This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
The CIA and Other Government Agencies Dominate Movies and Television
Rob Kall points out that the military-industrial complex is the winner of the Golden Globe award:
Homeland won best TV series, best TV actor and actress. It IS a highly entertaining show which actually portrays some of the flaws of the MIIC system
Argo won best movie and best director. It glorifies the CIA and Ben Affleck spoke with the highest praise for the CIA.
And best actress went to Jessica Chastain of Zero Dark Thirty, a movie that has been vilified for propagandizing the use of torture.
***
The Military Industrial Intelligence Complex is playing a more and more pervasive role in our lives. In the next few years we’ll be seeing movies that focus on the use of drone technology in police and spy work in the USA. We’ve already been seeing movies that show how spies can violate every aspect of our privacy– of the most intimate parts of our lives. By making movies and TV series that celebrate these cancerous extensions of the police state Hollywood and the big studios are normalizing the ideas they present us with– lying to the public, routinely creating fraudulent stories as covers for what’s really going on.
***
I was hoping that Zero Dark Thirty would come up without any awards. I was hoping that at least such blatant propaganda promoting the lie that torture works would be repudiated by the Golden Globes. That didn’t happen.
***
The truth is we do live in a time when the police have been massively militarized. We don’t need movies or TV shows that celebrate that militarization. We don’t need entertainment that normalizes the obscene violations of our privacy that the intelligence state is inflicting upon us. We need stories that celebrate people who stand up to this seemingly irrepressible tide that is washing away our freedoms, sucking up all our resources and erasing the last bastions of privacy.
David Walsh notes that the real winner of the 2013 Academy Awards is the CIA:
Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow’s quasi-fascistic glorification of the role played by the CIA in the so-called “war on terror” … was tapped for five awards.
Of course,there is plenty of other war-o-tainment. being peddled by Hollywood.
The military has long had a direct influence on Hollywood. For example, a book published by the University of Texas points out:
The Central Intelligence Agency has been actively engaged in shaping the content of film and television, especially since it established an entertainment industry liaison program in the mid-1990s.
The book laments:
The significant influence that the CIA now wields in Hollywood
Gizmodo reports:
The CIA has a pile of script ideas lying around.
***
The Department of Defense and just about every branch of the military has an entertainment industry liaison similar to the CIA’s.
If you want to make a war film and need a fleet of F-22s, a crowd of Marines, or a Navy aircraft carrier, just call up the Department of Defense’s entertainment media office and they’ll tell you if the Army can spare that M1A1 Abrams tank you’ve always wanted for a day or two of filming.
“The scripts we get are only the writer’s idea of how the Department of Defense operates,” Vince Ogilvie, deputy director of the Defense Department’s entertainment liaison office, told Danger Room. “We make sure the Department and facilities and people are portrayed in the most accurate and positive light possible.”
Hollywood has been working with government organizations to make more credible films for years (for instance, Jerry Bruckheimer and Paramount Pictures worked closely with the Pentagon when filming the 1986 blockbuster “Top Gun”). But the phenomenon is under newfound scrutiny. There was a bit of a kerfuffle recently when some in the press and in Congress speculated about whether the government will give Sony Pictures any pointers while they make a film about the killing of Osama bin Laden.
In a letter to the Defense Department and CIA last month, Rep. Peter King expressed outrage at the Pentagon’s relationship with the film’s director, Kathyrn Bigelow. King claimed that she had already been made privy to sensitive information that could put American lives at risk.
***
Standard procedure is to review the script, make notes on what the Defense Department would like changed, and kick it back to the producer. If the changes are made, the military will provide whatever help they can – declassified information, equipment, personnel, etc. – for a price.
***
Why has the Defense Department recently partnered with 20th Century Fox to make an X-Men/U.S. Army ad or with explosion-enthusiast Michael Bay to make all three Transformers movies? In The Washington Post, David Sirota suggests entertainment like this is “government-subsidized propaganda.”
The Guardian noted in 2001 that this has been happening for a long time:
For the first time in its history, the [CIA] has appointed an official PR liaison with Hollywood: veteran CIA operative Chase Brandon, whose 25-year career was spent defending democracy, it says here, in benighted South American theatres of the cold war.
These days, his brief is to preach a revised CIA gospel to Tinseltown, to overcome the lamentable image the agency acquired during the 1977 Church Congressional Commission on Assassinations, which it has struggled to shake off.
