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I was made aware of how much propaganda there is in Western movies by a comment here on HN:

"The major exception here is the Department of Defense, which has an ‘open’ but barely publicized relationship with Tinsel Town, whereby, in exchange for advice, men and invaluable equipment, such as aircraft carriers and helicopters, the Pentagon routinely demands flattering script alterations."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/lights-camera-covert-action-the...

http://original.antiwar.com/sean-a-mcelwee/2013/04/28/propag...

Do you recall any big American movie in the last decade (or even more) that painted America's military in a non-positive light? I don't. I do remember Zero Dark Thirty (if you watch carefully you'll see how they basically say that torture works great in getting prisoners to hand over information), I do remember The Hurt Locker, and a whole list of other movies, Iron Man and Captain America being the latest examples (Iron Man originally used to be about fighting communism, now it is about fighting terrorism).

Hollywood output is a very valuable export to the world in this way of framing America's image in the world, and I'm betting America is becoming even more aware of this and will put even more resources to this effort in coming time.

To me, truly the most amazing thing about this is that pretty much no-one knows about this! Tell someone that there's a lot of American propaganda in Western movies and they'll take you for a conspiracy nut.

View on HN

Full Metal Jacket.

• Three Kings.

• In The Valley of Elah.

Good Morning Vietnam.

A Few Good Men.

Platoon.

• Jarhead.

Casualties Of War.

• The Men Who Stare At Goats.

The Deer Hunter.

The Thin Red Line.

• Syriana.

• The Green Zone.

• Stop Loss.

Also, • HBO's "Generation Kill".

(•'d relatively recent movies)

I don't think "The Hurt Locker" was particularly critical of the military and didn't count it. Also not counting documentaries like "Restrepo".

I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it. Given what I presume to be America's default position of "supporting our troops", I'm struck by how many films Hollywood produce that challenge that default.

Remember also that Hollywood confronts at least two vectors of consumer preference in marketing films: first, Americans (in the large) have a (typical) diffuse nationalistic home-team support for our overseas adventures, and, more importantly, there's a less-political less-issue-oriented reverence expected for the sacrifices made by the young people we send into combat which is especially intense during times when large numbers of people are serving in combat zones. In other words, it's especially tricky to criticize the military during active conflicts.

Also, Three Kings is a fantastic movie.

>I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it.

Yeah, the problem with anti-military movies is nobody wants to watch them. It certainly hasn't been a lack of effort on the part of film producers.

Are you kidding me? Many movies on that list are both critical and box-office successes.

Well, critical success means nothing. As far as financial success goes, post 1991 there isn't much.

I'm not sure if there's data to back it, but my guess would be that critical success correlates to a longer, slower run-out of money, as opposed to box-office returns. Would be an interesting analysis.

That's a bit difficult to defend in light of the fact that this film and Zero Dark Thirty were demonstrably influenced by the DoD.

It was not my argument that no films made in Hollywood were influenced by the DOD.

And my assertion wasn't that DOD has made it altogether impossible to create movies that shed America in a bad light, they've just made it really, really difficult.

When your competing movie has all kinds of bells and whistles, shots of real helicopters and aircraft carriers and all -- and you can't afford to have that because you don't have access to the stuff that the competing movie got for free, this puts you at a disadvantaged position at the box office. Movie production is pretty damn expensive: these days it's not at all surprising to see film production budgets exceed hundreds of millions of dollar (the last Pirate of the Caribbean cost $300 million to make). When movie studios are under the kind of financial pressure that they usually are -- leaving aside advertisement costs, this can actually be a make or break point for them. So, the government is incentivizing the production of a certain kind of movies... and we see the effects of that play out.

A recent Pew research piece revealed that 7% of Americans use Reddit, and the significant majority of that 7% is millennials. If you go to Reddit you probably know they overwhelmingly support Wikileaks (and/or Assange), so the argument that there's no demand for content that challenges America is very weak (whether it be related to the Wikileaks scandal or not). If a high production value movie unabashedly cast Assange as a hero without faults, the movie would be accepted fine by a sizable amount of people, it would make a lot of money: a lot of people see Assange as a mystical hero, they'd shell out money to see that movie.

