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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

#51

Post by thesaintlives »

ceejayoz wrote: post #34
nsxwolf wrote: post #12

I wonder if "Contagion" was propaganda. It really made me believe that if a SARS pandemic ever happened, a bunch of incredibly competent scientists and government agents would swoop in and save us all. The "Olympus Has Fallen" series also made me believe that if a mob ever stepped foot on the White House lawn, a bunch of auto turrets would pop up and gun them all down. The last few years has shown that the world is r…

Contagion got things pretty much spot-on. Conspiracy theorists with fake cures, political officials who fight mitigation measures, contact tracing, panic buying, at-home substitutes for school events, fairly rapid vaccine development and the initial scarcity of it. The major difference was the mortality rate; the movie's virus killed something like 25%. One of the odd difficulties with COVID is it's deadly enough (es…

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

#53

Post by mcpackieh »

Julesman wrote: post #29
have_faith wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, I'm going to believe all conspiracy theories from now on.

There are three types of people circling around conspiracy theories. 1) Literate people who care about history and know that industry does what's best for profit at all costs. 2) People who don't read much looking for a hobby. 3) Liberals hoping to pass off their empty skepticism as allegiance to the mainstream.

Before the JFK assassination, 'conspiracy theory' literally meant a theory about a criminal conspiracy. In the case of the JFK assassination, all theories that were counter to the official lone-wolf theory were conspiracy theories, theories about multiple people being involved in the assassination are categorically conspiracy theories while a lone-wolf theory involves no conspiring. Due to this, the term 'conspiracy theory' shifted to mean any theory that was counter to the official narrative.

For instance, all theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories in the literal sense. Even in the official 9/11 Commission Report theory, a bunch of men conspired to hijack airplanes on the same day and crash them into buildings. That's literally a theory about a conspiracy. But in the new meaning, this is not a conspiracy theory because it's the government's officially endorsed theory.

Whether the CIA induced this verbal judo deliberately is another question. I'm inclined to think they didn't. I think it was a natural language shift, albeit one that has been harmful to society.

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

#55

Post by scarecrowbob »

nocoiner wrote: post #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.…

"what about the stories that were improved by military influence?"

This is the best thing I have read this week thus far, and will probably haunt me for the rest of my week.

When I was looking at "Triumph of the Will" with film classes I taught, there was a certain beauty in that horror. The story it tells is definitely less unsettling than the reality it presents.

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

#56

Post by ceejayoz »

thesaintlives wrote: post #51
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contagion got things pretty much spot-on. Conspiracy theorists with fake cures, political officials who fight mitigation measures, contact tracing, panic buying, at-home substitutes for school events, fairly rapid vaccine development and the initial scarcity of it. The major difference was the mortality rate; the movie's virus killed something like 25%. One of the odd difficulties with COVID is it's deadly enough (es…

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I can't tell if you're serious or sarcastic, but a great illustration of the point. It's very possible for a disease to kill a million people in the US and for some folks to not have it kill any of their family and friends personally.

Someone who lived in NYC in March 2020 would likely have had a very different experience than someone in rural Minnesota, for example.

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

#57

Post by nsxwolf »

ceejayoz wrote: post #34
nsxwolf wrote: post #12

I wonder if "Contagion" was propaganda. It really made me believe that if a SARS pandemic ever happened, a bunch of incredibly competent scientists and government agents would swoop in and save us all. The "Olympus Has Fallen" series also made me believe that if a mob ever stepped foot on the White House lawn, a bunch of auto turrets would pop up and gun them all down. The last few years has shown that the world is r…

Contagion got things pretty much spot-on. Conspiracy theorists with fake cures, political officials who fight mitigation measures, contact tracing, panic buying, at-home substitutes for school events, fairly rapid vaccine development and the initial scarcity of it. The major difference was the mortality rate; the movie's virus killed something like 25%. One of the odd difficulties with COVID is it's deadly enough (es…

The inaccurate part of the movie is that all that stuff worked. In real life, what "ended" the pandemic was a combination of mother nature and the human willingness to accept a lost cause and move on.

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

#58

Post by goneri »

Dig1t wrote: post #16
WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #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.wiki…

Wow that's insane. If China did that same thing today, we would be up in arms.

Insane? Really? There is nothing wrong with defending your language and the artistic industry. They've got also some similar quotas for the song in French on the radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toubon_Law.

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

#59

Post by Julesman »

CharlesW wrote: post #33
Julesman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are three types of people circling around conspiracy theories. 1) Literate people who care about history and know that industry does what's best for profit at all costs. 2) People who don't read much looking for a hobby. 3) Liberals hoping to pass off their empty skepticism as allegiance to the mainstream.

> The term 'conspiracy theory' was itself a product on CIA influence operations in this country, specifically intended to squash interest in the assassination of JFK. The ol' "conspiracy theory conspiracy": https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-conspiracy-theory-jfk-...

Thanks for the correction. I think it would have been better for me to say that counter-intelligence operations in the country have long intentionally colored inconvenient facts as wild conjecture, regardless of their historical foundation.

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

#60

Post by thw99 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #12

I wonder if "Contagion" was propaganda. It really made me believe that if a SARS pandemic ever happened, a bunch of incredibly competent scientists and government agents would swoop in and save us all. The "Olympus Has Fallen" series also made me believe that if a mob ever stepped foot on the White House lawn, a bunch of auto turrets would pop up and gun them all down. The last few years has shown that the world is r…

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