***
Other government agencies like the FBI, the Secret Service and the armed services discovered long ago the benefits of lending their cooperation to movies like Silence of the Lambs, In the Line of Fire and Top Gun.
Coming late to the game, the beleaguered CIA now has to overcome 25 years of suspicion – not to mention a grim history of covert assassinations, secret wars, illegal coups d’état, and the damaging revelations of former agents such as Philip Agee or John Stockwell – if it wants to clean up its image. This may be an uphill struggle, as the agency faces criticism for its failure to predict the events of September 11 – but suddenly, perhaps fortuitously, a slew of movies and TV shows about the CIA will be launched this autumn.
Brandon and the agency have approved eye-opening stuff. The Agency is a new CBS drama, full of best-and- brightest types rolling up their sleeves and attacking problems of national security, West Wing-style. Its first episode depicted a CIA attempt to foil an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro. This might surprise anyone remembering the agency’s attempts in the early 1960s to knock off Fidel with exploding cigars, sub-contracted mobsters and chemicals designed to make his beard fall out – to say nothing of the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion.
***
The company also lent their support to Alias, an action series featuring Jennifer Garner as a grad student-superspy a few degrees
away from La Femme Nikita. The Chris Rock-Anthony Hopkins comedy Bad Company traffics in similar comic-strip depictions of the CIA that Brandon was happy to help.
***
Receipt of the CIA’s corporate imprimatur is conditional upon only one thing: a totally sympathetic portrayal of company business.
***
It used to be the case that if a movie explicitly condemned CIA actions – such as Under Fire – the studios could be counted on to bury it.
In fact, the CIA first started working with Hollywood in the 1950s:
The CIA has been working with Hollywood since the 1950s.
***
The CIA first started working with Hollywood to influence foreign audiences. “Their purpose was essentially to shape foreign policy or to win hearts and minds overseas during the cold war,” she says.
The CIA developed a think tank to fight communist ideology, which negotiated the rights to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” — getting a talking pig on the screen 20 years before “Charlotte’s Web.” Jenkins says the CIA also wanted to promote a certain view of American life, for instance pressing for line changes in 1950s scripts to make black characters more dignified, and white characters more tolerant. This “politically correct” image was intended to promote an attractive image of America to a world picking sides in the Cold War.
Of course, pro-torture productions such as Zero Dark Thirty and the CIA-sponsored tv show 24 are 100% false: the top conservative and liberal interrogation experts say that torture hurts rather than helps national security.
And the CIA’s drone problem creates many more terrorists than it kills.
And the CIA’s other efforts have made us more vulnerable … not safer.
But this is Tinseltown we’re talking about … so no one expects the truth.
Of course, the CIA and other government agencies have long directed the mainstream media as well.
No wonder the mainstream media is always pro-war, and happily trumpets disinformation about supposed enemies to drum up support for new wars. Even after the Iraq WMD propaganda was thoroughly debunked, the old media is at it again
»
- advertisements -
William, you are one cracked mutha! Keep up the great work! Bravo.
George, more information is coming out about "Sandy Hook."
It needs your further investigation.
Some of the "parents" have been identified elsewhere as Crisis Actors employed by FEMA.
Everyone needs to spread more information.
I personally no longer have any doubts that this Regime is using central-america-like Death Squads on US citizens.
No CCTV, no documentation, all records of court and investigators Sealed!
RealTime Sandy Hook – Does Anderson Cooper Want James Tracy and/or His Family Members Harmed?by James Tracy
It would seem so from the broadcast journalist’s January 11 performance on his CNN program. Once corporate news media have told us what “reality” is, no further questioning is allowed, especially from credentialed individuals such as “tenured professors.” One has to ask, “Is this journalism? Or the frustrated defense of a news presenter and an increasingly uncertain storyline?”
ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
Newtown Conspiracy Theory; Gun Control Debate
Aired January 11, 2013 – 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone.
We begin tonight “Keeping Them Honest” with the story that is frankly hard to believe. You are going to want to sit down for this one.
Nearly one month to the day of the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 26 people were killed including 20 children, tonight we expose a number of people who are claiming that the Sandy Hook shootings were staged.
http://www.degaray.com/?p=2817
RealTime Sandy Hook – Does Anderson Cooper Want James Tracy and/or His Family Members Harmed?by James Tracy
It would seem so from the broadcast journalist’s January 11 performance on his CNN program. Once corporate news media have told us what “reality” is, no further questioning is allowed, especially from credentialed individuals such as “tenured professors.” One has to ask, “Is this journalism? Or the frustrated defense of a news presenter and an increasingly uncertain storyline?”
ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
Newtown Conspiracy Theory; Gun Control Debate
Aired January 11, 2013 – 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone.
We begin tonight “Keeping Them Honest” with the story that is frankly hard to believe. You are going to want to sit down for this one.
Nearly one month to the day of the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 26 people were killed including 20 children, tonight we expose a number of people who are claiming that the Sandy Hook shootings were staged.
http://www.degaray.com/?p=2817
that sodomite CIA plant Anderson Cooper was shooting off at the mouth about Sandy Hook conspiracies last night- he was almost screaming. it is good to see the media is losing control of the message and people have lost all faith in the MSM and govt
I think the fact that The Gay Spook himself has quickly addressed this is a very, very strong indication the plan is going off-track.
First time I have seen the state media organs directly and quickly jump like this.
They are not all-powerful.
They can be fought.
Do not give up; we must all keep digging. The sites I found showing the tribute to the dead teacher was apparently created sveral days before her death.
What we fail to see properly is how fully infiltrated mass media is today. Like Freddie says, it's all bullshit.
Keep TV and radio off and research on the internets. Show your friends. Post it here!
When I heard mention yesterday about nuns being involved in this tragedy, I was incredulous. Did some quick google image searches and I became literally sickened. One of the images - the one with the dark Mitsubishi in the background - shows clearly a symetrical object sticking out below the tall nun's coat. The shorter nun is wearing an ID badge that should be readable. The early on police "radio" apparently indicated apprehnsion of suspects, one of whom was a male wearing a nun's habit. Talking today with someone familiar with black operations, this person said the two men seen/apprehended in the woods behind the school were most probably just decoys ... possibly unwitting ones at that. What the fuck kind of world are we living in??? http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t314/justthinkin/DW2_zps6f42f03cjpg is the image address if I copied all correctly
Wow. Image deleted. I am shocked! Shocked I tell you!!!!
Mr. Washington.
I want you to review the site: Wellaware1.com, so that you may gain insight into just how deep the media "front" is, and how events like Columbine, Giffords, Klackamas, Sandy Hook ( even Columbine ) are scripted and manned by Rockefellers! The site is the work of Ed Chiarini. I challenge you to LOOK!
That site looks like a disinformation op.
Or, the creator is off his meds.
There is plenty of fishy stuff about CT, w/o this crap muddying the water.
true that
off hismeds, yet some small parts of it seem reasonable
like david icke
you mean the Committee for unamerican activites has taken over Hollywood; sixty years after its hearings?
Well they sponsored Reagan to enter politics once he got fed up of being a second string actor.
Hows that for career advancement!
So its time to rinse and repeat!
A new Joe McCarthy on the side lines....pushing the patriot pageant into tinsel town.
Bet you the next one will want to play Julius Caesar in earnest in DC in twenty years time!
Get your facts straight pema.
The Committee ON Un-American Activities (note it was ON not For, they weren't in favor of those activities) was a House committee. Joseph McCarthy was a Senator, you know, the other chamber. As such he could not be a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
The House Committee did pursue communists using Hollywood to influence American thinking but was unable to change the behavior.
Senator McCarthy was not involved with Hollywood. He pursued communists working in the US government as agents of the Soviet Union. In his time he was vilified. Subsequent revelations courtesy of the fall of the Soviet Union proved that he was correct and, if anything, had underestimated the infiltration of Soviet spies and agents of influence in the US government, mainly harbored by Democrat administrations.
i've always thought it was my right be a communist, or a anything else i choose.
the committee (you can argue over which one) drove a lot of talent underground, (interfering in a free market if you will) at a time when a lot of German expat film makers were arriving. (the sworn enemy of communism is fascism by the way, and if america was leaning then, and since towards fascism) the purging of (socalled) communists from hollywood, wasn't too much different than hitlers move to restore purity in the arts. and while none of the German expats were in any trouble, Hitchcock (a brit) found himself under some scrutiny, when Kim Novak was black balled. he later made a film mocking the CIA, North by Northwest, in which the hero does the American thing and saves the girl. (he was prevented from actually filming on the Mt Rushmore site)
You're an idiot. Subsequent revelations of declassified files showed that while a very few of the allegations MAY have been true (there WERE spies) the vast majority of the accusations were false and many more of the accused were in fact exonerated. (For example, the droves of people in the US Army that he accused of being communists.)
