How Hollywood Films Manipulate the Public to Love the Deep State

thepholosopher (66)in #politics • 2 years ago

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Transcript:

How Hollywood Films Manipulate the Public to Love the Deep State

In 2014, University of Dayton associate professor of Political Science Michelle C. Pautz conducted a study to see whether Hollywood movies could impact the viewer’s opinion of government.

Dr. Pautz asked 69 undergraduates at the university to take a questionnaire about their views on the U.S. government before and after watching one of two films: “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Argo is a 2012 dramatized historical thriller about the CIA’s rescue of six U.S. diplomats being held hostage in Tehran, Iran.

Zero Dark Thirty is another film from 2012 dramatizing the CIA’s hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

Before watching the films, almost half the students thought the country was headed in the wrong direction.

After watching, 22 percent of the students had an improved view of where the country was going, 76 percent held the same view, and only two percent changed their mind to think the country was going in the wrong direction.

There was also a bump in students reporting that their trust in government had increased, with a jump from 49 percent saying the government could be trusted most of the time to 55 percent.

While this is a small survey of a select group of students, the findings point to a broader narrative about why the U.S. government has long taken an interest in Hollywood films.

Movies have the capacity to influence people’s minds both on a conscious and subconscious level.

And, because of this influence, various military and deep state agencies have worked hand-in-hand with Hollywood producers, tampering with scripts until they have an angle more favorable to strong government control and interventionism.

The book, National Security Cinema by Dr. Matthew Alford, Teaching Fellow at the University of Bath in England, and journalist Tom Secker of spyculture.com, lays out how the U.S. government’s influence in cinema has not only been ongoing since near the inception of film, but has been widespread across thousands of movies and T.V. shows.

This government influence is often bought through brokered deals where, in exchange for production assistance with locations, advice, equipment, and even service personnel, military, FBI, and CIA heads get to review scripts and make edits to their favor.

Directors who refuse to go along with these suggestions will often find themselves blackballed from military access or denied needed filming permits, effectively stalling shoots where these permissions are critical.

The Department of Defense will even craft contracts for production assistance, an agreement which is routinely reviewed by a government technical adviser to ensure that the approved script is the one being relied upon during filming.

Movies which rely heavily on use of military sites, equipment, and portrayals are those most susceptible to government influence as their production would not likely be feasible without the access.

Think of movies like Top Gun from 1986, or Battleship from 2012.

This subversive influence has been ongoing for about a century.

Late FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who directed the FBI from 1935 until 1972, created the FBI’s entertainment liaison’s office, officially titled the Investigative Publicity and Public Affairs Unit.

This office was created to control the FBI’s portrayal in Hollywood films.

Hoover did not want any films associating the FBI with activities he did not like, and so would try to suppress films that would associate FBI agents with topics like sex and drugs.

This suppression was furthered by Congress passing public law 670, which outlawed commercial exploitation of the FBI without Hoover’s permission at the time.

Because of this extensive control, shows like the ABC TV series, The FBI, which aired from 1965 to 1974, only came to fruition because of its approval from Hoover.

Hoover approved every word on the script and the actors for all 317 episodes, which meant he could ban any actor he did not like, whether it was because he thought they were a pervert or because he thought they were a secret communist.

In the 1970s, the FBI targeted Hollywood stars more directly as part of their Counter Intelligence Program called COINTELPRO.

For example, the FBI fed a lie to the Los Angeles Times that rising star Jean Seberg was secretly pregnant with a prominent Black Panther leader’s child.
This accusation was made to smear Seberg’s name because of her public support of the Black Panther organization.

When news of this publication was made known to Seberg, she collapsed and went into labor due to shock.

Her daughter died 3 days later and Seberg tragically attempted to end her own life on her deceased child’s anniversary.

She succeeded in ending her life in 1979.

As time went on, the manipulations trended toward furthering pro-government plots and rejecting scripts which put government in an unfavorable light.
For example, an early script from Forest Gump was rejected by the Army because it had too much of a nihilistic view on the military and the Vietnam experience.

A later script was submitted with changes, but even that was still not good enough for the Army. They refused to provide assets, only providing some casual verbal advice for the film.

Other films have had their scenes rewritten, such as with the film Lone Survivor, a 2013 biographical war movie based on a 2007 nonfiction book by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson. The film dramatized the unsuccessful Navy Seal mission of tracking down the Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.

The Pentagon agreed to help with production so long as one scene was modified to be more favorable to the government, a scene where Seals discuss executing goatherders to protect the SEAL’s secret identities.

Navy officers were on set during Lone Survivor’s filming to ensure the scene was rewritten according to the Department of Defense’s standards.

In similar fashion, The Hunt for Red October film adaptation was helped along by the Navy who, in trade for being able to make some favorable script adjustments, loaned the production some submarines.

Film and T.V. adaptations that would be strong propaganda pieces for the military or Federal agencies grew in number with government support, from T.V. shows like 24, NCIS, and Top Chef, to movies like Mission: Impossible, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Transformers.

As you can see, the Department of Defense, the FBI, and the CIA all have had profound impacts on film with participation in more than 1,947 productions that we know of.

Which is why you should consider how Hollywood movies have shaped your opinions and, especially, how they may trick people into believing that these agencies are working toward our best interests when history has proven time and again that they are not.

And if you want a copy of this book, check out my link below.

National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood