Any sufficiently powerful organization begins to see its continued survival as the most important thing. I’m sure that a lot of this was implicitly done as a counter to the “threat” of Americans asking uncomfortable questions about the DoD budget and whether it really is worth spending that much on national defense rather than other things domestically.
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
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You are contrasting “wokeism” to military and secret agencies propaganda of a nation that has been warring, invading and coordinating coups for almost a hundred years?
"Wokeism" is just another way to practice racism, sexism, limit freedoms and to divide society in very damaging way. It eventually will lead us into tyranny and all these bad thing that you have mentioned.
Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I just watched Don't Look Up on Netflix and the propaganda was so thick it actually made the whole movie painful to watch. I suppose it's naive to think that old movies are propaganda-free. But I find myself missing the narratives I grew up with. The new ones are whiny, cynical and uninspiring. At least the old ones inspired me towards positive things.
I'm incredibly anti-Trump and I still fully agree with you.
But I don't think the problem was that it was so "thick" so much as that it was so poorly done. Instead of being funny, it just reminded me of school bullies and general idiots, and was far too easy to write to be good satire.
Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda
#394Making copaganda illegal would be good, too. Real police are nowhere near as competent and public-minded as they are on TV. Cop shows also normalize the use of deadly force.
Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda
#395Once 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.
Unpalatable propaganda is pretty shitty propaganda.
Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
There might have been some improvements in this area but I still haven't seen any (male) IT guy in a movie who is not portrayed as some kind of weirdo and relegated to the side. Even female nerds are at the very best assisting the hero. TV lawyers and doctors however get to hold jargon-filled monologues and be in lead roles. /rant
Now imagine House M.D. rehashed to a brilliant but callous software guru trying to diagnose various misbehaviours/misuse of tech all around town. I'm not sure if that's a promising pitch or straight up garbage!
I don't know if "our online store is down" has as much potential drama as someone bleeding out their eyes.
Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recommend "The Thin Red Line (1998)" as a reference movie that is American, but not funded and appreciated by the military complex.
There are obvious exceptions - The Hurt Locker doesn't look to me like anyone in the military signed off on it. Nor Platoon (which I understand is much-liked by veterans).
I think Apocalypse Now isn't either. It was in development hell, too.
Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's an additional very blatant theme I've been seeing of "science and engineers are the coolest!" that cropped up in, e.g. The Tomorrow War and another recent military themed US movie whose name I forget. They made me wonder if the army is fretting about its access to STEM skills.
There might have been some improvements in this area but I still haven't seen any (male) IT guy in a movie who is not portrayed as some kind of weirdo and relegated to the side. Even female nerds are at the very best assisting the hero. TV lawyers and doctors however get to hold jargon-filled monologues and be in lead roles. /rant
Jack Ryan would be a counterexample.
Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda
#399No mention of World War II in this article. No mention of how the U.S. single handedly defeated the Nazis and took down the Axis Powers, as seen in the movies. The influence in Hollywood is really seen in all movies on this topic. Anyone watching these movies would think that the U.S. lost the most number of people and made the most sacrifices in that war. A look at the real numbers would tell a very different story.
Re: Pentagon and CIA shaped thousands of Hollywood movies into effective propaganda
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
Might be a language thing then. I'm reading through Urban Dictionary and most of them read to me like "I think I know the other person is dishonest or stupid". Let's take the most popular definition there: Woke - The act of being very pretentious about how much you care about a social issue Again, as a non-native English speaker I have to click through "pretentious". The most popular definition: Behaving in an attent…
Some further insight if I may. The urban dictionary definitions provide some of the current interpretation. And one interpretation is that the woke movement is pretentious. You could argue that accusing a target of being pretentious is being pretentious, except that it may be a fact. So we have to keep digging, a quest for the truth rather than just adopting one of the existing interpretations. Also to note, being pr…
> Also to note, being pretentious doesn't imply conscious act.
It doesn't imply "deliberately trying to appear pretentious", but it does imply "deliberately pretending to be something"