the (Canadian) military in the mid 90s, many of the guys there cited anti-war films such as 'Apocalypse Now', 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Platoon' as inspirations for signing up.

Nobody cited 'Rambo' or 'Top Gun'

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