Maybe I'm insane or it's my age, but I can't watch new movies/shows without just seeing propaganda agendas at every turn. Really kills it for me.
The original Top Gun (1986) was describe at the time as the US Navy's most successful recruiting campaign ever, noted in this 2004 account citing 1990 correspondence with then Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney: <https://archive.org/details/operationhollywo00robb/page/180>. Similarly endless war, cowboy, biblical, and rom-com films of that period.
Sure, but was that the intent of Tony Scott when he made the film, or was it just a side effect of watching exciting air wing navy operations portrayed on the big screen?
I can easily see a young man wanting to be not just a fighter pilot, but one of those guys on deck standing in the wind, dancing and pointing and saluting F-14s off the catapult.
Or, maybe they just like volleyball.
At the same time, you certainly could reasonably read the film as being very dubious about the military. It opens with the psychological collapse of Maverick's wingman when a MiG locks on to him, Cruise's character has to defy orders to save him, and gets chewed out for doing so.
Maverick's original motivation is clearing his father name, not patriotism. Goose dies in a pointless accident. The final dogfight is random "rescue mission" against an unnamed foe in "hostile waters" in the Indian ocean, and Cruise's character almost abandons the fight due to PTSD.
Yeah, the almost pornographic love the camera shows to the jets probably made the actual story all be irrelevant to the Navy's recruiting success. But it's easy to imagine all the whining from the Fox news personality cosplaying as Secretary of "War" about such a film if it were made today.
Cheney was sensible enough to take the win.
If no less deadly (tobacco, fizzy drinks, etc.).
No, the reason they seem so different and innocent is because you aren't bombarded by them. You watch an old ad on YouTube once, and you think it's cute or corny and laugh at it. Now imagine you're watching a movie, and they show you the same 1980s ad over and over again while you're watching the movie, every 15 minutes.
If you're old enough that you had to watch ads on TV because TiVo didn't exist yet, you might remember how annoying they became, and how glad people were when they got remote control TVs with mute buttons. Or maybe it's been so long you've forgotten how bad it was.
NB: it's generally poor form to presume what someone thinks or perceives. At best it may be highly inaccurate. At worst ... well, worse. Better to couch it in terms of your own experience, or third-party research where that exists.
Though yes, old-style ads are less relentless, and often have some degree of novelty. Repetition of ads where I do encounter them (largely public-broadcasting underwriting spots and on podcasts before I fast-forward through them) is in fact tedious, so you may have a point.
Another factor though is that the old-time ads are attempting to manipulate, yes, but they're trying to manipulate a target which is no longer present. Current-day ads both turn the dial to 11 and are often at least trying to specifically exploit personal information and weaknesses.
TV's been dead to me for decades, in large part for the reasons you describe. The few times I'm exposed to it just reinforces why.
It can, sure. However, I will not pay to be lectured to on topics I have no interest getting lectured on. I'll keep my money, they can keep the sermon. Let's see who has more to gain from listening to the other. If they want my money, what I want to hear/see matters a whole lot more than what they want to preach to me.
They simply forgot the golden rule: he who has the gold -- makes the rules. Let them rediscover it.