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Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

Of course Wikimedia won't take any action to appease this totalitarian nonsense. But, most for-profit companies do exactly that. When was the last time any Hollywood movie or mainstream entertainment mentioned Taiwanese conflict? When do you last remember seeing "Free Tibet"? Or any Tibet? Chinese film censors can apply billions of dollars of pressure, simply to change a single word. Who can withstand that?

Wikimedia is just one small pebble in this river.

Soft propaganda is going to rewrite how the world perceives the sinosphere, more thoroughly and more profoundly than any Winstons rectifying Wikipedia. I don't think we have any meaningful models to understand what's going on right now -- there's not really much precedent in history or even in fiction.

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It's even crazier because when you are not american you realize that Hollywood is also the biggest soft propaganda agency for the USA.

When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Or about the Guantanamo Bay?

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2?

Any Russian movies about the US winning the WW2? Naturally each country tells their own narrative. This seems like a silly point to make.

Not so when you consider that Hollywood is pretty much defining the culture for good half of the planet.

It's not a silly point to make when you realize that Hollywood is not a government agency. It is a reasonable question to ask how this coordination is possible when there are no legal restraints on failing to coordinate.

Hollywood gets to borrow millions in us army equipment for free if the producer runs the script by them first. Part of the deal is that the us army always have to be the good guys and not have any internal problems related to things like sexism homophobia or anything else

That only explains it when the movie involves borrowed equipment.

And yet, these movies continue to get made.

The theory is probably that the characters must be relatable and therefore American. Films about British actions in the war often have random American characters thrown in too. (I’m not sure that is unrealistic though)

Perhaps another thing is that when the memory of the war was still fresh and people (at least in eg France) generally knew that the USSR had a big impact, McCarthyism was also at its height and there were strong reasons not to show communists in a good light. And then maybe later films mostly copied the trend.

In U-571 History was entirely rewritten as to suggest that it were U.S.A. soldiers, who captured the first German Enigma, whereas in actuality it were English soldiers that did so.

Wow if that’s really the case then that is pretty blatant.

Anyone who watches a Hollywood movie and assumes it accurate is a fool. Movies are made to make money not educate.

It’s like the chase scene at the end of Argo. That never happened. They just got on the plane and left but if the movie was accurate that would be a horribly boring ending so they made up a better on.

The same argument can be levied against any form of propaganda in fiction.

The change in this case was not in order to make the story more suspenseful but to simply inspire patriotism.

Is the Russian film industry a Russian government agency?

The simplest explanation is that, especially historically, Hollywood has targeted domestic audiences first. What message do you think is/was more likely to play well in the US and broadly in the west?

> The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.

- Elmer Davis, director of the US Office of War Information

Where is that quote from? I don't want to ironically get caught by propaganda (or misinformation) myself.

i think it's from

> - Elmer Davis, director of the US Office of War Information

I assume they wanted proper references[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_War_In...

Here's an article that includes it.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-hollywood-became-the-unof...

Fun one to track down. Had to hop through a couple papers and books, but this is what everything winds up referencing:

> It was an organization designed not only to disseminate information and to clarify issues but also to arouse support for particular symbols and ideas. "The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people's minds," said Davis, "is to let it go in through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized."

Koppes, C. and Black, G., 1977. What to Show the World: The Office of War Information and Hollywood, 1942-1945. The Journal of American History, 64(1), p.2, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1888275>

That paper then points to this ultimate source:

> Elmer Davis to Byron Price, Jan. 27, 1943, Box 3, Records of the Office of War Information, RG 208 (Federal Records Center, Suitland, Md.)

Dead end. I emailed the Archives but the entire facility is closed because of the pandemic. I also tried tracking down the paper's authors but both are retired.

The document likely lives somewhere in this trove: https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=%22Records%20of%20the%...

Anyway, I'm satisfied it's a real quote (both authors are reputable) though I definitely want the surrounding context now :)

C'mon, you didn't break into the Archive and open the box? Typical Internet nonsense.

Seriously: very nice work; thank you. Above and beyond!

> "The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people's minds," said Davis, "is to let it go in through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized."