Despite what you might believe, raving power hungry alcoholics are not the most reliable sources of information.
And frankly, the US government is quite capable of peddling its own bullsh1t without your help.
You're either a useful idiot, historical revisionist or Soviet apologist. The Verona files provided proof, straight from the Kremlin, that McCarthy was on the right track, only he woefully underestimated their influence. You're proof they haven't quit trying!
I think you mean the "Venona" files... which you clearly know nothing about as the Venona project was an American project in the 40's and has nothing to do with the files that were declassified after the fall of the Soviet Union.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about do you?
Moron.
well we have right there, in this exchange of viewpoints, the ideological divide between american dinosaurs and more moderate, rationalists (IMO), about what is ON the true agenda of current Congress (both aisles nowwithstanding, its a collecitve disease) : whether its shaping the US media into a propoganda industry to defend pax Americana creed, whether its to shape the MIC into a despotic hegemony of "massive military supremacy" inspite of its current trajectory that to say the least is going nowhere but to hell, whether its to shape BIG financialised Captial now gone totally oligarchical and beyond Congressional control into a "Big Brother" US led combine.
Joe McCarthy was on that path you are right and his neo con sons are on the same track.
Big Brother capitalism is doing EXACTLY what Stalin did in his own land, only the mayhem of sheeple slaying is in conquered lands, since CIA Guatemala and Iran days. Only difference of Bush's NWO mantra now, relative to Joe McCarthy days, is that this US game operates on globalised basis; as planned/perceived in Joe McCarthy's days for which he and the Dulles brothers were outspoken advocates in the wake of WW2 US hegemony of first world.
Blaming the commie scare then, just as blaming the global war on terror today, is just an excuse for NEW Rome to say "Carthagem delenda est! "
Hegemony is and will be the name of despotic government that suffocates humanity and it doesn't matter which country propounds that as its own creed, proud assumption of imposing manifest destiny on others. The fact that successive US administrations play this game blatantly cannot be denied even by its own population; as the victims now of NWO rampage are increasingly that very own US population, of which the debt tsunami washes away the wealth down the river right in front of our eyes. The Emperor loses his purple robes of benefactor of humanity as the chickens come home to roost bigtime in print to infinity chimes.
I stand corrected on the "ON" issue.
+1 Bazza
Are you still over on UK Tele? Best posts over there on the EUSSR etc. Keep up the good work.
Jeeze, Guys this has been going on for the last 80 years,welcome to the propaganda in the film industry....
Definitely: Operation Mockingbird, Wisner's Wurlitzer, and all their modern exquivalents... whose names we don't know yet.
Anyone notice that most of the real US news now comes from overseas?
Al Jazeera outguns dumb assed Fox and CNN at their own game.
In the months NATO and US military bombed innocents in Libya, backed by Fox and CNN propaganda fed to Americans, Al Jazeera went right along with it.
A J is 100% CIA right from the start ; P
I wonder about RT sometimes too.
RT has no reason to bring whole truth to Americans.
I would double-check anything they say.
"Trust no one"-Agent Mulder X-Files
And the Greedy Hollywood pigs take the money for their conspiracy to commit treason.
NCIS is such an Israeli operation it isn't even funny. How would I know? Because I watch it to see what perceptions they are trying to promote. So far I've seen promotion of NDAA indefinite detention. The approval of Israeli takeover of US military command within the US. And the demonization of US citizens as terrorists. It reads like Alex Jones gospel. Scary shit.
Are you or have you ever been a member of the New World Order?
Investigative Journalism, Politicians, People Who Expect Social Security, Greenies, Internet Activists, Union Membership, Constitution, all BAD!
Police, Military, Deregulation, Privatization, Rich People, Mindless Adherents, Unitary Executive, all GOOD!
Who gave our own government the mandate to propagandise in the above fashion?
http://www2.kuow.org/program.php?id=26838
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/congressmen-seek-to-lift-propaganda-ban
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social...
Via representative democracy we did.
Thanks. The links serve to prove the propogandists, like the torturers, know that they are doing something wrong. Congressman Adams, in Wonderland, is just trying to make the laws match the realities of domestic propaganda, as the torturers, thru, Zero Dark Thirty, are trying mightily to justify what they are doing; the value and purpose be dammed. We need a bunch of people to realize that WHAT THEY ARE DOING, ie. their JOB is WRONG and shouldn't be done! It's been said that Washington is a "self licking icecream cone" and it is. We actually need american citizens to fire themselves from their pointless, destructive jobs. I know, not likely.
