"For the benefit of both your studio and the Office of War Information it would be advisable to establish a routine procedure whereby our Hollywood office would receive copies of studio treatments or synopses of all stories which you contemplate producing and of the finished scripts. This will enable us to make suggestions as to the war content of motion pictures at a stage when it is easy and inexpensive to make any changes which might be recommended." -Lowell Mellett (FDR presidential liaison to media) to Hollywood studio heads, December 9, 1942
Back in November 2001, amidst the fallout of fear and anger after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Karl Rove (Bush's "Special Advisor") met with 40 key Hollywood executives to discuss the possibility of Tinseltown aiding the war on terror. While conspiracy theorists sensed an insidious Orwellian seizure of the Dream Factory, the public were assured that the meeting was not intended to influence content or output in any way.
Hollywood however has a long and uncomfortable history as one of America's most effective sources of propaganda. The first recognised instance of movies being used in such a coercive way was in 1898. The US had just declared war on Spain and two opportunist cinematographers created a one-reel film - Tearing Down the Spanish Flag. Audiences cheered at the sight of a fictional Spanish outpost being sacked by American soldiers.
Cinema was clearly a very powerful force for persuasion and mobilisation. In the first half of the 20 th century up to 80 million people per week visited a movie theatre in America, so by the time the Second World War loomed on the horizon, the US had a ready made public propaganda system ready to utilise. After the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941, Roosevelt targeted Hollywood as the most effective method of reaching the nation. The Office of War Information (OWI) was created to control all output from Hollywood, screening content on the basis of such criteria as:
- Will this picture help win the war?
- What war information problem does it seek to clarify, dramatize, or interpret?
Films such as Guadalcanal Diary, Sahara and John Wayne rabble-rouser Flying Tigers were produced overtly glorifying the US army. Movies showed not just heroic soldiers, but sugar-coated versions of the American traditions and heritage that they were fighting to protect (for example, the turn of the century charm of Meet Me In St Louis). James Stewart and Clark Gable were two of the many major Hollywood stars that joined the military, boosting morale with their high profile activities in full uniform. By the end of WW2 the OWI had a very heavy influence on all productions coming out of Hollywood. Great films were made during this period, but even they displayed elements of propaganda. Casablanca, perhaps the best movie of that era intended to celebrate the valiant resistance movement.
With such a clear early function as a propagandist organisation, and with the added benefit of the huge commercial gains that this provided, is it ridiculous to suggest that coercive behaviour has been institutionalised by Hollywood? From the early days of escapist cinema to raise spirits during the Great Depression, to the gung-ho war years, up to the anti-Communist films of the eighties (Red Dawn depicted "Commie" paratroopers landing on a Colorado High School, while Rocky IV showed our plucky all-American hero up against Dolph Lundgren's Russian fighter, trained by computer to be an emotionless killing machine) this certainly seems to be the case. It's logical to conclude that Hollywood, at its core, is an institute for propaganda, reflecting the concerns of the state and playing on the subconscious of the American public.
Recently, the Pentagon admitted that it has always traded supplies and facilities with producers in return for showing the military in a favourable light. How else could Top Gun get made aboard a working aircraft carrier? Deals are struck with directors and screenwriters to alter aspects of a movie in line with government requirements. Ridley Scott was asked to change the name of one of the key figures in Black Hawk Down because the real life veteran of the Somali incident had just been convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl. The film itself was littered with omissions and alterations which portrayed US soldiers in a more positive way than might have been expected, and the premiere was attended by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Oliver North. The film also presented the Somalis as an inhuman savage pack - a faceless dark menace.
In a letter to the Pentagon, a major Disney executive reassured the military that ".we firmly believe that with the support of the US military, Armageddon will be the biggest film of 1998, while illustrating the expertise, leadership and heroism of the US military." Dean Devlin, producer of Independence Day, pleaded to the Pentagon that if his movie ".doesn't make every boy in the country want to fly a fighter jet, I'll eat this script." Independence Day , however, was denied Pentagon approval because it showed civilians triumphing over the enemy, rather than servicemen. Other films that didn't make the grade include (somewhat predictably) The Thin Red Line, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket .
The huge financial incentive for filmmakers to borrow, rather than construct or rent military equipment is a very powerful bargaining tool for the military. Of course, it's not unreasonable for the Pentagon to be reluctant to back any film that attacked the US army, but the loan of hardware has become an easy way for them to use Hollywood as an advertisement for the military.
So, why would films that glorify the military be so successful? If Hollywood needed to boost morale in the war years, then perhaps the siege mentality fostered after 9/11, and the trauma of the ongoing Iraq conflict has produced a similar result. Given Bush's policy of reductionism - black or white, good or bad, you are either with us or against us - Hollywood's often-simplistic narratives fit right in with the government line. Studio films often use language replete with, as the Institute for Propaganda Analysis would say; glittering generalities and plain folk speak. Partly, this makes their propaganda much more effective. People are not bogged down in the complexities of an issue, but are encouraged to just to go along with the simplest, most convenient notion.
However, unlike the 1930s, America today has a thriving independent filmmaking scene, equally capable of churning out its own propaganda. Michael Moore shamelessly suggested that he was fighting fire with fire with Fahrenheit 9/11, using the right's coercive tactics in a film designed to topple the current government at the next election. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was unimpressed: "When Michael Moore describes Iraq, before the American intervention, as a sort of oasis of peace and happiness, where people flew kites ... there wasn't only that, Saddam Hussein was also a horrible dictator. And that is not in Michael Moore's film." Lévy opposed the American intervention in Iraq and is not a supporter of Bush.
Alex Cox, director of cult films such as Repo Man, suggests that Hollywood has been partly responsible for vilifying Iraqis in the lead up to the Iraq war. From the resurgence of positive Vietnam movies (for example Mel Gibson's We Were Soldiers) to such overtly racist movies as Deterrence, Hollywood continues to enforce the double message of the morality of US causes and the barbarity of the enemy. As Cox says of Deterrence : "Given the genesis of the American war plan against Iraq, is it unreasonable to view this bellicose, not-very-good "entertainment" from 1999 as part of a larger strategy - involving Hollywood - to dehumanise Iraqis, lower the nuclear threshold and prepare for war?" Even the tag lines for Spielberg's remake of The War Of The Worlds seemed to echo paranoia evident in America today. "The Last War on Earth Won't Be Started By Humans" and "They're Already Here" mimics a lot of the rhetoric used by the government to describe the terrorist threat.
Hollywood, as the dominant model of popular entertainment in America, and one of the US's primary ways to export its culture and social values has acted and continues to act as an overt agent of propaganda. While a thriving independent filmmaking scene and the more liberal side of the establishment can make films such as Neils Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon (a Mexican co-production which helps give the lie to Condoleezza Rice's claim that no one had ever thought it possible that someone could use a plane as a missile), it is the core of simplistic, manipulative movies that continue to conquer the US and the rest of the planet. True propagandists understand Berthold Brecht's claim that: "Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it". Hollywood continues to reinforce and shape America as much as it did in the 1940s.
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