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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

Except a movie could be totally subversive of the American government (the CIA or military is the bad guy, a national/state/local government is corrupt, etc...) and the movie could still go into wide production and make millions of dollars. Heck, it even is super easy to find examples of that (you want to know the truth? You can't handle the truth!).

Now try doing that in China. Make the PLA the enemy or portray a corrupt out of control official in Chongqing like Bo Xilai. Not allowed, because it is way too close to the truth for comfort, maybe.

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There are a lot of US movies that go the other way - praising the US military/portraying conflicts in good vs evil way.

Example is Battle Los Angeles (2011) and American Sniper (2015). So such things are in effect "soft propaganda".

In China, to protect themselves against such soft influence, they enact regulations. Letting people watch all US movies without a filter is effectively letting US set the cultural standards and values.

I am not advocating for such a strategy, but since some other countries don't have the technological capability to make engaging soft cultural influence movies, I get where they're coming from.

I really have no problem with that...I find these movies pretty boring myself. But the fact that a Chinese film maker cannot make a movie about china with critical social commentary is a huge problem for China's social development.

This is an important point. We're usually only tuned in to notice the propaganda of our "enemies", because to us they're evil and any attempt to appear otherwise is outrageous.

Another film example is Act of Valor (2012). An enjoyable demonstration of real military hardware, accompanied by god mode special forces operators, jumping in to any country, saving the world from super villains. This film provides a sense of security to the US and it's allies whilst simultaneously instilling fear in it's enemies.

All respect to the real heroes out there, military and otherwise.

Those are mild examples compared to the trend that started with, IIRC, Top Gun, where the US millitary trades use of millitary assets as props in return for the "right" spin being put on the movie.

> Letting people watch all US movies without a filter is effectively letting US set the cultural standards and values.

No, it's letting the people set the cultural standards and values, by deciding what to watch and what not to watch.

> letting the people set the cultural standards and values, by deciding what to watch and what not to watch. If you believe that is how things work I think you may be being naive. "deciding" would depend on film budget (hire stars / pay for special effects), contractual agreements with vendors e.g. tv stations to play that content and advertising. How many people truly decided to have coca cola, mcdonalds and wear nike trainers....or did they do what advertising told them to.

In essence, you are arguing that people aren't smart enough (or are otherwise too prone to being manipulated) to decide for themselves in general, and if they're allowed to, then their decision-making process will be manipulated by some much smaller group of people.

Assuming that is okay for a moment. Your solution to that is to give another small group of people the power to explicitly override that decision-making, by fiat, without even having to go through the motions of convincing propaganda.

Which is better how exactly? Because this latter small group of people will be "benevolent dictators", acting in the larger group's best interests even as they override its decisions? They certainly claim to be that, but why should we believe them over the other guys?

I wonder if there is any correlation or causation between portrayal of the government in films and the actual impression of the government.

To me it seems that U.S. likes to portray government in a negative way in films, and in real life a sizeable portion of the people are also not happy with the government. The reverse is true in China.

I mentioned the difference in people-government relationship earlier but didn't think of the link to the media and film industry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13203027

Interesting question. We will never know the other way since the government in china controls the film industry, all films must get pre-plot approval. Whether pro government films positively affect perception, i would guess that it works for a certain segment of the mass population (a silent majority in Reagan's terms) but not really the middle class.

The existence of dissatisfaction with the American government probably drives production of subversive films, rather than the other way around. People are usually predisposed to media that fits their views, not the other way around.

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