EP3 – Military Entertainment Complex

Today we will be looking at the documentary Theaters of War (2022).All art is propaganda and no one pushes agendas like the media industry. But what if we told you that some of your favourite action films exist to shape a narrative, project power, recruit new blood and showoff their toys.We will be looking at the how the US Military completely rewrites many beloved films to suit their agenda and try to snuff out films that go against them.

Scroll down for the full episode transcript notes.

Speaker 1 00:08
Are we amusing ourselves to death, as Neil Postman once argued? Or as Bill and Ted once said, I believe our adventure through time has taken a most serious turn. The City of Dreams is already a nightmare. Dark Alleyways, a screen and media podcast, identifies the concerns, idiocy, and seedy side of Hollywood and the industry. So I want to know from you guys, what movie comes to your head when you think of military and propaganda? 

Speaker 2 01:04
Okay, Wonder Woman. 

Speaker 0 01:06
That's a good one. I'm going to go for the tried and true, Top Gun, Tom Cruise. 

Speaker 2 01:12
I'm going to go for retro Starship Troopers from 1997. Traversial. 

Speaker 0 01:19
I'll keep my mouth shut. 

Speaker 1 01:21
So today we're talking about... military and propaganda. We do know it has occurred. Aisha watched a movie called, what's it called? 

Speaker 2 01:34
It's called Theatres of War. So I think Alex and I both watched, it's a documentary that came out in 2022, got very little publicity and we will discuss further why that's the case. But it's definitely something I would recommend people watch. So say you're a producer and you want to make a war film. You would walk into the entertainment liaison office in downtown Los Angeles. 

Speaker 1 02:01
You say. 

Speaker 2 02:02
I want to film an Air Force base. 

Speaker 1 02:04
Or I want an aircraft carrier, or I want Black Hole helicopters, or whatever it is. 

Speaker 2 02:08
And they would tell you straight away, give us your entire script. 

Speaker 1 02:13
And the director, Roger Stone he talks to Oliver Stone in it, and he actually shows a lot of examples. 

Speaker 2 02:18
Oh, that's the other thing with this doco is it's information packed, and they come with receipts for everything they say. 

Speaker 0 02:24
Or with freedom of information backing too. So this has all been actual documents. 

Speaker 1 02:28
Why do you think the military would use movies for propaganda? 

Speaker 0 02:36
Yeah, I mean, I think when it comes to propaganda, first of all, let's define what propaganda is because it gets used around a lot, yeah. 

Speaker 1 02:42
Yeah, so pretty much because I'm in marketing and marketing is all about propaganda. So it's pretty much the ideas and facts or allegations. But it can go either way. So it can be spread deliberately to further one's cause or it can be spread in order to damage an opposing cause. So is the military mainly there to spread their own cause or is it to change our minds about a particular war? 

Speaker 0 03:15
I mean, from what I've seen, it looks like they're doing both. So in a sense, they do want to promote themselves. But promoting them, because one of the things they do say, it's part of their, the Department of Defense's collaboration with cinema, what they say is, you must depict things, events in a true light, but it must be in the national interest. Now, those two things can come into conflict often. 

Speaker 1 03:36
Yes, like when? 

Speaker 2 03:38
I think when we look at different examples, like even films about the Iraq War, Vietnam War, a lot of the times what was the US national interest versus what was the truth was always muddied. And we'll go into examples on that. I feel like when it comes to propaganda, it's more so, it's not like, it's not a good or bad thing per se. It's, you know, you're trying to influence people. You're trying to persuade them. So in a sense, it's about, are you going to do that for a cause that's bad for most people, but good for you? Is it for the overall good? Like propaganda is done everywhere. But in this instance, I think one of the reasons why the military, you know, utilizes it. First of all, cinema is powerful. Cinema is something that, you know, at one point used to be a luxury, now it's way more accessible. And so, on the one hand, it's, you know, a form of entertainment. On another hand, that means they can reach out to people that they never could before. And this is a global audience. So, in a sense, for them, it's a way to project power. But in the documentary Theaters of War, it states very clearly the main aims for the military is, you know, for the national interest. They want to project power, in a way. The other one is, and they've said this openly, recruitment. They use cinema as a tool of recruitment to build for their forces. And the other one is a form of product placement. This is how they display their wares, their new military equipment, to the market. Because if you look at a lot of weapons manufacturers, how they advertise what they're promoting to different governments, different insurgent forces, whatever it may be, this is a great way to show it. 

Speaker 0 05:13
Technological superiority. Yeah. I think I would add one other thing too. Propaganda relies on Depending on what sort of school of thought you come from, but like journalism, for example, the idea of objectivity, or at least airing grievances from both sides or exploring different perspectives as equitably as possible. We know there's challenges with that. The core definition for me for propaganda is, is you're not going to give the other side a sweet, sweet talk. You're not necessarily going to present things from their perspective. It's a one-sided perspective. It's selective. you know, and sometimes it can be selective to the point where it's misinforming the audience that it's supposed to be. 

Speaker 1 05:55
Okay. So the movie that you guys saw, did it go into specifics and gave examples? 

Speaker 2 06:05
Uh, yeah, yeah, it definitely did. I think, um, if you, there's so many examples to go through. Alex, what was the one that stuck out to you? 

Speaker 1 06:14
Top Gun is the classic one. 

Speaker 2 06:16
Yeah. They mentioned that. 