One of the problem with your logic is that getting support from the US military would lessen the appeal of the film to the reddit demographic.

Another one that comes to mind is the fact that redditers believe it is their God given right to pirate movies.

I'd bet only some tiny fraction of that 7% is part of the crowd that supports wiki leaks. Reddit is a very diverse community. My wife frequents several mommy/pregnancy subreddits. She's totally not on board with the political views you might see on /r/politics.

Actually if you go to Reddit you'll see that support for Assange is not universal, even on subreddits like /r/worldnews.

The day used to be that being negative of Assange at all got you "downvoted into oblivion", but that's no longer the case. People are even able to mention the idea that Assange might have actually did it without having their comment necessarily achieve negative karma.

For example, go read the /r/movies link talking about Benedict Cumberbatch's comments from Fifth Estate about the topics. Assange was certainly positively mentioned, but he had a lot of opposition as well, along with people simply keeping their minds open.

> When your competing movie has all kinds of bells and whistles, shots of real helicopters and aircraft carriers and all

But that's expected I presume. Military owns all those toys (well technically we as a people do but military is the one in charge of them). So if they want to see fit to use them for advertising whatever position they want they can. Most of the time it will be 'Merica Fuck Yeah! position.

Remember one of military's primary PR role is to attract young American men to join it. It is very conscious of marketing. If it also help promote a large goal of justifying war, torture and invasions, I imagine it is a secondary effect.

I don't even know how to possibly "fix" the perceived problem you pose. Make a law to disallow military to give, lend, advertise, promote? Maybe. Or force it to provide equipment, time and expertise to movies it doesn't want to support?

Seriously, you omit Apocalypse Now? :-)

Not recent enough!

Apocalypse Now is more recent than The Deer Hunter.

Yeah, I should have just added it.

> I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it.

Of course it's not impossible. There is a scale from possible to impossible, and the truth is somewhere in between. Contrary to what you suggest: (1) clearly the DoD doesn't think that this propaganda strategy doesn't have a substantial effect, otherwise they wouldn't be spending their funding on it (2) clearly Hollywood's script writers think that their audience would prefer the original less pro-DoD script. It's not impossible to go with the original script, but the original script without aircraft carrier would be a less competitive movie than the modified script with aircraft carrier (according to Hollywood decision makers).

The scale is from easy to impossible.

A bunch of exceptional films in that list.. you have good taste.

So, you acknowledge that there is a default, and that the films you mention challenge that default. I think everyone can agree on this.

Why are films like 'the thin red line' or 'full metal jacket' so powerful. The only pro-american-military film which I can remember having such a deep impact on me was 'black hawk down', and I think we all know the story behind that one.. I would argue that they tell a truth, and in the face of 60 years (give or take) of holywood military propaganda. And what does it matter that a dozen critical films come out over a thirty year period when, lets say 50 films a year come out pro-military.

Breaking it down your essential argument is - there is no propaganda because people like the propaganda. Question you should be asking is, who created that default?

The default is in the hearts and minds of the American public. The American public usually are not anti-military, even if they are anti-war. They usually oppose military policy set by the administration, and not the soldiers or the military itself.

If Hollywood went against this mindset, they'd be going against the default, and they would need good reason to do so.

That is just such a lazy answer, and to a question i did not even ask.

I would point you back to my original comment (which you either did not read, or did not understand) but for fear that it may create a recursive loop from which there may be no escape.

Did you edit your response after I posted mine?

Anyways, the world isn't a ball which is pushed once and moves with constant velocity.

There are always forces tugging and pushing to modify the default. So unless the military is actively changing the default, they aren't not manipulating the default.

No I did not, but thanks for the clarification.. which I quite like (though I don't really understand the double negative).

I think along pretty similar lines, and the ball analogy is quite apt. It took a lot of propaganda to get the ball moving in the first place, but only takes a little bit to keep it going in the same direction. But make no mistake, it is manipulation and it is forced, however gentle that force may be..