Resistance is futile. You will be absorbed.
-the Borg
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
FTFY
This has been going on since the 70s. Films are propaganda, pushing attitudes and unconcious assumptions. Nothing new here at all.
NEver forget the Hollywood ten...they paid as labelled heretics sacrificed, but not in vain, as the 60s generation of creative minds like S Spielberg and Coppola carried on the fight as independents. Now it rebegins... both Hollywood and TV, only the Internet stays free but for how long?
Nothing new here at all.
Two comments:
1. Does that make it okay? We should just accept it?
2. It is more ubiquitous now, and accounts for more hours of Joe Average's waking consciousness.
The more disturbing part is the average person doesn't bother to apply any sort of critical thinking to their viewing and reading habits.
Okay is relative and if you don't accept it you just refuse to support it by watching and in turn that lowers the amount viewers which in turn lowers their revenue take for ads during said shows.
Hollywood has ALWAYS been a tool of the politico/financial elites.
Very few (REAL) films have made it into the public main stream conciousness.
Case in point "The Grapes of Wrath." Released during the Great Depression years, even the critics initially shot it down. Eventually changing their tune when the public acclaimed it as being "real" and portraying life as it was.
Films like "The Grapes of Wrath" if released today, don't stand a hope in hell of making it. Besides, NO ONE would take the chance to make it! Spineless Holloywood. Useless.
not to labor the point, photographic images of the depression were contracted by FDR to help promote the New Deal... the film Grapes was done by a conservative director, John Ford, (and even when Ford had liberal ideas as subject matter he used hard conservative actor Henry Fonda, so its a question of the fox being given the role of dressing up the chickens. and if no one seems sincerely concerned for what happens to the chickens (chicken dinner), well thats the way it is)
i have an idea for a book about how Hollywood missed the Great Depression, (mostly top hats and tails, fantasy riches) and of course WW2 brought along a line of propaganda films, which were literally copied (blocking and editing) by Geo Lucas, who recently sold the Star Wars enterprise, to Disney.
there is of course a wide third world film industry and the still working Jean Luc Godard, they are not available at your cushy cinema theatres but through the magic of DVD you can see movies (i am thinking Pasolini) which a few years ago were unavailable. many can be borrowed at the public library, so get hip.
"Grapes of Wrath" is available on casette or CD for anyone interested. Highly recommended.
Does Fight Club have a book on tape?
Strange Deaths:
CIA Director William Colby
Deborah Jeane Palfrey ~ D.C. Madam
Mike Connell ~ Ohio Election Fraud
Paul Wellstone ~ Election, 9/11
Gary Webb ~ investigative journalist
Jim Hatfield ~ Bush author
· Pat Tillman ~ Patriot
Hunter S. Thompson ~ Gannon-9/11-Intro to LC
Dr. Bruce Ivins ~ Anthrax
Lori Klausutis ~ aide to Joe Scarborough
Beverly Eckert ~ 9/11 widow plane crash
Dr. David Kelly ~ British Weapons Inspector
Barry Jennings ~ WTC 7 Whistleblower
John O'Neill ~ worked in WTC first day
Dr. David Graham ~ 9/11 Whistleblower
JFK Jr. ~ Journalist, Potential Candidate
Mel Carnahan ~ Democratic Governor of Missouri
Colonel Sabow ~ Whistleblower and Marine
Col. Ted Westhusing ~ Returning home from Iraq
Gary Caradori ~ investigating the Franklin Cover Up
Calling JFK Jr a journalist and potential candidate is revisionist history. It would be tantamount to calling him a intrument rated pilot.
The chapter in Jim Hatfield's book about being told not to write (the book) is fucking eery. The Bushes make the mob look like choir boys.
What do you think the battle for Tora Bora was? Pat Tillman was writing home to his parents why they were REALLY doing there. More on this topic if requested. CIA all the way.
Jolie is a leading tool.
Yes, and MS. Gloria Steinem
propagangda style
Dear GW
maybe I missed it, but how can there be any conversation about the CIA and the media without the word MOCKINGBIRD not being front and center?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
this operation HAS NEVER STOPPED
If I see a film has a US connection I don't bother watching it, I have far better things to look at...
Ahhhhh that paint I just applied is fascinating