Speaker 1 06:17
In the eighties, not Maverick. Even though Maverick also shows certain things. But like with Top Gun, the key thing here is there's a lot of technological inaccuracy. There's some stunts we've made with the planes that would never be possible. It's only in dreamland of Hollywood. But most importantly too, with Top Gun, the way I look at it is that the military are obviously going to show that war doesn't have concussions. Everything is using planes. There's a bombing target, usually structure. But you don't think about the people that are in that structure. You don't think about how people can get injured and mauled and everything like that. It's sexy. It's fun. It's almost like a teenage superhero fantasy. 

Speaker 2 07:00
The Pentagon was feeling the love too. 

Speaker 0 07:03
Beneath all the noise was a quiet little contract that allowed the U.S. military to weave in key talking points, oversee the script, and require an official screening before its release. Of course, it wasn't the first time. 

Speaker 2 07:18
All right. 

Speaker 1 07:19
Talk to me, Goats. 

Speaker 2 07:20
You may not remember the original film as an instrument for engineering public opinion. 

Speaker 1 07:25
But the Pentagon does. The office that supplied all those aircraft carriers and F-14s said as much in its own database. 

Speaker 2 07:32
The film completed rehabilitation of the military's image. 

Speaker 0 07:35
Which had been savaged by the Vietnam War. You might wonder how often they do this, and how deep the influence goes. But the reality is, is most people who will probably get recruited into the army aren't going to be flying these fantastic gadgets. They're going to be stuck somewhere where they don't really want to be. 

Speaker 2 08:00
It'd be really interesting to see how many people actually signed up after watching Top Gun. 

Speaker 1 08:05
It was massive, apparently. Was it? 

Speaker 2 08:07
Yeah. Apparently it, Top Gun is what, in the documentary they said, it basically, what's the word? It sort of kicked up. Because the military took quite a bit of damage after Vietnam. Vietnam War. Yeah, and so Top Gun was something that helped revive that enthusiasm to join the military. I remember there was a scene in that documentary where they actually spoke to actual pilots who said, yeah, you can't be doing stunts like these. This is dangerous stuff. 

Speaker 0 08:32
Yeah, you know, when they fly past the guard tower, for example, and zing it, okay, you'd get done for that. You would never be in a plane afterwards. 

Speaker 2 08:40
I just had a quick look, and a year after Top Gun was released, the US military saw an increase of 20,000 uniformed personnel compared to the year before the movie was out. So that's huge. 

Speaker 1 08:52
There's a correlation there. There's a spike. There's even anecdotes, not that I would remember because I was so young, but they were lining up tables right outside the theatre to catch these aspirants as they tumbled out of the cinema ready to go. Wow. Yeah. I mean, imagine that you just watched all this stuff. You're like in your teens. You don't know what you want to do with your life. You're in high school, go join the military. 

Speaker 0 09:16
Yeah. You got to understand a lot of the people that join the military, you know, whatever we see on cinema, what we don't realize is a lot of the younger recruits, a lot of the, you know, on the ground forces there, a lot of them come from poorer areas. So they've finished high school. The military, one of the things they, you know, they say to them is, you know, we'll pay for your education. You'll get healthcare, you'll get all these benefits. if you join. So and of course, then they add the glory of what they show them in cinema. For a lot of people that come from small towns who maybe don't have, they don't get to see a future bigger than their town. That looks exciting to them. 

Speaker 1 09:47
So that's propaganda. 

Speaker 0 09:48
It is. Yeah. And thing is what they're showing them, like the same thing with Top Gun is like, oh, you'll be flying this plane zigzagging going up and down. And then when you get there, they're like, no, shut up, you do what we tell you. 

Speaker 1 09:58
And the interesting thing is because after I checked to see how many people entered the US military. and Defence in 2023, and it's 41% fewer than what it was in 1987. 

Speaker 0 10:13
That's really interesting. I mean, it's not surprising considering the bad PR the military has been getting, especially for the newer generation, I think, since Afghanistan, but primarily since the Iraq war. Yeah. And there's been so much bad publicity. But yeah, I've heard that before as well. Their recruitment targets are well down. And so that means they're not even able to bribe them by saying, hey, we'll pay for this or pay for that. And I think the other thing that we'll maybe go into is because after the last few decades, a lot of veterans have come back. A huge number of them have taken their life and the ones who haven't are walking around. A lot of them are homeless. A lot of them struggle. So I think people can see that, you know, the veterans around them. 

Speaker 1 10:52
So Gen Z are like. 

Speaker 0 10:54
I know what's going to happen to me if I go there. 

Speaker 2 10:56
So the Marvel movies that preceded them aren't having the effect because aren't Marvel movies, they were military showcased? 

Speaker 0 11:09
Iron Man talked a bit about it. But they changed that a little bit because initially, I think in the initial iteration of Iron Man, it was about him renouncing the weapons. Yeah. Which you see a bit of in the first one, but it was a lot more blatant. Yeah. And they toned that down. But Ms. Marvel is the most recent one where they've really tried to go after female recruits. Oh. Especially for female cast. That's very recent though. 

Speaker 2 11:32
Tell me more about that. I'm curious. 

Speaker 1 11:34
So with Ms. Marvel, they've got like a heavy presence. 

Speaker 0 11:37
Alex, it's Captain Marvel, I think. Captain Marvel. 

Speaker 2 11:39
Miss Marvel. 

Speaker 1 11:40
I'll take it back. Take it back. There is a Miss Marvel, but yeah, but Captain Marvel. Yeah, with Captain Marvel, they've got, she's like a pilot. Yeah. And she's like part of the military as well. Yeah. So I can show you that soldiers can be heroes too, even superheroes. Yeah. Yeah. 

Speaker 0 11:58
Just with that one. So when it comes to superhero films, I think that's one of the reasons why the DOD. By the way, this is information coming from one of the people who was in the documentary. His name is Matthew Alford. He wrote a book called Real Power, you know, and I'll put a link to that book. It's quite interesting. And what he said is that when it comes to the impact of, you know, these military films, they're not having the effect that the DOD wants anymore. So superhero films are the ones they're turning to, which is funny because even superhero films are not doing as well. 

Speaker 1 12:30
But maybe superhero films was what they were turning to the last. 10 years, but I think post-pandemic, it's just not working anymore. So they've got to change it. It would be interesting to see how they change it. 

Speaker 2 12:44
Yeah. I mean, that's why I mentioned Wonder Woman when you asked that question, because that's, I mean, that's something that the same guy, Matthew Alford, mentioned in another interview, I think, which is that, yeah, the creators of that film worked very closely with the Department of Defence. And, of course, now that I think about it, I can see how they managed to distort. uh history through that and again making it look very um like a very exciting and intoxicating environment about glory when you and going back to what alex mentioned before about the what is it miss marvel captain marvel captain marvel there's a miss ma i know i'm something i'm getting confused it's very it's very interesting because in that documentary they mentioned how captain marvel is being used to recruit women into the military but in the documentary something else comes up which is sexual assault in the military. The entertainment office has done its best to make you forget all about sexual harassment and assault in the ranks, which includes a pattern of leaders retaliating against victims who complain. The problem first went public in 1991 with the Tailhook scandal. This is where hundreds of Navy servicemen assaulted more than 80 servicewomen at a convention in Las Vegas. 

Speaker 1 13:53
A congressional investigation flagged a top gun mentality as a major factor. 

Speaker 2 13:58
Seven, eight years ago, I even remember watching, there was an interview with a bunch, a few, three, four women who had accused, you know, top commanders in the military or top higher-ups in the military. They were on The View. They talked about how they were, you know, assaulted or raped and they tried to do something. They tried to complain about it and they were shut down. And, you know, there had to be an inquiry opened up later on. But in the documentary film, in theaters of war what they said is the way that Hollywood depicts this because they had to address this this issue that came up the way they addressed this was there was a film I forgot the name of it it's in the doco where the film script is showing it as there's a few bad apples that commit some crimes and the women you know they bravely you know tell their stories but in one of the films they made it look like oh the military takes this stuff very seriously and in fact they said we wish the women had come forward sooner they had so basically they're trying to blame the women by saying You know, if you had come forward sooner, we could have done something quicker about it, which is the opposite of what happened in real life. And that's why it's especially gross when they try to use something like Captain Marvel to recruit women into the military and then try to pretend to people as if, oh, don't worry, it's a safe, you know, an environment where you won't be abused. 

Speaker 1 15:07
The thing is, is that you have these TV shows or these production studios. The key thing that the military have that they need, because it's a relationship that's got mutual objectives, right? Hollywood or production companies want to make something that's a blockbuster that will appeal to people, make money. Military, on the other hand, have the access. They've got the supply of the equipment. You've got to make a bit of a handshake here. So these companies are willing to make adjustments to the story to show certain characters in a better light or to address things that are... in the military, like sexual assault or, you know, whatever, in the best light possible. They'll come to the table and make these adjustments. And that's why you see certain things like adjustments in the dialogue. Okay. Even like, for example, in Feuders of War, they give an example like 13 Days. Okay. That was based on the Cuban Missile Crisis and the negotiations between the American administration and the Russians. In that film, if some of you have seen it or if you haven't, the military people were shown as hawks. They were shown as the instigators in trouble who were essentially going to get the entire world destroyed. But the diplomats are the ones who saved the day. You see what I mean? 

Speaker 2 16:27
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 16:27
So guess what? The 13 Days wasn't supported by the Department of Defense because it doesn't show their leaders in a great light. Same with, what's it called? Apocalypse Now. 

Speaker 2 16:39
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 16:40
They had to go to the Philippines and use unmarked planes because they were never going to get supported by the Department of Defense on that one. 

Speaker 2 16:46
And we know how that ended. 

Speaker 0 16:47
Yeah. So the Department of Defense can make or break productions essentially. And in this doco in Theaters of War, they actually run an entire list of films that we have never seen. Some based on books by Vietnam veterans who are considered like, you know, important people in their field. They're respected. But. Never had a film or a TV show. But their voice is never going to be heard. No, it's only left in the book because it deals with stuff like drug use in the military, people fragging each other. Okay. Because that doesn't look good for the military. No. You know, you subordinate killing a leader because they're crazy or whatever like that. But also war crimes. 

Speaker 2 17:25
Then how did Black Hawk Down get created? 

Speaker 1 17:28
Because this is the classic example, right? That was turned, Feathers of War actually talk about this. This is a classic example of where like the army were disorganized. people got killed. It was a failed mission. What better way to reframe it and represent it as an act of valor, you know, valor, you know, a success in certain terms of hero ship. 

Speaker 2 17:49
Even though we lost it's still the bravery of the soldier. Yeah. But wasn't there something you mentioned, Alex, about Black Hawk Down? 

Speaker 1 17:56
Yeah. I remember reading back in 2002, this article from the BBC, which Aisha was able to find in the archives, believe it or not. So when it was shown in Mogadishu, Somalia, yeah. They had people watching bootlegs of this film. So they were paying real cheap. Okay. So there's another FU to the man. Okay. But every time an American soldier got killed in that movie, everyone cheered. 

Speaker 2 18:19
Or when the helicopter was shot down. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 18:21
Because they were on the other end of this. Yeah. They don't see the Americans as the heroes here doing a good thing. Okay. There are a lot of, there were hundreds and thousands, I actually think thousands of people that were killed in that mission. 

Speaker 2 18:33
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 18:33
All right. So there's a complete subversion of what that movie means. 

Speaker 2 18:38
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 18:38
Over there. They enjoyed it, you know, for a different reason. Yeah. And they didn't even like pay for it decently. 

Speaker 2 18:45
They're not going to pay for it. 

Speaker 1 18:47
They screwed the system with the bootlegs. 

Speaker 2 18:49
Yeah. That's when the article they were like almost offended that, oh, my God, they're, you know, getting a like a bootleg version of this. I was just going to quickly mention. 

Speaker 1 18:57
And in the movie, you don't learn anything about like Somalian culture. 

Speaker 2 19:00
No. You don't. 

Speaker 0 19:01
Like cardboard cutouts. 

Speaker 1 19:02
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 19:03
I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to mention the film Platoon because this is a film, the Oliver Stone film about the Vietnam War. It was basically based on his experience in Vietnam. I rewatched it recently and this is a great example of a film that the military will not support. It does the exact opposite of what they want. It shows the incompetence of the U.S. military, including their own weaponry, where they end up accidentally blowing up their own people. It shows things like fragging, which is for anyone that doesn't know, it's when you shoot your superior. You refuse to follow the orders of your superior officers and shoot them. which was very common in the Vietnam War. 

Speaker 1 19:34
Friendly fire, they don't show either, but that happens often too. 

Speaker 2 19:37
Yeah, and the other one is in terms of recruitment, if the military wants to recruit, this film will do the opposite. Nobody wants to watch this because it shows the horror that they experience, not just at the hands of, like, you're in a foreign country and you have no idea when the next attack is coming. It's also the fact, you know, like they become heroin addicts. I think I read that a third of Vietnam... US soldiers became heroin addicts. I'm not surprised. Yeah. And you know, PTSD basically became popularized because of that war. And they said one of the main reasons it was, it's not even, it's the horror of war, but it's also the fact that they were lied to about what it was. So when you go there, you're so unprepared for it. And you had to do and witness horrible things. 

Speaker 1 20:20
Yeah. Oliver Stone even volunteered to go there. 

Speaker 2 20:23
He did. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 20:24
Most people got conscripted. This guy actually went there of his own volition and saw all of this. 

Speaker 2 20:28
So, so the main character is Charlie Sheen. And he is also a character that volunteers to go. He went to college. All the guys he met there are all from poor backgrounds who were forced to go there. And so it's really interesting because it shows you how, you know, like when you're there as your platoon, they become kind of in a way like your family. So when you see one of them get killed, you want to kill the enemy because you feel like they've killed one of your own. But then you see your own people, your own fellow soldier commit horrible crimes, and then you try to stop them. And then you see a divide between the soldiers. But yeah, this film is one where Stone said it was very difficult to get funding for this. Yeah. Because they already had like apocalypse now and all that. 

Speaker 1 21:10
And he got knocked back numerous times. And obviously the studio is not going to back him if he can't get the support of the Department of Defense to provide the goods. And at the end of the day, it's an anti-war movie. The Department of Defense is into war. 

Speaker 2 21:25
Yeah. So this is not something they want. There was even, you know, going on to the treatment of how veterans are treated. Because, you know, Stone, the second film was called Born on the Fourth of July, about the character who goes through Vietnam and then becomes an anti-war activist. The films that collaborate with DOD, it was mentioned in Theaters of War, where they make the veterans who become anti-war activists, they can't shit on veterans, but they make them look like they're misguided. 

Speaker 1 21:54
Or bitter. 

Speaker 0 21:55
Yeah, bitter or misguided. Instead of recognizing why so many veterans joined the anti-war movement. 

Speaker 2 22:05
What about Full Metal Jacket? Jacket, yeah. Is that another? Because I was actually having a think of other anti-war movies. 

Speaker 1 22:14
Full Metal Jacket's interesting because for half the film, and Kubrick obviously did this on purpose, he spent a lot of time showing the drudgery but the drilling in of turning regular folks into killing machines and following orders and commands because half that film is about the training process, which... culminates in a fragging incident because one of them goes so over the edge being bullied essentially by the superior officers that he essentially tops off the that officer in himself okay so yeah that that's that's 100 anti-war movie but also showing how people become what they are so any big surprise when they go out in the field what do they do um things are potentially very unwarlike. 

Speaker 0 22:57
Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen that film. I mean, I guess since re-watching Platoon, I'm more interested in seeing the, you know, that kind of psychological process because that's something the military would not want you to... It's a really damaging thing for recruitment if they see, you know, the kind of... Because the way it's told people is like, oh, you'll be taught discipline and given structure in your life. 

Speaker 1 23:18
And you get a free education. 

Speaker 2 23:20
Yes, and you'll be treated as, you know, these wonderful heroes when you come back. And... From what we can see, I think there was a stat that I read. This was a while ago. It must be much worse now. But the number of veterans who have committed suicide, who were deployed in Iraq, are actually more than the ones that were actually killed in Iraq. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 23:40
I've heard similar too. And if you listen to a lot of music these days too that's politically driven, they'll talk about this. Like Tom MacDonald, for example, often refers to war vets in his lyrics. being homeless or not taken care of and stuff like that. 