Interestingly, the consensus respect for the military is relatively recent (i.e. since WWII). See http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21586311-america...

My argument isn't that there's no propaganda.

For the record, I understood that your assertion about 'the bias' against the relative impact of propaganda is not the same as 'there is no propaganda'.. I concede my pointless hyperbole clouded my argument.

However, implicit in your assertion is that the effect plays a minor role, whereas I would argue it plays a compounding role. My contention is given time and a reduction in military involvement, the marketability of pro-war propaganda would naturally decrease.

Three Kings actually paints the military in a good light as benevolent, and ultimately having the best interests of the Iraqi people: http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/theatrefilm/projector/page91...

No, Three Kings paints a few AWOL oddballs on a quest to steal a treasure as benevolent, and apart from the whole theme of the movie being the ill impact of our involvement in the Middle East, goes out of its way to talk about how the US military killed children.

Three Kings is critical of the decision to encourage and promise to support an uprising by anti-Saddam Iraqis, then failing to deliver that support/not invading.

Whether you respond to this criticism by saying "we shouldn't have encouraged it" or "we should have invaded" or just "ain't war hell" depends on your politics, of course :)

It's also critical of:

* The training of US Army soldiers, who kill innocent and/or surrendering Iraqis,

* the relationship between the US Army and the media and the careful control the military exerts over the media,

* the entire US mission in the (first) Iraq war ("what are we doing here?", &c),

* the American bombing of Iraqi civilian centers, which, in a long monologue that is basically the heart of the movie, are revealed to have killed the antagonist's baby son.

There is no way to watch this movie and come away thinking that it glorifies the US military.

(Also: it's a great movie that is nothing like what it's marketing suggested it was; it's David O. Russell, who is a smart and funny storyteller, and is not a Clooney/Wahlburg action vehicle; if you haven't seen it, do! It's not a masterpiece of American cinema, but it's thoroughly engaging. Three stars.)

"Anybody's son will do" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0222730/ This documentary explains in great detail the nature of military basic training and its psychological component. It's on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DShDaJXK5qo

I haven't seen all those movies, but I have seen many of them and the thing that IIRC all of them have in common is that they all use props that Hollywood can get their hands on without the cooperation of the US Army, Navy or Air Force. For example, if you wanted a military helicopter in your movie, you can probably get your hands on one, but if you wanted an aircraft carrier, then you are going to have to cooperate.

The bright side is that CG is now good enough that you can recreate most of those props entirely digitally without relying on cooperation from the military. On top of that, it is probably now also cheaper to do so in CG than seeking any cooperation in the first place. Where cooperation is still needed is consulting work to keep things realistic, but even that can be had by employing private citizens that served previously.

Both of those sites that you cited are terrible, filled with conspiracy theories and shrill rhetoric. Unfortunately more and more people on HN seem to be citing them.

Anyway:

> Do you recall any big American movie in the last decade (or even more) that painted America's military in a non-positive light?

The Bourne series. Though that was about the CIA.

Safe House, also CIA.

Avatar, as someone else mentioned, analogously painted the US military in a bad light.

Full Metal Jacket certainly shows some of the more brutish and shameful sides of the US military.

> I do remember The Hurt Locker, and a whole list of other movies, Iron Man and Captain America

So are you upset that these movies didn't pause to lecture the audience about the horrors of American imperialism? Are you upset that they don't serve your particular political agenda?

> To me, truly the most amazing thing about this is that pretty much no-one knows about this!

The people who don't know don't care. This information is readily available. And even some of the people who do know don't care (like me).

"Iron Man originally used to be about fighting communism, now it is about fighting terrorism"

Uh? Let's look at the villains in the recent movies:

Iron Man 1: Terrorists, later revealed to be puppets of a corrupt American military contractor.

Iron Man 2: A Russian scientist with a personal grudge, later teams up with a corrupt American military contractor.

Iron Man 3: Terrorists, turn out to have been entirely made up by a corrupt American military contractor.

