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The Pentagon and CIA have shaped thousands of movies into effective propaganda

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

#2
Original title:

The Pentagon and CIA Have Shaped Thousands of Hollywood Movies into Super Effective Propaganda

Relevant articles:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-hollywood-became-the-unof...

How Hollywood became the unofficial propaganda arm of the U.S. military

https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2022...

New documentary scrutinizes Pentagon-Hollywood relationship — but is it propaganda?

https://www.jstor.org/stable/45129369

The Historical Roots of CIA-Hollywood Propaganda

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/26/top-gun-for-hir...

Top Gun for hire: why Hollywood is the US military’s best wingman

https://netzpolitik.org/2022/dude-wheres-my-privacy-how-a-ho...

How a Hollywood star lobbies the EU for more surveillance

The European Union debates a new law that could force platforms to scan all private messages for signs of child abuse. Its most prominent advocate is the actor Ashton Kutcher.

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

#3
I'm curious: for how many people is this news? For those more inquiring you should look into the Smith-Mundt Act, which makes it illegal for the US Government to directly propagandize the American people; it was effectively repealed in 2012.

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

#4
post #3

I'm curious: for how many people is this news? For those more inquiring you should look into the Smith-Mundt Act, which makes it illegal for the US Government to directly propagandize the American people; it was effectively repealed in 2012.

Thanks Obama. :)

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

#6
I didnt realize this until I went to a film festival in another country and saw war movies about conflicts the US eventually was involved in, but during time periods before or after and heros and protagonists from other countries in the war.

It was a mixture of noticing how Hollywood has barely any of this, and the awkwardness of rooting for the hero. Just a juvenile cognitive dissonance being overwritten.

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

#7
"The loan was followed in 1948 by a free grant of $2.3 billion from the Marshall Plan, with no repayment. In exchange, French cinemas would replace the numerical quota with a "screen quota". This meant that French cinemas were required to show French-made films for four weeks out of every thirteen and leave the other nine weeks of every quarter open to free competition, namely from American films.[5]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum%E2%80%93Byrnes_agreement

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

#8
In all sincerity: so what? And I have a few reasons for that reaction, only one of which is empty whataboutism (so I’ll get that one out of the way first).

1. Do the citizens of this he democratic west imagine that our adversaries don’t engage in propaganda? Please, get real. Not saying two wrongs make a right, but unilateral disarmament in the battle for hearts and minds doesn’t seem particularly prudent either.

2. This particular article is scattershot to the point of being incoherent. Also, it’s funny when it criticizes “Clear and Present Danger” for not being true to reality … when … it’s a move based … on a novel. Uhhhh.

3. The article talks about the movies that have resisted military influence and assumes they are better for it, but what about the stories that were improved by military influence? For a variety of obvious reasons, war and the battlefield is pretty fertile ground for human storytelling. It’s natural that these stories get told. It isn’t inevitably and automatically a bad thing if the military has an influence on how these stories are told.

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