Speaker 2 23:59
Is that, there's a song called Born in the USA? 

Speaker 1 24:02
Oh, that's, what's his name? Springsteen. 

Speaker 2 24:04
Springsteen. That's right. Because that song, I remember looking at the lyrics and because it's been used by US politicians as a kind of a pro US anthem. You read the lyrics. It's like, I went as a veteran, went to kill these random people and now I'm homeless. That's the song. 

Speaker 1 24:20
I just had a sad epiphany. Some of my favorite parody movies of all time. 

Speaker 2 24:25
When. 

Speaker 1 24:25
Hot Shots. 

Speaker 2 24:26
I haven't seen that. What's that? 

Speaker 1 24:27
It's Charlie Sheen. It's pretty much a piss take of like, um, Top Gun. But turned into a parody, you know, like what they did with Scream and Scary Movie. Um, I've got a bad feeling that was probably supported by the DOD, even though they show that the defense army and everything is incompetent in that movie. They've probably done it because it presents like, you know, tongue in cheek humor and shows that everyone's got a bit of fun in them. I don't know. 

Speaker 2 24:51
Oh shit, I've got to watch that. Now they're on the humorous side. In Theaters of War, one of the things that I found that was funny was how the DOD's influence in the Godzilla film. The reason I found it funny is because... 

Speaker 1 25:03
Which one? 2014? 

Speaker 2 25:04
I think that was the one, yeah, because they did not want it, because again, they use the films to advertise their wares, their equipment, so they cannot have the monster destroying their equipment. That had to be rewritten. 

Speaker 1 25:17
Yeah, because it makes it look like, you know, we're not good enough. But that's funny you mention that too, because the newest Godzilla on Netflix, Godzilla Minus One, I've got a bad feeling that, actually I've got a good feeling that that's actually a very subversive movie. Because I think Godzilla actually not only represents the nuclear age, as he traditionally did with the old Godzilla movies, but I think it might be Japanese guilt over the war. Yeah. Come back to bite him on the butt. 

Speaker 2 25:49
Japanese guilt. Yeah. Oh, as in the guilt about... 

Speaker 1 25:52
Lack of acknowledgement of crimes that were committed under Imperial Japanese. 

Speaker 2 25:56
Oh, okay. 

Speaker 1 25:57
Yeah, because the main character is actually a kamikaze soldier who, or pilot, who didn't do their job. Yeah. So they come back and everyone is not a fan of him because he has no honour. But funnily enough, like if you look at it closely, you can see that Godzilla maybe represents more than the nuclear age. It might actually represent what the Japanese did in the war. And it's come back to haunt him. 

Speaker 2 26:20
So you've sold us, at least for me. Now I want to watch the film. 

Speaker 1 26:23
No, if you just watch it as a plain film, it's like these old Japanese Navy soldiers get together and beat him without any assistance from the government. Right. So it's really weird because on the one hand, you can see there's a subversive element there of what Godzilla potentially represents. But on the other hand, it also says, but that's okay. These military people can also fix the problem. I'm not, oh, it's just a fantastic movie to enjoy on face value. I don't know. Yeah. But I think there's something to it if you look deeper. And even if there isn't, you can still glean insight into art that may not be intentional. You know, some people say like, a lot of the DOD examples we've talked about are intentional. Yeah. Yeah. But sometimes art can come off in such a way that there's unintentional interpretations that offer insight and people realize hey there is also this and i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing it's not making things up yeah okay it's just critical thinking i mean if you so. 

Speaker 0 27:21
We all have seen the film oppenheimer now obviously it's not a war film it's a film about the person that created the atomic bomb but what i found interesting was when the film released um there was a lot of praise for the film but there were also some people who were more, I guess, they're very, I guess, say pro-America, that kind of, they were, they actually thought that the film should be finished when they tested the bomb. And in a sense, it's like they don't want to deal with the consequences of not just detonating the bomb and the number of people that were killed in it, but also what the film talked about was, it sort of toyed with, it didn't openly say it, which was... Was it really necessary to drop the bomb? And who was the bomb directed at? Even though it was dropped on Japan, was it actually done to end the war or was it done to send the Soviets a message? Because the main character Oppenheimer, he's repeatedly, when he's arguing with them about it, he keeps saying, who are we at war with? Because the military keeps talking about the Soviets. He's like, what are you talking about the Soviets for? 

Speaker 1 28:23
It was really interesting because he was trying to go through the propaganda. He was given all this propaganda and he was trying to work out what was the truth. 

Speaker 2 28:32
Yeah, and he kind of realizes, like the character realizes that, you know, he's like, they used me to make this bomb. Now they don't care what I think. 

Speaker 1 28:40
Yeah, the entire arc of that story is an outsider becomes an insider. And at the end, he becomes an outsider. 

Speaker 2 28:46
Yeah, they throw him out and trash his name. 

Speaker 1 28:48
Yeah, so it's a rise and fall. But also, yeah, it's looking at the political background of what everything happened to. And I mean, at the end of the day. I think at the end of the day, that movie is about talking about nuclear proliferation and how it's still around. 

Speaker 2 29:05
Do you think the DOD might have had something to do with that film? 

Speaker 1 29:07
Not sure. 

Speaker 0 29:08
Yeah, I don't know. I tried looking it up. I'm not sure. I mean, because they didn't have any equipment as far as I know, like not heavywears. I was going to ask, because we've gone through a list of these films. Some of this stuff comes up. But maybe we could just look at how cinema shapes our worldview. our perception of history, our role in history as different nations. The reason I bring that up is because I found a very interesting graph. So this was about how the populations, primarily in the Western countries or what we call the allied countries at the time during World War II, how they perceived who did the most to defeat the Nazis. So that was literally the question asked. It was a poll done by Redfield and Wilton strategies. So I think they did this. Actually, they did this poll this year in June, who did the most to defeat Nazi Germany. And I'm wondering where they asked this, because the number one 42% said the United Kingdom, 12% said the United States, 6% said France, and 6% said the Soviet Union. So this was a poll conducted this year. Now, they there was another poll conducted. This is by Oliver Berriou, I'm sorry for butchering that name. They basically asked France, the poll was conducted in France, in your opinion, which country contributed most to the defeat of Nazi Germany? In 1945, 57% of people said it was the Soviet Union, and 20% said the United States, 12% said the UK. Now he's been tracking this throughout the years. Once you start heading into the 90s, all of a sudden, America goes to 49%. So they think, America has done the most. In 2004 it went up to 58% and then in 2015 it went down to 54% but since the 90s onwards it was 80s to 90s onwards, it was largely seen as a US victory over the Nazi Germany and the Soviet number started to go down into the 20s. 

Speaker 1 31:13
I think that would be really good to showcase on our website and our socials. 

Speaker 2 31:18
Yeah, I mean, I think I personally think that, you know, Hollywood cinema plays a big role in shaping people's perceptions about these historical events. I mean, you learn stuff in high school. How much? Yes, some people remember, but not everyone remembers their history from high school, but we We do take in a lot of the messages that come in through cinema. I just wanted to ask what people thought of that. 

Speaker 1 31:37
I think a lot more people what they see. The difference is, is the Department of Defense to a degree can control the agenda in terms of what is shown or to what degree it's shown in some of the examples we've seen and talked about. In saying that, I'd even go further and say the Hollywood model has probably been looked at by other countries who have emerging cinema like China. Okay. And they've sort of like decided to do similar things like the Wolf Warrior films, which are like a direct rip of a lot of 1980s action movies, like Rambo 2 and 3, for example. I actually consider Rambo 1 the outlier because it's about a vet who comes back home and doesn't show war in a great light. You know what I mean? Whereas 2 and 3 becomes like a superhero or something like that. So yeah, I think the impact might not be just necessarily on just how people see it individually, which I think we're a lot more critical these days. People are a lot more smarter about it. Whether they fall into rhetoric and political agendas, which go in cycles, is another story, time and place. But I think cinematically as a whole, I mean, these things go back as far back to Battleship Potemkin. 

Speaker 2 32:48
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 32:48
I think the Russians realised that, hey, images and montage can actually be used to mobilise and galvanise people for political. 

Speaker 2 32:56
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, things like Soviet cinema, like... There was a lot more honesty about films being propaganda. And that's the thing. It's not inherently a good or bad thing. 

Speaker 1 33:07
Yeah. 

Speaker 0 33:07
They accepted it. They said, we're going to use this to help build this new society. Whereas in what we've seen from theaters of war, what the filmmakers have said is, this is done out in the open, but it's not publicized. 

Speaker 2 33:21
Yeah, it's covert. 

Speaker 1 33:22
So, yeah, the American mentality is we live in a place where there's institutions of transparency, freedom of the internet. information acts and access to these sort of things, which would be made aware of them. And some of you weren't aware of it, but here are the documents. Now you are. But I think what alarmed a lot of people that may alarm a lot of people watching Feuders of War is that the Department of Defence or the CIA, they might be a little bit more proactive or depending on what side of the field you are on, insidious in the creation of production notes, key talking points. even lines in stories which I never appear to the audience because it brings up things that people don't want to talk about. 

Speaker 2 34:06
I mean in the documentary they specifically said it's not like when if you want to work if you have to work with them the DoD you you can't just send them parts of the script where the military you know is appears in the film they want to see the whole script and so it's gotten to a point where a lot of these filmmakers are apparently and screenwriters they're already adjusting their scripts in a way to be positive so that they don't have to go through the back and forth writing. So it's already, you know, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I was just going to add quickly, Alex mentioned Rambo. Remember Rambo 3? At the end of the film, they dedicate... 

Speaker 1 34:40
Of the Mujahideen. 

Speaker 2 34:41
Yes, because when the film was released, they dedicated the films to the brave fighters in Afghanistan. And then after the Afghanistan war, they took that part out. Yep. 

Speaker 1 34:52
And that's because the background of that was... that the Russians were also a part of that war and the Americans were trying to counter them for influencing. 

Speaker 2 34:58
And backing the Mujahideen, the Islamic jihadists who they... Yeah. 

Speaker 1 35:03
That was a Cold War backdrop. 

