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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

#521

Post by smsm42 »

Hokusai wrote: post #186
cm2187 wrote: post #39

Earlier 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.

> wokeism is the theme of the day That billions of equipment and resources provided by the woke cabala? Let's talk about that instead of military covered intervention in society. As a citizen from An USA allied country, I find disturbing how much propaganda the military pushes for at global level. That's a very serious matter.

Not sure about the equipment, but they definitely have billions as much as money are concerned:

https://archive.ph/gNSym

The (literal) billions described in the NYT article above are just one aspect of the woke, they have many more. They don't just have the money, they have tons of money.

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

#523

Post by quacked »

simplestats wrote: post #516
quacked wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's any difference in most entertainment and propaganda. The "official" definition of "propaganda" is: > Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. I would say that almost all entertainment is of a biased nature and is used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Pamphlets about…

Yeah I can certainly agree that some would use a broad definition of propaganda. But it's a very loaded word. One should avoid using loaded words where a less emotional description is applicable. One could as well argue that the use of loaded words is propaganda itself.

I argue both of those points, and that's why I specifically choose loaded words. I am spreading my own version of propaganda, because I want people to hold a certain set of political beliefs.

You could say "Fox News is a conglomerate of acting/direction/production teams managed by a central financial-focused corporate structure who release carefully curated entertainment segments in order to maximize views from certain demographics", and then describe its effects by saying "People who unironically consume and believe what is said by Fox News representatives typically end up believing verifiably false information".

That would be a very emotionless and more strictly accurate phrase to say than "Fox News is one of the propaganda arms of the broadcast media cartel", which is how I would say it.

Unfortunately, saying it your way allows people to believe they understand it and are protected from its effects. This is not true, in the same way that people are not protected from the propaganda-like effects of advertising just because they can see an ad and not immediately want to go buy the target product.

Fox News is not benign entertainment; do not underestimate its handlers so.

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

#524

Post by boomboomsubban »

anjbe wrote: post #363
boomboomsubban wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> it does spread the idea that the CIA is incredibly capable That’s hardly in dispute, is it? > and individuals can sway overall policy Certainly not the impression I got from at least the first three films. The Bourne Identity ends in an unceremonious coverup of a failed operation, and the sole “idealist” character in the next two films torches her career as well to go to the press. Which depending on your view coul…

>That’s hardly in dispute, is it?

Roughly at the time of the films release, the CIA had their communications with many of their foreign agents discoverable by Googling. Hundreds of agents died as a result, while the CIA fired the whistleblower who brought up the vulnerability and seemingly made up a Chinese hack to shift the blame. A far cry from creating programs for super assassins.

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

#525

Post by TaylorAlexander »

implements wrote: post #304
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked because whenever I hear about someone complaining of “wokeism” they’re complaining about things that I think are good. Giving black actors roles in areas normally dominated by white actors? That’s awesome! But whenever this happens loads of people online will claim that is “wokeism”. Representation for gay, lesbian, queer, and trans people in media? Wow that’s great! Many complain this is “wokeism”. Recognizi…

> Recognizing that trans women are women and trans men are men? 100% that’s the bare minimum and I am happy to see it. If women are a group historically discriminated against by virtue of their sex (female, different physicality, different reproductive role) rather than by their gender (feminine, caring, pretty, submissive, domestic, …) then is the fusing of sex and gender truly progressive? Is it medically, scientif…

> then is the fusing of sex and gender truly progressive?

Accepting trans people is about separating gender and sex, not fusing them.

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

#526

Post by lamontcg »

4ggr0 wrote: post #334
shkkmo wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems absolutely incorrect.

Seems strange to me, too. Red Pilled is used in contexts where someone starts seeing the hidden truth the elites want to hide from them etc. Woke in my experience is more used to describe progressive people and their opinions, without having anything to do with some hidden secrets or other such things.

I honestly don't understand how you can't see that "being woke" is synonymous with being aware of facts that other don't see. Literally derived from "awake" and there by seeing the truth correctly.

One way or the other you might be having a difficult time seeing that they're both essentially propaganda, but its just the mirror image of the same thing.

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

#527

Post by throwaway829 »

smsm42 wrote: post #517
Threeve303 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you have a tech industry that merged with madison avenue along with psychological methods learned from Guantanamo and CIA Black Sites, and you wanted to build a societal manipulation machine, otherwise known as propaganda. Makes me wonder if there is any relation between the changes mentioned here and some of what the social media infrastructure has been used to do.

> psychological methods learned from Guantanamo and CIA Black Sites, What would those be? If CIA and such has some special "psychological methods", how comes they never actually used it to achieve anything related to their direct job? I mean, let's embrace the conspiracy and assume they have these spectacular methods that can make anybody think anything and they are willing to use it on anybody, including Americans.…

There's nothing magical about it. All that's needed is control of the media your target consumes. "Manufacturing Consent" by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky covers how this works.

The Taliban consume the Koran. They reject most forms of mass media. Thus it's very hard to manipulate them into a western lifestyle. The alternative would be to find their "opinion leaders" and coerce them. Anyway, it's naïve to think these techniques are not used at home and abroad.

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

#528

Post by dgb23 »

stackedinserter wrote: post #515
dgb23 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case we probably shouldn't distract a discussion about war propaganda with pointing out wokeism.

We pointing out aggressive, divisive and intolerant way of thinking that always lead us into bad things.

I fully agree with you.

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

#529

Post by lamontcg »

denton-scratch wrote: post #217
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 thought this has been common knowledge forever. I mean, if you see before the closing titles something like "With grateful thanks to the US Navy and Airforce, without whom this film could not have been made" then you have to assume that the helpful armed forces at least got approval of the final cut. At any rate, I've always thought that stuff like The Green Berets with John Wayne was pure war propaganda.

Red Dawn and Top Gun.

I guess some people don't realize that stuff like the Transformers movies were all done with help from the US Military as well.

Probably the same people who don't make the connection with the military displays associated with sporting events (and the national anthem and its military theme before domestic sporting events). Stuff like the Blue Angles. It is all very Roman Empire the way we display our weapons of war, but lots of people can't even see it.

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

#530

Post by lamontcg »

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

I view the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln brigade as having fought and sacrificed on the side of good. When the survivors later tried to join the US Army for the fight against Germans and WWII (which they viewed as a continuation of the same war they had already been fighting) many of the were labelled "premature antifascists" and rejected.
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