In every movie the real villain is a representative of the military-industrial complex. In two of the three, cutting-edge American military technology is publicly and embarrassingly subverted and used against American citizens. In the related Avengers movie, American military authorities order a nuclear attack on New York City.

There is a lot of American propoganda in American movies (oh God, Battleship), but Iron Man is a pretty poor example.

more like terrorists, which turn out to be terrorist trying to infiltrate and undermine the holy american militar complex posing as honest contractors.

Not really, no. All three were legitimately respected industrialists before getting hit with the villain stick, and are motivated only by money and power. In the one film that involves actual ideological terrorists, the villain makes them his patsies and then has them all killed to tie up loose ends.

There was a documentary about Apolcalypse Now and I think it was Coppola who said that they had to remove footage which showed US soldiers desecrating vietnamese corpses (even though these shots were based on actual photographs/eye witness accounts) because otherwise the US government refused to give them helicopters and whatnot.

hearts of darkness?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102015/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4

Hopefully as computer graphics improve and get cheaper and easier to make, film makers can bypass this whole issue and just do it on a computer.

Coppola didn't use American helicopters though, he borrowed them from the Philippine army. That's what Hearts of Darkness (the documentary you probably saw) revealed, at least.

If I recall; these helicopters kept getting re-routed due to a nearby conflict and this not only annoyed Coppola but was one of the reasons why the film was delayed and ran over cost.

I don't believe Apolcalypse Now was made with any cooperation from the U.S. Department of Defense. It was too soon after Vietnam.

I'm fairly sure Full Metal Jacket wasn't either, it was filmed in the UK.

The effectiveness of Western propaganda comes from the high production values and the degree to which the propaganda agenda is concealed. Modern propaganda techniques have evolved over nearly a century[1]. Employers at media companies covertly liason with the CIA, deals are made with the US military exchanging access to military props for script approval, controlled opposition is used to create a sense of objectivity, etc.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays#Propaganda

I think people here are making this out to be a considerably bigger deal than it actually is.

Studios that make war films like having DoD support. It is a useful benefit. However, it's not required. Indeed, if you're shooting your film in Canada or Australia (which is fairly common) you're not going to really be able to make much use of the platoon of extras the US army is willing to lend you.

Similarly, the DoD doesn't have to spend money 'buying' the support of movie studios because the American public already want pro-US military films. Studios want to make films that will bring in buckets of money. Audiences in the US are far more willing to go and watch patriotic films than those that question the actions of the military or government.

You'd have lots of pro-US war/military films with or without DoD support. What's interesting is that we're starting to see films being edited - and entirely new scenes being added - for non US markets that are not quite so American-centric. A good example of this would be Iron Man 3, which had several minutes of additional footage added in for the Chinese market.

>Studios want to make films that will bring in buckets of money. Audiences in the US are far more willing to go and watch patriotic films than those that question the actions of the military or government.

>A good example of this would be Iron Man 3, which had several minutes of additional footage added in for the Chinese market.

Yeah, doesn't seem like it worked too well for them[0]… if they really wanted to make 'buckets of money' in this case, why not add footage that would resonate with the audience (possibly non DoD supportive stances) instead of irrelevant shots of a local pop star? How can one go about hand-waving this situation that presented itself? They didn't feel like taking the time to understand the Chinese audience? Easier to employ Edward Bernays techniques of misdirection and diversion in order to try and associate good feelings with the movie?

[0]: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/0510/Chines...

They didn't feel like taking the time to understand the Chinese audience? Easier to employ Edward Bernays techniques of misdirection and diversion in order to try and associate good feelings with the movie?

This is the same film industry that still seems to typecast roles by race, to the point of whitewashing minorities out of leading roles they feel American (read "white") audiences will be uncomfortable with.

I doubt they thought it through much further than "You know what Chinese people want to see? Other Chinese people!"

Possibly, considering all the work that goes into A/B testing in general even in software (even for the most mundane of things with less money on the line than motion picture budgets), I doubt it was that simple.