Speaker 0 35:05
Yeah, so that's the thing. It's like, for me, it's always, it's seen as, it's much more insidious when you don't, because again, if you openly say something is propaganda, at least you're being honest about it. Whereas in this case, they're saying, oh, no, no, this is just completely odd. This is all separate and we have, you know, freedom of information. Anyone can do what they want. But then... Behind the scenes, they're actively not just shaping our perceptions, but using it as a way to recruit for the military, which maybe is faltering now. But that means they're selling a lot of people who come from, you know, very poor backgrounds, a false idea of what they can get. And it just reminded me of, you guys remember during the Iraq war, there was the Abu Ghraib prison? Yeah. That was, for anyone that doesn't know, it was a torture site that was largely, you know, Iraqi detainees that were being tortured there. There was a journalist who uncovered it. The photos were all over the place. I was 13 when it came out. And I saw horrible pictures of, you know, like these naked men being forced to stand in stress positions, electrocuted. There was one very famous picture of this woman, a female officer, who was dragging a naked Iraqi man with a dog leash on the floor. Now, when she went to... She and a bunch of... Because they all got exposed, they had to go to trial. Now, of course, if it didn't get exposed, I doubt that would have happened. But she and all the others said the exact same thing. We were told to do this. But the way the military presented it as it was, these are just, you know, a few bad apples. But you hear a story consistently again that, you know, these are things they're told to do. And so when in cinema, again, when they've portrayed this, like even we talked about the use of torture in, I think, what was it? Like you mentioned, 24, I think Zero Dark Thirty as well, where they sort of justify the use. Initially, they don't want to show the US military using torture. This is CIA though. Oh, yeah, the CIA. They don't want to show the use of torture initially, but then later on when torture became like a hot button issue, does anyone remember the phrase enhanced interrogation technique? 

Speaker 1 37:04
No, but I can imagine what it would be. 

Speaker 2 37:06
Yeah, but they tried to replace the word torture with that to make it look like it's not that bad. 

Speaker 1 37:11
Like collateral damage when the Nazis get killed. 

Speaker 2 37:13
Yeah. So they... So in 24 and Zero Dark Thirty, they're basically saying, oh, the use of torture works. They were trying to justify it. So, yeah, it's quite interesting to see how these films on and off shape our views, not just of our role in history, but also how you portray the other side. I grew up watching how Arabs were portrayed on cinema, and it's usually they're not portrayed in a friendly light. 

Speaker 1 37:42
True Lies, a lot of people have pointed out True Lies is a... classic example where they turn, what do you call it, like Arab terrorists as a caricature and they play it up and everything, almost to a comical effect with the way Alford kills the last guy. 

Speaker 2 37:58
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 37:59
So there is a lot of that sort of stuff going on and has been for a while now. 

Speaker 2 38:03
Yeah. And it's also the way that they portray certain enemies who they worked with. I mean, that's what I found quite interesting. I'll share another graphic as part of this. the notes but one of the things that you know there's a lot of Hollywood films tends to show is how the U.S. you know fought against the Nazis and were victorious against them what they don't show and probably never will is that the actual fact which is that the U.S. along with NATO actually recruited a lot of Nazis yeah there's I'll share that graphic as part of the research notes as well but it's only the Russians it was a bit of a free-for-all at that point wait like Wait, wait, wait, the Soviets actually recruit Nazis. Huh? 

Speaker 0 38:45
Did you say the-Russians took some of them too. 

Speaker 1 38:47
Yeah. So it's almost like getting the best of the collective minds. 

Speaker 2 38:52
Yeah. I mean, because, so from what I heard, you had, what was it? Like some of the senior top commanders of NATO were actually ex-Nazis themselves. And there was also Operation Paperclip, which was specifically organized by the US to bring in, again, like you said, the brightest minds to work in science. But I had no idea that the Soviets, was there a program for that? 

Speaker 1 39:12
I don't know, but I know they took some. They definitely took a lot. 

Speaker 2 39:15
Because I know they put them on trial because they took a major hit with so many of them. 

Speaker 1 39:21
Anyone that's interested in a power battle and knows what's going on will take anything with their hands. 

Speaker 0 39:25
Yeah. I'm just trying to think of what the name of the operation is, because we know what Operation Paperclip is, the rat lines. But yeah. So yeah, anyway, in terms of movies that are shaping, shaping. our perception. Can you think of any film that, you know, you watched and you really enjoyed, but you'd never thought that it would be military or, you know, any kind of propaganda? 

Speaker 1 39:52
That's a really hard one because I'm not really a movie person. So probably, but one thing I did love is, I don't even know if this is, Fifth Element. 

Speaker 0 40:07
Fifth Element. 

Speaker 2 40:08
So I have no idea if any... I don't think so, but it was very, very sci-fi. Let me have a think. Go to... 

Speaker 0 40:18
What about Independence Day you said before? 

Speaker 1 40:21
I hated Independence Day. That's why I remember it. 

Speaker 2 40:25
Oh, wait, wait, wait. Actually, Alex, you mentioned something about Independence... Like, you don't think DOD was involved in that? 

Speaker 0 40:30
No, DOD was definitely not involved in that because in the behind the scenes of Independence Day, they make a big deal about how they didn't want to budge on. classifying Area 51 in the movie. So a big part of the story is, is that Area 51 has known about these aliens all along. They've had an encounter and they actually have a spaceship ready to go. DOD had an issue with supporting it because they referred to Area 51 because that doesn't exist, at least according to them. 

Speaker 2 40:57
According to them, with the quickly trying to get like people to ignore. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 41:03
So they were like, nah, nah, we're sticking with it. And the DOD were like, yep. we don't want our name attached to this. So what's interesting is that I think they did actually have quite a bit of support from the DoD. And then when this became an issue, it's almost like, it's almost like they, they 180'd them. They kind of got what they wanted out of them. But whether this was brought up initially in the pre-production notes, it might have not been seen. And then I think the AD tried to pull the trigger and get that off. And they were like, no, we're going with it. So no, it was not the AD supported. 

