The "truth" about Hollywood's pro-government, pro-war propaganda

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First Lady Michelle Obama made a video appearance at the 2012 Academy Awards to present the award for Best Picture. Surrounded by soldiers in uniform, she proudly announced the winner was Argo, a film about the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran. What she didn’t disclose was that the CIA had influenced the storyline and, as the Atlantic commented years later, “took many liberties with the truth, all of them geared to make Langley and Hollywood appear more heroic.”

As a result of instances like these, a prevailing narrative in independent media is that the U.S. government has thoroughly infiltrated Hollywood and that the entertainment industry is a swamp of toxic waste teeming with the most vile scum and villains west of Washington D.C.

That’s mostly true.

But there’s a lot more to the story – and it shows the actual power dynamic and dissemination of manipulative content isn’t as conspiratorial and severe as it seems.

Even so, there are many reasons why the popular anti-Hollywood propaganda narrative is so powerful (many of you are likely already well versed in this, but I’m providing a rundown simply to highlight the extent of collusion — if it’s old news to you, feel free to scroll to the numbered section further down).

For decades, various (and nefarious) agencies within the federal government have used Hollywood to spread their narratives. In the 1950s, the CIA was enlisting the industry to put George Orwell’s Animal Farm to the big screen. In the 1990s, the agency was suffering from a damaged reputation — in part due to media portrayals — with many Americans accurately viewing the CIA as a cabal of shady spies. At that time, they formally established a department solely for influencing media content.

From the Tom Clancy series including Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears to Homeland, 24, Alias, and an entire show about the CIA, The Agency, the CIA offered input, reviewed scripts, and invited producers to the agency to see behind the curtain. By 2011, Hollywood producers were wining and dining agents to ensure special access for Zero Dark Thirty, a film about the CIA’s role in the official story about the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Such relationships are widespread. A FOIA request filed by a pair of journalists claims the CIA, along with other defense and intelligence agencies, has had a hand in over 1,800 films and tv shows, and agencies like the FBI and DHS also have their hand in media productions.

The military has an office building set up West Los Angeles where representatives from various branches of the armed forces review scripts and meet with members of the industry. This was detailed in the documentary Hollywood & the Pentagon: A Dangerous Liaison.

Often, in exchange for military equipment and special access, Hollywood filmmakers allow government officials to weigh in on their film script.

Top Gun was one of these films and spurred a rise in military enlistments in the 1980s. The history of the fusion of military and film goes back much further; during World War II, Walt Disney was producing pro-intervention propaganda.

The Pentagon has even involved itself in non-militaristic content, from American Idol — where an a military employee was a contestant — to Cupcake Wars.

Collusion like this is well-documented, as are the more traditional political ties between Hollywood’s ruling class and America’s political elite.

Executives and A-list producers celebrated and funded Bill Clinton in the 1990s and went on to lavish unbridled adoration and cash on Barack Obama. Celebrities, too, came out for cool guy Barack in droves, and Hollywood power players went on to throw their support behind Hillary in 2016.

In addition to generally espousing liberal ideology, one of the industry’s political priorities is establishing control of the internet to stop piracy. The major film studios’ lobby, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), was one of the staunchest backers of attempts to stifle internet freedom in 2011, at which point the internet came together to stop SOPA and PIPA (Hollywood MPAA members who had been Obama supporters expressed feelings of betrayal that the president had bowed to public opinion and offered concessions on the bills.

Six of the most powerful studios — 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros — make up the MPAA. This acronym might sound familiar because it’s on display before almost all film trailers. The association is responsible for rating films (sometimes giving “X” ratings those it doesn’t like, effectively banning them from theaters — the documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated does an excellent job exploring this secretive and powerful agency).

The MPAA’s most foundational role is to maintain ties with Washington D.C. Its first chair was Jack Valenti, a “confidant” of Lyndon Johnson. Chris Dodd, a former democratic senator, also recently chaired the organization, lobbying Congress on behalf the industry’s behalf. He was succeeded last year by Charles Rivkin, who previously worked as a fundraiser for the Obama campaign and then served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs.

It’s abundantly clear that Hollywood and D.C. are deeply intertwined, both in traditional politics and in subtly manipulating the masses through narratives and imagery. This reality is undoubtedly disheartening and tends to incite feelings of frustration, and powerlessness. But there are caveats, and they show the dynamic isn’t as malicious as it seems:

1. As much as I’m sure there are certain figures in Hollywood who believe it’s their right to manipulate public opinion (whether that’s in favor of government in general or war), the truth is that many filmmakers simply want to make the best films possible. If they can get free equipment and behind-the-scenes access to enhance the quality and believability of their productions, which they often spend years bringing to fruition, why wouldn’t they? Hollywood is severely lacking principled anarchists (let alone principled anti-war liberals), so there’s no reason to believe they would have issues with violating foundational values when they make deals with the government devil.