Besides there's a basic premise behind statements like "You know what Chinese people want to see? Other Chinese people!" that is often overlooked, especially when its used to justify an action meant to display an image or viewpoint of some kind that is usually to the benefit of nobody but the person/company who wants to shape that viewpoint and related parties interests who are aligned with it, no matter how misguided it may appear…

Interestingly enough, they talk about how the technique of 'giving people what they want' as way of control in Adam Curtis' Century of Self in the second half [0; 1h57min]…

[0]http://vimeo.com/61857758

Fair enough, I don't know how much effort actually goes into testing recuts of a movie for foreign markets - you're probably right about it being more complicated than I suggest.

Nevertheless, I still believe their primary and overriding goal is making money. If those interests intersect with the interests of the American government in making sure it gets perceived well overseas, so be it, but I don't think major studios are going out of their way to make propaganda consciously.

>I don't think major studios are going out of their way to make propaganda consciously.

I used to think the exact opposite, because being aware of how the interests of the state align with ones monetary goals would enable those to take advantage of situations more so than those who aren't aware… However over time and because of events like those of the nature that took place with Russell Brand being kicked out of the GQ awards, I've taken a more nuanced position.

To me this whole discussion boils down to Murphy's law. We know the DoD is pro-military and has a huge budget for PR. We know making a movie requires a lot of cash (and for most non-scifi movies: props.)

There is need; there is opportunity; there is will on both sides. What can happen, will happen, and has happened.

To what extent I have no idea, but while I haven't yet seen an American-made movie that is wholly critical of the US military and the politics governing it, I wouldn't shout conspiracy. In my opinion, Hollywood is the least nationalistic of all countries' film-community, because it doesn't have to answer to their main audience's constant need for re-affirmation. The rest of the western world may have lost respect for the US the last decade or two, but we still envy the hell out of you, no denying that.

One can't actually blame the military and DoD for attaching strings to any filmmaker who wants an aircraft carrier or fighter jets or what have you. If you want to involve their personnel or their multi-billion dollar equipment (which is, essentially an incorporation of the 'brand' of the US government) in your work, you have to do so on their terms or else go elsewhere. That's not propaganda, that's just the government acting in its own self-interest.

You don't understand how it works, think about it as AB testing. They aren't interested in one movie, they are interested in lots of movies. They will try something different next time.

I'm thinking you didn't read my comment below about AB testing, or detected the sarcasm, or maybe me using the conditional of wanting to make buckets of money in this case wasn't clear enough…

You are forgetting the key point: it really shouldn't be the DoD's business to influence movies. That is an incredibly perverse role the DoD is taking.

You act like DoD is going out into Hollywood to change the movies directors are making.

It's almost precisely the opposite: Hollywood studios are trying to enlist DoD help in making their movies.

DoD doesn't always help. They didn't help with the famous movie "Officer and a Gentleman", for instance (and not because the Class Drill Instructor was mean in the screenplay either).

Likewise, DoD did not assist with the film 'Crimson Tide' as the Navy objected to the core portions of the screenplay.

But like any other business relationship, it's not DoD's job to volunteer to help in situations where the movie itself would portray DoD in a negative light. So they do ask for changes to movies to be made if the director wants assistance sometimes, but that's always up to the studio/director to decide.

it's not DoD's job to volunteer to help in situations where the movie itself would portray DoD in a negative light.

But is it the DoD's job to help in situations where the movie portrays the DoD in a positive light?

I'm not from the US, so my opinion doesn't count much, but I'd rather have our Ministry of Defence help no movies than playing favorites.

Well good luck finding movie topics that don't touch positively on any government agency anywhere.

E.g. a movie where a team of Federal prosecutors and investigators bring down a megacorp CEO and Board for conspiracy, fraud, etc. while having to fight through an insider within the government who's in on the conspiracy might cause agencies as disparate as the SEC, FBI, DoJ to be looked upon favorably.

Is it your position that no one from the SEC, FBI, DoJ, etc. should be allowed to advise moviemakers on how such an investigation and prosecution would proceed in real life?

My point wasn't that they shouldn't help movies that portray them under a good light, but that they should help them regardless of how the movies portray them, or they shouldn't help at all.