Speaker 0 41:33
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 41:33
Just moving forward, are there any things in the pipeline that involve the military? Are we going to see this type of propaganda moving forward, especially with Gen... Gen Z not getting involved with Marvel anymore. 

Speaker 1 41:55
Video games, man. It's always been there. In 2002, I remember I was in a tutorial and the head tutor, he was like a kid like me, maybe five years older or whatever, doing his doctorate. He said, you heard of America's Army? And I said, what's that? He goes, it's this video game that they're using as a recruitment tool to get kids into it. So kids essentially or people interested in the military, they'll role play, they'll... They'll use their comms and talk as if they think, but they're playing in the virtual world, shooting other people. Call of Duty. Okay. We all know that's definitely a lot of people. Yeah. Yes. So first person shooters are very hot and anything with a military theme, you can take it to the bank that, um, like America's Army, that these guys are probably involved. 

Speaker 2 42:39
Yeah. I mean. 

Speaker 1 42:39
And if not, they framed, they've set up all this groundwork for framing the story arcs and, you know, their position in the world that. any video game companies will just run with it. 

Speaker 0 42:50
I was just going to add, I think social media is another one as well. 

Speaker 1 42:54
And you mentioned podcasts too. 

Speaker 0 42:55
Yeah, podcasts is another one, I think, because it's seen an explosion since 2020. So I think I have to look a little bit more into podcasting and seeing what they're doing, but I've definitely noticed this was when the Ukraine conflict broke out. So it was reported even, you know, like Washington Post, CNN. which said that the White House is briefing social media content creators about what to say in regards to that conflict. The other interesting thing is a number of influencers came forward and said they were approached by Israeli intelligence to do pro-Israeli content. But what they did is they literally put it on blast and saying they offered me $5,000 to do this, I'm not doing it. 

Speaker 1 43:36
So the opposite effect had. 

Speaker 2 43:39
Happened. Specifically on that issue, I think when it comes to Ukraine, there was already a bunch of them doing pro content for that. But I think the Gaza one was a step too far. 

Speaker 0 43:49
Yeah, this goes back to the age old thing of the military using embedded journalists. Yeah. Back with Waits of Vietnam. Because journalists, they're out in a war zone. So you need to be somewhere where you're safe, probably with military personnel. But at the same time, you only have selective access. And so that also has an impact because there are a lot of cases where like journalists went off on their own, like say in Iraq and with a camera on their shoulder and they were mistaken as having an RPG on their shoulder and got shot on site. Yeah. So I know there's a complete different thing from being paid as an influencer to have certain positive engagement or certain material, but that sort of process of keeping people on a tight leash embedded. or trying to get selective information goes back to those journalists being embedded. 

Speaker 1 44:41
That's really interesting because it sounds like that military influence in movies is a dying breed because they're now going out to social media, to the podcasts, in order to get their point across. 

Speaker 0 44:58
Yeah, I think they'll still keep their, you know, a little bit of it. Yeah, they'll still keep their mitts in it because movie production is something that is... It's not slowing down. In fact, especially with streaming now. 

Speaker 2 45:08
Well, I was going to say, yeah, so I was thinking of cinematography, but I wasn't including TV series and movies on streaming services. 

Speaker 1 45:19
Yeah. Yeah, it's like the process I think of it is the equivalent of carpet bombing. What do you mean? Just hit everything you can. 

Speaker 0 45:26
Yeah. Well, exactly. 

Speaker 1 45:28
They have a shit out of it. 

Speaker 0 45:30
Yeah, they need to overwhelm us. So, yeah, so I think. Just to wrap things up, first thing I would say to people is please go watch Theatres of War. 

Speaker 1 45:41
It's an eye-opener, apparently. 

Speaker 0 45:44
Yes, it is. I'll also link in the show notes the books that I recommended, you know, from authors that appeared in it. Yeah, any last words? Well, that sounded awful. Any last comments? 

Speaker 2 45:56
No, but I think I might have to watch Starship Troopers again. 

Speaker 0 46:02
That's a piss take, though, of war. 

Speaker 2 46:03
I know, it was hilarious. 

Speaker 1 46:04
I'll talk for another day. 

Speaker 0 46:07
All right then. Okay, I guess we're signing off. Okay. 

Speaker 2 46:09
Bye. 

Speaker 1 46:10
Bye-bye. 

Speaker 2 46:12
Thank you for listening to the Dark Alleyways podcast. We will leave you with a clip from an interview where George Lucas talks about the inspiration for the Star Wars films. 

Speaker 0 46:22
You did something very interesting with Star Wars, if you think about it. The good guys are the rebels. They're using asymmetric warfare against a highly organized empire. I think we call those guys terrorists today. We call them Mujahideen, we call them Al-Qaeda. When I did it, they were Viet Cong. Exactly. So were you thinking of that at the time? So it was a very anti-authoritarian, very kind of 60s, against the man kind of thing. Nested deep inside a fantasy. Or a colonial, you know, we're fighting the largest empire in the world. Right. And we're just a bunch of hayseeds in coonskin hats who don't know nothing. That's right. And it was the same thing with the Vietnamese. Yep. The irony of that one is in both of those, the little guys won. Right. And the big, highly technical empire. The English Empire. 

Speaker 2 47:17
The English Empire. 

Speaker 2 47:18
The American Empire lost.