Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by hirako2000 » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #296

michaelt wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No evidence has been presented that the tweet is not sincere. Imagine, in the age of chivalry, a lord who arrives at every battle with his forces - but who delays his arrival until the battle is already won, and always joins the winning side. You might well say arriving late is better than not arriving at all. Perhaps there are some last pockets of resistance, you wouldn't turn down his help sweeping those up. Alte…

First of all, I would want to do a bit more research than you appear to have done before calling someone a "cowardly, insincere opportunist". I don't know much about the CEO of Raytheon or his historical record on gay rights. I suspect that you don't either. I do wonder just how early people are required to come to the 'battle' in order to escape your scorn. If someone was an adult in the 80s, are they an insincere o…

I think what is extremely destructive is siding with "legitimate" military grade weapon sales. But it doesn't invalidate your point. As a gay it means something when a CEO speaks up publicly in favor of gay inclusion. If it assures you, it also means something to many people who aren't gay. The issue the parent is pointing out is that these are easy wins used to diverting attention from their huge losses. And, some would argue this kind of public stances further divide citizens who may other wise team up to take everything immoral/illegal those companies do one by one and compel them to stop it. My workplace talks about inclusion all day long, pronouns started to show up left and right, yet LGBT workers are still under represented, and non existent in leadership roles. Tensions haven't gone down, they were inexistent and have been on the rise for years as the word inclusion has started to resonate.

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

#382

Post by ashtonkem » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

tutuca wrote: post #377

avgcorrection wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Go ask for example Estonians, Lithuanians or Latvians who they enjoyed the yoke of the USSR. Ah yes, proximity. Now go ask the small Central American nations if they enjoyed living close to the USA during the 70s and 80s.

Not only the small central american nations. Look up the Operation Condor. We have our share of USA backed coupes all over south america too.

Or Operation Gladio in Italy for that matter.

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

#383

Post by emsign » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #39

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.

I think Hollywood is lot less subtle now at trying to push political propaganda than it was ever then, except that wokeism is the theme of the day. In some instances it has completely taken over the plot, like in the last season of Fargo, to the point of becoming some sort of unwatcheable catechism.

> Comparing war propaganda, downplaying of war crimes etc, with a civil rights movement.

Wokeism in mass media is big corporations' fear of missing out and losing customers. Those ideals were shared values of the younger generation decades before the industry adapted to it. Now that these kids have grown up, they are valued as consumers.

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

#384

Post by matheusmoreira » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

PaulAJ wrote: post #70

prmoustache wrote: post #20

I cringe every time I hear the US president being described as the leader of the free world, as if there were 2 specific sides and USA were leading it and as if USA was an advocate for freedom.

Up until 1990 that was a reasonable approximation to the truth. The USA certainly had its issues, but in a comparison between the USA and the USSR there was no question about who the relatively good guys were. Since the USSR collapsed, and especially since 9/11, things have gotten a lot murkier.

If the US ever had good guy status, it's because of the principles it was founded upon. I'm not even sure up to which point those principles stood. Certainly not as late as the 90s. The second world war seems to have been the major turning point.

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

#385

Post by tootie » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #368

> Captain Marvel exists to sell the Air Force to women That seems like a ridiculous claim. Carol Danvers was an Air Force officer when the character was created in 1968. No one was trying to sell the Air Force to women in 1968. Marvel, both the comics and the movies, has been more anti-military than pro-military. The military, specifically the US military, is often the bad guys. For example, it was the military that…

This entire article seems like agenda-driven BS. I can totally believe that government entities have sought and occasionally succeeded at influencing some media and entertainment messages but I don't see any proof of a vast conspiracy. There's much simpler explanations for all of it. People like hero stories. Studios would be making heroic soldiers without any prompting. And there's no shortage of successful movies about how bad war sucks. Hurt Locker springs to mind as something commercially and critically successful as an authentic portrait of war being hell.

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

#386

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #235

fsloth wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is an advocate of very specific stability. "Free world" is a hyperbolic but US is still a huge global power. In cold war it was obvious there were two sides, and the other was obviously more free than the other. Go ask for example Estonians, Lithuanians or Latvians who they enjoyed the yoke of the USSR. Now, as China is becoming an ever more stronger player, we again see that there are two sides arising. While pa…

> In cold war it was obvious there were two sides, and the other was obviously more free than the other. It's quite funny that after the cold war it came out that nukes of 'the more free side' was targetting Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvia cities.

[deleted]

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

#387

Post by cbaly » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #364

gnmla wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> In the 1990s there were loads of superstar Black actors. I think if you look at overall black representation among actors, you will see it was very low. If you look for some in your memory, you will find them of course. Even now, almost everything is led by a white person. Even in animation, almost everyone is white. Or look at sci-fi movies, where there are often as many or more alien species as non-white humans.…

No post body was provided.

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

#388

Post by jjk166 » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

fnklay wrote: post #297

notahacker wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll try an easier and more concrete one to help you out. Do you think Hollywood is at all hypocritical or insincere about their collective rhetoric about gun violence while also producing movies that glorify guns and people solving their problems with violence? The OP's argument was that modern movies are political propaganda supporting "wokeism", so a concrete example where Hollywood movies are often - intentiona…

Quoted post unavailable.

Well the established book character was not recast, he's just working alongside a black female secret agent, so it definitely seems like anyone opposed to the most recent Bond film based on her presence is simply opposed to black female secret agents in general.

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

#389

Post by ashtonkem » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #262

fsloth wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is an advocate of very specific stability. "Free world" is a hyperbolic but US is still a huge global power. In cold war it was obvious there were two sides, and the other was obviously more free than the other. Go ask for example Estonians, Lithuanians or Latvians who they enjoyed the yoke of the USSR. Now, as China is becoming an ever more stronger player, we again see that there are two sides arising. While pa…

> In cold war it was obvious there were two sides ... These two sides narration was a very intentional American construct. View from the other side wasn't symmetrical. US as seen from the other side was just seen as a powerful country that likes to mess around with other countries business exploiting them for their own purposes. End of cold war changed nothing. US is still a powerful country that likes to mess around…

I agree until your second to last sentence. I think the hesitation isn’t because of military concerns, I think the USSR posed a serious military threat if the US ever decided to throw down, but rather economic issues. Unlike the USSR, America does a lot of trading with China, which makes framing them as some boogie man both practically and rhetorically tricky. It doesn’t help that business interests (and consumers) in the US would scream bloody murder if the tap of cheap consumer products was turned off.

I also think that the end of the Cold War, the failure of the forever wars, and our bungled pandemic response has taken a lot of gloss off the old propaganda. The interruption of having the USSR fall has made a lot of Americans look around and saw “wait, why does life kinda suck here though?”, and it’s kind of hard to rebuild that propaganda machine once it’s stopped.

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

#390

Post by ido » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #167

anthonyshort wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, other countries don't view themselves that way, and it's mostly seen as an Americanism (I'm not American)

Maybe to a lesser extent but you can find Indian movies of absurd heroism too. That's what propped me to think America is not very special. Also being a young and rich state probably pushed things to eleven.

I wouldn't say "being young" is that relevant after a couple centuries. Nobody in the US today knows someone who witnessed the declaration of independence (unlike, say, in Israel or India).