Essentially, if everything else is the same, a movie where the FBI saves the country should received the same help as a movie where the FBI breaks it apart.

> A movie where the FBI saves the country should received the same help as a movie where the FBI breaks it apart.

I disagree. That means that the FBI would have to help every filmmaker everywhere. Which is just another way of saying that the FBI should help no one, only with more rhetoric and weasel words.

I'm tired enough of living in a world where I have to keep telling sailors "this is why we can't have nice things". The solution to bad people doing bad things can't always be to hack the legs off of everyone at the kneecaps and put everyone in a "safe" wheelchair.

A better solution is that if you see a government agency misrepresenting themselves in media... point it out. Freedom of speech and freedom of press are there for a reason.

That means that the FBI would have to help every filmmaker everywhere.

Nope, it just means they'd need criteria other than what makes them look good. Which in fact I'm pretty sure they already must have, besides the PR angle.

The solution to bad people doing bad things can't always be to hack the legs off of everyone at the kneecaps and put everyone in a "safe" wheelchair.

This is an extremely broad argument to a particular situation, and those are rarely fruitful. But in any case: Bad people are rarely the real problem, they are relatively few. The real problem is culture and institutions that lead regular people to do bad things. Facilis decensus Averno. And if in a private context I believe the imposition of such rules should be avoided, I don't think the same applies to a public institution.

A better solution is that if you see a government agency misrepresenting themselves in media... point it out. Freedom of speech and freedom of press are there for a reason.

Point out what, that film makers are portraying a certain institution better than they would've had there been no help? How would I know? It's not like I'm claiming they would require outright lying or anything; it's just that it can introduce subtle but dangerous bias in the whole process.

It's not the DoD's job to help with movies period. The fact that the DoD does not assist with all movies makes it worse, not better. If the DoD were assisting with all movies it would merely be a waste of funds.

Anybody who remembers Iron Eagle I-III and Red Dawn knows Hollywood is full of propaganda. Goebbels found that it was difficult to change the movie viewers’ beliefs, but easy to reinforce their prejudices. He preferred entertainment that propped up these preconceptions instead of blatant political messages. Assange has been advocating for nobody to watch this flim after he read the Iranian prejudice in the script and dismissed this as Goebbellian manipulation.

What is the Iranian prejudice?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/film/julian-assange-say...

Basically layers of silly Iran nuclear weapons fiction.

According to a friend of mine who was close to Wikileaks and had some access to this production, the Iran subplot was scrapped completely, and replaced with a still-fictitious but entirely more plausible Tunisia subplot. Which is rumoured to have since been replaced with yet another fictitious and potentially less-plausible Libyan or Syrian subplot, probably on account of American audiences not knowing what Tunisia is...

'Tptacek mentions a great list. What I'll add to that is that, contemporaneously, criticism of the military doesn't sell movie tickets. Nobody wants to watch a movie about how American soldiers might be put in harm's way for a bad reason, or might not behave honorably, at least not unless the event is historically removed enough that the audience can separate the message of the movie from their own family, friends, and kids on the front lines.

Agreed. Additionally, it's thematically popular that when part of the US military becomes the bad guy, it's usually limited to "those guys" and not the entirety of the Military. Typically "those guys" comes in the form of a well meaning but rouge unit, a General with a vendetta against an opposing force (i.e. hasn't gotten over the end of the Cold war), a traitor of some kind, an indifferent chain of command, etc etc.

These are things audiences will rally around. Behind Enemy Lines is an example[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behind_Enemy_Lines_(2001_film)

What's a rouge unit?

One blush ;-)

[Moto7451 obviously meant rogue unit]

Oh, my guess was on rough. But then, I'm not a native speaker, so I'd better ask. (I was really hoping for some funny idiom involving rouge.)

Ah sorry, I shouldn't have said "obviously" -- that was a bit rude of me.

You're right.