Now a nearly irrelevant second place to social media.

Enemy at the Gates is pretty good.

The GP asked for movies about winning the WWII, not winning in the WWII. Enemy at the Gates was just a sniper duel movie (a good one, though).

Is the claim here that the US has organizations that actively work to prevent a movie showing Russians winning WW2?

It is easier for me to believe that a movie specifically about the Russians winning WW2 simply would not get financed due to low probability of earning a decent ROI due to American/English audiences not wanting to pay to watch it.

I was also taught in US history AP class in high school that a significant, if not necessary, element of winning WW2 was the Russians tying up the Germans on the eastern front, and it was stressed that the Russians suffered the most casualties by far.

>I was also taught in US history AP class in high school that a significant, if not necessary, element of winning WW2 was the Russians tying up the Germans on the eastern front

The Soviets along with some remaining Polish forces also won the battle of Berlin (which caused Hitler to commit suicide), having pushed back the German army all the way back from the gates of Moscow to the gates of Berlin. The Third Reich, left with no "leader" and no capital and no significant territory neither in the east nor in the west really had no option other than total capitulation or total defeat. The capitulation happened a week later. The Western Front and the Eastern Front in the end had about the same amount of German causalities and captures.

Anyway, the Soviets did a little more than "just" tying up Germans on the Eastern Front.

Thanks for expounding, I should have remembered more of the details.

> The GP asked for movies about winning the WWII, not winning in the WWII.

Russia didn't win WWII, given that they didn't fight Japan in any meaningful way.

uhm, the USSR's invasion of Manchuria was arguably the biggest reason Japan surrendered when they did.

No, the two nuclear bombs did that.

Are there that many Battle of Berlin movies to begin with? From the Soviet/Russian perspective I could only find The Fall of Berlin (1950), Liberation (1970-1971), and a documentary Shturm Berlina/Штурм Берлина (2015). Battle of Berlin probably isn't very good movie material, unlike Stalingrad or other parts of the Eastern Front, which have a lot more movies.

Furthermore, I've read [2] that historiography on the Eastern Front was quite poor, even from the Soviet perspective, until Stalin's death. From [2], page 12: > Soviet military works written before 1958 were highly politicized and focused heavily on the positive role of Stalin in every aspect of war. Correspondingly, operational and tactical detail was lacking.

Though Cold War politics did play a role.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_about_the_Battl... [2] PDF WARNING: https://community.apan.org/cfs-file/__key/docpreview-s/00-00...

I believe Enemy at the Gates was a major blockbuster.

The US didn't use soft power to censor Soviet cinema within the USSR. It's an absurd power.

> Or about the Guantanamo Bay?

Sure, here's one from this year:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4761112/?ref_=kw_li_tt

And here's the list

https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=guantanamo-bay

The intro sequence for Star Trek: Enterprise[1] was quite interesting to say the least. — It details the history of human exploration culminating in man's achievement of a method of faster than light travel, so it implies, but strangely the first man in space and the first artificial satellite are omitted, and in their stead we may behold a majestic sight of an unknown U.S.A. submarine.

Careful now, lest the audience actually learn that it were the Soviets who launched the first man into space.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnTZREMEJI

You're right, the sequence should give more focus to the first (and only) humans on the Moon.

When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2?

Right now. There's a current multi-season show about the Axis winning WWII on Amazon Prime. From what I've read, it's pretty successful.

The USSR was not part of the Axis. Quite the opposite. (Although they did have a non-aggression pact with Germany before the start of the war, that did not last long.)

Which just goes to show that many Americans aren't really aware of how the Soviets were crucial to winning that war.

anecdotal evidence doesn't really go to show anything

It lasted long enough to split Poland up between the two of them.

It is true to that they joined the Allies, and the Eastern Front was very important to defeat of Nazi Germany, but let’s be honest when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ended: after Stalin and Hitler coordinated a joint invasion of Poland.

To act like the Soviet Union was Ireland or Switzerland at the start of the war, is disingenuous. Stalin and Hitler made a secret plan to carve out an Eastern European sphere of influence, not unlike the Japanese sphere of influence in East Asia.

