Hollywood
“I used to say this all the time when people — you know, back when Russia was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And they’d say, oh, but aren’t you so glad that you’re in America? I said, well, I know a lot of Russian filmmakers, and they have a lot more freedom than I have. All they have to do is be careful about criticizing the government.”... "[American Film Makers] have to adhere to a very narrow line of commercialism"
— George Lucas, One of the most well-known film makers in Hollywood
The American film industry, often known as Hollywood, is the cinema of the United States of America. It is named after the Hollywood neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. The U.S. government uses Hollywood to produce pro-war propaganda and manufacture consent for its imperialist foreign policy.[1][2][3] The Department of Defense has been involved in the production of over 1,100 TV shows[4] and nearly 3,000 films.[5] Leftist film makers have a hard time making films in such a commercialized and censored environment.
Government Influence and Censorship
The U.S. Department of Defense has access to the scripts of thousands of Hollywood films and modifies them to make them more favorable to U.S. militarism.[6] The government and military have complete editorial control over many of these films.[4] The government often censors movies that suggest U.S. military incompetence, war crimes, or involvement in torture or coups. Many movies that are critical of U.S. imperialism are never released at all.[6] Pro-imperialist films are allowed to use authentic military equipment and vehicles that the producers would not be able to afford otherwise.[2]
Top Gun (1986) glorified the Navy, hugely increased recruitment rates, and restored the military's image after the Vietnam War. It relied on the DOD for its use of F-14s.[7] The Pentagon authorized a remake in 2018 and oversaw the movie's script.
The Pentagon removed a scene from the 2002 movie Windtalkers that showed U.S. soldiers taking gold teeth from dead Japanese soldiers as trophies.[8]
Other popular U.S. movies that have been influenced by the Pentagon or CIA include Apollo 13, James Bond, Jurassic Park, Godzilla, Transformers, and the Marvel movies. Pentagon contracts usually specify that the government's role in the film must not be disclosed.[6]
Neocolonial influence
"How Hollywood Sells Us War" by Second Thought |
In his 1965 work Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, the anti-imperialist Pan-Africanist Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah commented on the use of Hollywood as a weapon for spreading neocolonial ideology:
Even the cinema stories of fabulous Hollywood are loaded. One has only to listen to the cheers of an African audience as Hollywood’s heroes slaughter red Indians or Asiatics to understand the effectiveness of this weapon. For, in the developing continents, where the colonialist heritage has left a vast majority still illiterate, even the smallest child gets the message contained in the blood and thunder stories emanating from California. And along with murder and the Wild West goes an incessant barrage of anti-socialist propaganda, in which the trade union man, the revolutionary, or the man of dark skin is generally cast as the villain, while the policeman, the gum-shoe, the Federal agent—in a word, the CIA-type spy is ever the hero. Here, truly, is the ideological under-belly of those political murders which so often use local people as their instruments.[9]
References
- ↑ Tom Secker. "Pentagon-Hollywood Collaboration Database Excerpts". Spy Culture. Retrieved 28 April 2024.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jon Skolnik (2020-07-03). "Hollywood and the Pentagon are cheating on the American public". Monthly Review. Archived from the original on 2022-05-31.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|retrieved=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ↑ TeleSur (2017-07-06). "New Book Reveals US Government's Heavy Hand In Hollywood". MintPress News. Archived from the original on 2019-06-17.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|retrieved=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lowkey. "Emma Watson, J.K. Rowling, and the Connections between Hollywood and the National Security State, with Alan Macleod". MintPress News. Archived from the original on 2022-08-08.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|retrieved=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ↑ David Swanson (2022-01-05). "The Pentagon and CIA Have Shaped Thousands of Hollywood Movies into Super Effective Propaganda". World Beyond War. Archived from the original on 2022-08-26.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|retrieved=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Jonathan Cook (2022-07-27). "How the Pentagon dictates Hollywood storylines". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 2022-08-02.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|retrieved=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ↑ Tom Breihan (15 May 2020). "Top Gun is the sleekest, horniest recruitment ad of the 1980s". AVclub. Retrieved 28 April 2024.
- ↑ Jeremy Kuzmarov (2022-03-27). ""Hollywood is Full of CIA Agents," Says Ben Affleck". CovertAction Magazine. Archived from the original on 2023-06-01.
- ↑ Kwame Nkrumah (1965), "The Mechanisms of Neo-colonialism", Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd.
{{citation}}: Unknown parameter|city=ignored (|location=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|mia=ignored (help)