I only remember Stargate SG-1 that very early on dissed the NID (=NSA) and other agencies (but I rarely watch TV). They went so far to criticize agencies and senators and many other privately working corporations as control addicted, corrupt and inhuman moneybags. Senator Kinsey was exposed telling lies to the voters like: "We do the best a christian can for our God blessed America", just to get their votes. Even though he seemed to believe what he said, the actions he made were all but "christian". He willingly destroyed an entire solar system, just to test a bomb. The arrogant evil joy was truly revealing his real character. He was obviously an opportunist, who collaborated with evil aliens just to remain in power. And that last part sounds like our governments, who sell our data to other governments, when the price is right.

That's why I really admired how this was the only series (except star-trek) where most stuff, contrary to most beliefs (imho) was a pure mix of fiction and actual ancient history. Although it was clear that Colonel Jack O'Neill had strong prejudices against the Russian and communists in General (and russians always died first) he had deep respect to them as a Soldier. To me it looked like the authors tried to express some of their true thoughts, but were often forced to change or include parts into the script to reflect a more positive America, that really stood out. Unfortunately Star-Trek was very pro American, which is hard to believe, because a developed human in the future would most probably see all of us as greedy, barbarian, war-hungry hypocrites and not focus one just one continent.

To me it looked like the authors tried to express some of their true thoughts, but were often forced to change or include parts into the script to reflect a more positive America, that really stood out.

I'm not stating flat out you're wrong, but do you have any actual evidence of parts they were "often forced to change?" Isn't it possible they included pro-American material because they didn't necessarily have a completely negative point of view about the US and the military? Not every opinion that America is less than evil necessarily has to be propaganda.

@krapp thanks for asking. I have no real evidence, except that he worked closely with military and you cannot be against your feeding hand. See interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF6hOMY2vxA So obviously he is pro USAF, but that didn't mean he needed to portray the US Government in a good light in StarGate SG-1. He showed the USAF in a very good light though. He also supports the Greenpeace (Sea Shepard) and Charity.

When you take into consideration that propaganda films have "disappeared" it seems like common-sense that the message is still getting out there.

You can just look at Jerry Bruckheimer's career and make mental notes how every movie since Top Gun has seemingly garnered him more and more access to military assets for his films.

Interestingly the US military involvement in Top Gun was a reaction to their contribution to Final Countdown.

A US Navy Commander was dismissed for having authorized the use of US Navy assets for the latter film without appropriate 'controls' ( and technically he wasn't of appropriate rank to have signed it off ) . That's not a mistake they made with Top Gun.

The Navy actually charged Paramount Pictures for the costs of operating a carrier for the film scenes.

Paramount tried to get the Navy to agree to refund some of the cost if Paramount let the Navy run a recruiting pitch before the movie in theaters, but Naval officials concluded (correctly) that Top Gun itself was as good a recruiting film as anyone could develop, and charged full price.

Just about anything relating to Vietnam. But yeah, that's been a while.

But what we have today is absolutely nothing compared to films produced right after WWII. I think one factor in that is there was a massive amount of combat footage just lying around waiting to be spliced together, as well as a whole bunch of surplus equipment just waiting to be blown up.

The Pentagon even red-lighted Forrest Gump and refused support. They said:

"the generalised impression that the army of the 1960s was staffed by the guileless or by soldiers of limited intelligance" was unacceptable. "This impression is neither accurate nor beneficial to the army."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/aug/29/media.filmnews

Avatar was quite negative. Syriana, Rendition, and Jarhead were as well. Your general point definitely stands, post 9/11 at least, but those are notable exceptions.

It's known as soft power. Another example is the BBC World Service, which is currently funded by the British government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power

Flat Earth News is the book to read on this topic. The largest press agency in the world is ... the CIA.

http://www.flatearthnews.net/

The last film to mock the U.S. military was Dr. Strangelove, after which there was no military-sanctioned Hollywood film until Top Gun, 30 years later.

The last film to mock the U.S. military was Dr. Strangelove? You're kidding, right? Even if you only count Kubrick movies, there's Full Metal Jacket.

Wag the Dog.

Sorry: I meant "to mock the U.S. military with active cooperation from the U.S. military."

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