The irony of course is that Stalin still got his sphere influence, albeit through the Treaty of Yalta.

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2?

The USSR didn't defeat Japan.

The Second World War was against Japan, Germany, and, to some extent, Italy. The USSR only fought Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria

A few days before the end of the war, yes. That's not a significant amount of fighting.

Idi I Smotri is worth a watch. Many references to it in more recent movies.

Hollywood is highly critical of the USA. Pretty much every sentiment in a post 90's war movie is "The US also did some bad stuff that we should feel ashamed about."

“Some”? That doesn’t sound “highly critical” at all.

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2?

...almost all of them? the USSR was one of the Allies. who won WW2. so every WW2 movie which doesn't engage in some sort of alt-history has the USSR winning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay?

I'd love to see something similar from China or North Korea.

Fun Fact: In Action in the North Atlantic (1943), Humphrey Bogart plays a first officer aboard a Liberty Ship sending supplies to Murmansk. It has some pro-Soviet and even pro-Communist propaganda, with brave Soviet pilots escorting the ship and cheering people shouting "tovarisch!" to the crew.

They are even told "Tovarisch means 'comrade', which is a good thing!" Then all the ship's crew shout "comrade" back to the throngs of happy, well-fed, smiling Soviet citizens in WW2.

Other fun propaganda lines: "I believe in God, President Roosevelt, and the Brooklyn Dodgers!". They even feature radio recordings of Roosevelt set to patriotic music.

Despite being heavy handed and not having the best effects (you can see lines pulling the subs) it's a fun movie for Bogart fans and those interested in propaganda films. On Amazon Prime, tagged with "Cerebral, Joyous, Intense".

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2?

No single country won WWII.

Saying so is nationalist propaganda which devalues and demeans the sacrifices of every other country.

Yes...Hollywood never makes movies portraying the US in a bad light. very insightful..

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2?

Tell that to the Finns.

It would really be fun to make a movie about overthrowing the CCP, could be uplifting.

It's pretty shocking that there isn't such a movie - or any movie with the CCP as the baddie - and I haven't heard someone propose it before.

This article explains exactly why - all companies involved would get blackballed by China and lose that lucrative market.

Try Spy Game starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

>Soft propaganda is going to rewrite how the world perceives the sinosphere

There may be a bit of a Streisand effect going on. It's hard to avoid hearing about the Chinese communist party giving Taiwan a hard time when they are trying to censor every organisation around the world pretty much.

Watching James Bond this weekend made me sad. No mention of China at all, as the cause of many geopolitical crisis around the world, as well as the source of atrocious acts against muslims (go check out cnn's china whistlerblower interview recently that detailed the hanging of uighurs and raping of them). If you want a super evil villain, look no further than Xi Jing ping and the CCP, who has threatened literally most democracies (nuke Australia/Japan, conquer Taiwan), sent pirate ships to plunder all sealives around the world, continue to build up coal power plants to increase global warming, and let's not forget COVID.

Also, let's not forget CCP is the reason why North Korea still exists and why Vietnam is still a communist country.

The West really, really wants to shut its eyes on China very tight. We need to deny the West this comfort.

That's a paradoxal reaction. It's like somebody being raped tries to cover her face to not to see her rapist.

Not seeing a rapist doesn't change the ground reality of you still being raped. The correct action is not to use hands to cover your face, but to punch back the assailant.

Facts make a better argument than histrionics.

I don't think it's fair to suggest China is "raping" the West. Hong Kong, maybe, but not the entire democratic world. At least, not yet.

Actors and musicians have to play it safe not to offend the CCP.

How long will it be before the same is true of American business leaders?

Will talking bad about the CCP prevent you from raising a round and having your company be funded?

Will talking bad about the CCP get you fired, if you're an employee?

The best model would be the time period from 1910 to 1950 where the US Supreme Court had ruled that motion pictures had no 1st amendment protection. This let states censor and dictate at the same level that China is doing right now.

Productions that wanted access to the entire US market bent to the most restrictive state’s demands.

Did some states occasionally pay to incentivize compliance? Don’t know about that, but the function is largely the same.

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