For many, the phrase "state propaganda" evokes imagery of grainy 8mm projections of Nazi films, like Triumph of the Will. From its inception, the commercial film industry has been manipulated by repressive regimes who understood the importance that film had over public opinion. Most notable is the U.S. government’s relationship with Hollywood, which has produced many influential films. With consultation and funding from the CIA, Pentagon, and State Department, Hollywood film studios have produced both critically-acclaimed and commercially successful movies. This symbiotic relationship started in 1927, with the film Wings, which was the first movie to win Best Picture. Since then, American involvement in military conflicts has coincided with an increase in government-sponsored films. The government’s involvement has entailed suggesting that filmmakers include content which they thought would portray American institutions and the “American way of life” in a positive light.
In the 1980s, following the Vietnam War, there was a significant shift amongst Americans, who were increasingly skeptical of the American military and the CIA. Before the popular release of Top Gun, Hollywood studios produced successful films like Three Days of the Condor and The Parallax View, which portrayed American intelligence agencies as untrustworthy and ill-intentioned, to meet the public discontent with the U.S’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The release of Top Gun was an important turning point for the industry because of the Pentagon’s role in the film’s production. In exchange for a meager $1.8 million fee to use the agency's equipment, the American government had the invaluable opportunity to re-shape public opinion. As per their agreement, the Department of Defense assigned a special officer “to review … the script’s thematics and weave in key talking points relevant to the aviation community.” In addition, the filmmakers provided the Department of Defense with a rough cut of the movie, to ensure the final version was in line with the edits they made. Top Gun earned $344 million at the box office, and requests to collaborate with the agency skyrocketed. The U.S. Navy even attributed the significant increase in applications to the film. Although the military had worked with filmmakers before the 80s, the relationship was much stronger than it had been in a long time. Hollywood knew that military movies made money, and the U.S. government knew that movies could be a means to justify its foreign policy decisions.
The trend that started in the 80s has only become stronger in the post 9/11 era. The most successful film franchise of all time is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The release of Iron Man, the first entry into the MCU, in 2008 was a turning point for Marvel Studios and the superhero genre. At a time when public support was turning against the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Iron Man marked the beginning of a new era of film; one that would a-politicize and normalize America's occupations. The film glorifies the military and its missions abroad, and even features a dogfight scene between the titular superhero and F-22s. The primary function of the scene seems to be to demonstrate the sophistication of current military tech, by comparing it to the Iron Man suit. This sort of a-politicization serves to remove certain issues out of the realm of political debate. As expected, the military was happy to work with Marvel Studios on this project. The cost of providing equipment and advice was that the writers had to remove dialogues critical of the American military. Since the release of the Avengers, Marvel has doubled down on pro-military messaging with the Captain America and Captain Marvel films, which partnered with the military for recruitment advertisements.
In 2011, former First Lady Michelle Obama co-presented the Academy Award for Best Picture with military soldiers in the background. This was representative of how interdependent Hollywood and the state had become. Two of the films nominated that year were produced in collaboration with the CIA: Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. Regardless of who won, it was a victory for American intelligence agencies. Argo, the first movie allowed to film in the CIA headquarters in nearly a decade and a half, took home the grand prize that night. Upon release, commentators criticized the film for distorting the facts about the CIA's rescue mission of American hostages. In particular, it was accused of exaggerating the role of the Agency in the hostage rescue and ignoring the importance of America's own allies in the rescue effort. Additionally, some Iranian-American commentators felt that the film portrayed them as "ugly, poor, strictly religious, fanatical and ignorant."
Zero Dark Thirty, like Argo, features many inaccuracies that show the CIA in a more positive light. In this case, however, the manipulation of the truth was far more sinister. The opening scene of Zero Dark Thirty features a fictitious event in which a CIA Agent brutally water-boards a terrorist to gain information about Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. The information he reveals sets into motion the film's plot and eventually leads to Bin Laden being found and killed. In reality, bin Laden's location was discovered through surveillance, not through torture. Examining the production of Zero Dark Thirty provides a sense of how important its collaboration with Hollywood is to the government. According to documents obtained by Vice, the Director of the CIA himself provided Mark Boal, the screenwriter of Zero Dark Thirty, with classified information about Bin Laden while he was writing the screenplay. At the request of the Agency, Boal also removed scenes that portrayed CIA agents negatively. The filmmakers also received sensitive information from the DOD, including a Seal-Team Six member's identity. At the time, both DOD officials and filmmakers were criticized, but very few people remember the incident. This incident, however, reveals one important insight: American military and intelligence are willing to reveal state secrets in order to shape political narrative in their favor. When asked about the Zero Dark Thirty situation, a senior defense official claimed that "it's appropriate for department officials to work with the entertainment industry to try to inform how stories are told - especially those associated with one of the greatest intelligence and military successes of a generation."
As seen with Argo, movies produced by the military or the CIA often have racist and one-dimensional portrayals of non-Westerners. Some have argued that this could even lead to actual violence against Muslims. Some might find this hard to believe, but a study conducted by researchers at West Carolina University found that racist humor is often powerful enough to influence a person’s policy preferences concerning marginalized communities. Furthermore, the government supports works that show inaccurate portrayals of its role in many historical events. Reframing history in such a way can fuel harmful ideologies like American exceptionalism, which has been used to justify countless atrocities within the United States and abroad. Hollywood's glossy portrayal of the military in movies could also cause people to sign up with a false image of what the military does.
As the War on Terror drags on today, Americans have grown apathetic to their government's atrocities in other countries. Unlike in the 70s and the 80s, most conversations regarding the ongoing bombing and subjugation of various countries in the Middle East and Africa, focus solely on the costs to Americans, rather than the primary victims of American belligerence: foreign civilians. This attitude change may be understood by examining how popular culture has modified its depictions of war. There has been an over-saturation of films, like American Sniper, that focus on American soldiers and veterans, while ignoring the many millions of foreigners who have been displaced and killed in these wars. The films of the Vietnam-era, like Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now, featured images of horrific brutality and devastating scenes of civilian death, things which we know continue today. So what changed? As the relationship between the government and the film industry became more intimate, the content of movies also evolved. Films started to show American-instigated occupations in an apolitical light, as conflicts that were, by default, "good." As television shows grow more cinematic and require higher budgets, there has also been an increase in state-assistance in shows like Homeland and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. Based on the types of projects that the state chooses to support, it is evident that they are more interested in shaping the narrative to benefit themselves rather than informing the public of the truth.
Ultimately, what does this arrangement between the state and filmmakers mean for society? Elmer Davis, the Director of the United States Office of War Information during World War II, claimed that "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." Movies are a powerful form of art that can influence and define people's attitudes and beliefs without them even knowing. Of course, message-driven movies are not necessarily "bad" or "good." However, if the American government is influencing the content of our most popular movies, people at the very least deserve to know what the state's role is in those movies.