2. As much as it’s perceived that Hollywood is out to intentionally brainwash people (and, again, as much as this may be true for some powerful figures), much of the industry genuinely believes in the ideologies they propagate. It’s not a conspiracy in which they believe they’re tricking the public. I spent the better half of 2011 as a script reader for a respected film studio (not one of the big six ;) ), and one thing I learned is that, just as in other industries and around the country, statism runs rampant. Many of the scripts I read had police officers, FBI agents, and CIA agents as protagonists, and most of those scripts were written by everyday people in Hollywood who were simply hoping to strike it big and have their stories make it onto the big screen. Similarly, executives are also statists. Whether they truly believed in Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (my personal assessment is that most did) or they simply believed in the power they could wield by supporting them, they’re statists all the same. This isn’t just a plot to brainwash the little people, it’s a sincere belief in politics and government. Look at Judd Apatow’s mainstream-tinged outbursts over Trump or the progressive propaganda screenwriter Shonda Rhimes throws into shows like Scandal. These people really believe in their dogma.

3. Despite corporatist lobbying efforts, Hollywood is still founded on capitalism. The industry generates huge profits in the state of California and has consistently for a century. Studios and production companies are filled with business people who protect the bottom line. One morning in 2011, I spent my morning looking up the box office revenue figures for a dozen different dance movies. The executive producers where I was interning needed to know if it was worth it to buy a script for a Dirty Dancing remake. If there wasn’t demand for it, they weren’t going to make it. This is important, because it provides vital insight into why Hollywood churns out so many pro-military, pro-war, pro-government hero films and series. It’s absolutely true that government agencies inject their narratives into the stories, but the truth is that if Americans weren’t willing to spend their money indulging in these stories — creating profit in the form of box office gains, merchandise, and ad revenue — far fewer of them would be produced.

4. On that note, some of you may have noticed an uptick in content that has anti-government themes. I’m a big binger, so I certainly have. There has always been a steady stream of skeptical storylines (after all, content about sneaky spies helped soil the CIA’s reputation in the first place). The producers of Apocalypse Now ultimately lost government assistance because it was too anti-war. More recently, for example, V for Vendetta put forth a strong anti-government sentiment (and was produced by Warner Brothers, a studio whose business side lobbies the government). These sentiments have flourished in the age of premium television channels and streaming services. I could have a five-hour discussion with you about how Game of Thrones (HBO) is a perpetual indictment of political authority (George R.R. Martin wrote the books with fervent anti-war themes). Orange is the New Black (Netflix) tackles mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex. House of Cards (Netflix, R.I.P) painted a dark picture of Washington D.C. and political power. The monumental problems in Stranger Things (Netflix) are caused by the federal government (though one of the heroes is admittedly a small-town cop). Black Mirror (Netflix) has episodes that highlight the dark side of government authority and leadership. The Hunger Games (Lionsgate Films) was wildly subversive and inspired real-life protests when some theaters in Thailand banned it. That series broke box office records. Hollywood sees the demand for dissent, and it responds (even if the people writing these scripts and producing the films are still statists themselves).

5. The studio monopoly and historic structure of the industry is crumbling. The studio cartel, which has been in power for a hundred years, is struggling to stay afloat. The industry is contracting, not expanding, and this is in part because in many cases (subversive material aside), those who run it can’t think of anything better to produce than remakes and sequels ad nauseum. People are sick of this and are also craving different forms of media consumption. In turn, the industry is becoming decentralized, smaller production companies are gaining opportunities to have their stories put to the screen, and independent films are gaining traction. There’s even a blockchain company seeking to disrupt Hollywood.

It is true that whether or not Hollywood’s goal is to intentionally brainwash (or whether they’re brainwashed themselves), the effect of pro-government, pro-war films and television is, at least to some extent,a manipulation of the minds of the masses. French sociologist Gustav LeBon, who wrote The Crowd, which inspired America’s first master propagandist, Edward Bernays, wrote that if an image or idea is repeated enough, the crowd will eventually begin to believe it. This is certainly happening, and films like American Sniper show how easy it is to rile up the masses.

Still, much of this content is simply a reflection of society’s pervasive statism. But the paradigm is shifting, and we have the personal power to influence it by refusing to be sucked into pro-government and militaristic content, instead choosing to consume dissident, freedom-oriented content.

*The last thing I want to add is that not everyone in Hollywood is a low-life creep out for profit and perverted coercion. I know multiple people in “the industry,” and they are simply passionate about filmmaking and/or the music they produce for films. Some are even skeptical of statism — and I’ll keep working on them. ;)

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