XPost: soc.culture.usa, alt.fan.jai-maharaj, soc.culture.indian
XPost: alt.philosophy, alt.politics.trump, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
XPost: alt.politics, alt.politics.conservative, talk.politics.misc
XPost: soc.culture.india
From:
alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com
In article <oQw8C.205876$
RV5.25415@fx11.iad>,
FBInCIAnNSATerroristSlayer <
FBInCIAnNSATe...@yahoo.com> posted:
CIA NOT ONLY CONTROLS THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA BUT ALSO HOLLYWOOD
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/364184-propaganda-us-hollywood-russia/
Lights, camera, propaganda! US government anti-Russia
campaign invades Hollywood
by Danielle Ryan
Published time: 26 Oct, 2016 14:15
For years the influence of the CIA in Hollywood was
hidden and unacknowledged. Now it's more of an open
secret; not publicized, but pretty easy to read up on if
you care. Just ask the spy agency's Entertainment
Industry Liaison.
Yes, such a thing really exists.
You see, the CIA's man in Hollywood wants to help actors,
authors, directors, producers and screenwriters "gain a
better understanding" of the intelligence agency in order
to ensure "accurate portrayals" of its activities. It
even wants to help fire up the neurons and actually give
you some good ideas if you're coming up short in that
department. Indeed, the CIA provides "inspiration for
future storylines" and lists them on its website. Of
course, it's all in the interest of creating authentic
and balanced portrayals of US intelligence agencies and
the US military. And they're quite busy, too. Between
2006 and 2011, the CIA public relations office had input
into at least 22 film and movie projects.
In a column for the Washington Post in 2011, David Sirota
noted that the Pentagon too enlists the help of Hollywood
for PR purposes when things are going awry and Americans
are becoming weary of war. Movies like Top Gun in the
1980s and Zero Dark Thirty more recently were made in
consultation with the Pentagon and White House. The
result of this "creative input for Pentagon assistance"
bargain created an entertainment culture "rigged to
produce relatively few anti-war movies and dozens of
blockbusters that glorify the military" and which amounts
to "government subsidized propaganda," Sirota wrote.
For years the influence of the CIA in Hollywood was
hidden and unacknowledged. Now it's more of an open
secret; not publicized, but pretty easy to read up on if
you care. Just ask the spy agency's Entertainment
Industry Liaison.
Yes, such a thing really exists.
You see, the CIA's man in Hollywood wants to help actors,
authors, directors, producers and screenwriters "gain a
better understanding" of the intelligence agency in order
to ensure "accurate portrayals" of its activities. It
even wants to help fire up the neurons and actually give
you some good ideas if you're coming up short in that
department. Indeed, the CIA provides "inspiration for
future storylines" and lists them on its website. Of
course, it's all in the interest of creating authentic
and balanced portrayals of US intelligence agencies and
the US military. And they're quite busy, too. Between
2006 and 2011, the CIA public relations office had input
into at least 22 film and movie projects.
In a column for the Washington Post in 2011, David Sirota
noted that the Pentagon too enlists the help of Hollywood
for PR purposes when things are going awry and Americans
are becoming weary of war. Movies like Top Gun in the
1980s and Zero Dark Thirty more recently were made in
consultation with the Pentagon and White House. The
result of this "creative input for Pentagon assistance"
bargain created an entertainment culture "rigged to
produce relatively few anti-war movies and dozens of
blockbusters that glorify the military" and which amounts
to "government subsidized propaganda," Sirota wrote.
The CIA has had a hand in creating TV shows like 24,
Homeland and Alias. The Americans -- an FX show about two
Russian spies living undercover in the US -- was created
by a former CIA agent, and the agency reportedly approves
the scripts for each episode.
A piece in the Guardian in 2008 called the CIA's
involvement in Hollywood a "tale of deception and
subversion that would seem improbable if it were put on
screen". Of course, it's unlikely to be put on screen,
given that the agency which provides guidance on CIA-
related movies (...) is the CIA.
Enlisting Hollywood help with "anti-Russia messaging"
Remember the "inspiration for future storylines" list
mentioned earlier? Well, guess what? The liaison's
"current pick" for a possible future movie project is
about one Ryszard Kuklinski -- a Polish colonel and spy
for NATO who spent years passing secret Soviet documents
to the CIA. I wonder why they'd be interested in that
sort of thing right now. It couldn't be anything to do
with deteriorating relations between Russia and the West,
could it?
It may sound like conspiracy theory, but the 2014 hack of
Sony Pictures Entertainment revealed that the the US
State Department has actively sought out the biggest
players in Hollywood and tried to enlist their help with
what they called "anti-Russia messaging" for the public's
consumption through innocent entertainment. In other
words, the government asked Hollywood for help producing
propaganda -- although I'm sure the State Department
would call it something nicer.
Richard Stengel, the US under secretary for public
diplomacy, wrote to Sony CEO Mark Lynton explaining that
the government needed help countering both ISIS and
"Russian narratives" and said this wasn't something the
State Department could do "on its own". He suggested
convening a meeting of media executives to discuss ideas,
content, production and "commercial possibilities".
Lynton responded with a list of media executives at other
entertainment companies including Disney and Fox. It's
unclear from the emails whether that meeting Stengel
requested ever happened, but judging by much of the
recent entertainment industry output, one might be
forgiven for assuming it did.
Negative depictions of Russia in American and British
news and entertainment media are hardly new -- but at
least as far as I can tell, there's certainly been an
uptick over the past 12-18 months, and it coincides
nicely with a major US government-led anti-Russia
messaging campaign which has also spilled over into much
of Western print and broadcast media. Gratuitous mentions
of Russia and Vladimir Putin where they are not necessary
are becoming tiresome. For me, the last straw was sitting
down to watch Bridget Jones's Baby last month and being
subjected to an entirely unnecessary and irrelevant
subplot about the anti-Putin punk band Pussy Riot and
their struggle for free speech. It was the last straw
because it was just one more in a long line of useless
allusions to big bad Russia that seemed to come from
nowhere.
For me, the last straw was sitting down to watch Bridget
Jones's Baby last month and being subjected to an
entirely unnecessary and irrelevant subplot about the
anti-Putin punk band Pussy Riot and their struggle for
free speech. Q In the Netflix political drama House of
Cards, Pussy Riot -- the real ones this time -- got their
own cameo alongside evil Putin (not the real one). But
even when there isn't a major storyline attached to
Russia, somehow the country frequently gets thrown in
anyway. Russia is still the go-to country when there
needs to be a joke about scary or immoral foreigners.
There are endless examples.
In NBC's Scandal, one character suggests Putin might
randomly invade Belarus. In CBS's Madam Secretary, one
character spews the line: "I can't go back to Russia,
it's a pigsty." In the recently released movie Bad Moms,
one of the bad moms, protesting something or other which
I can't recall, shouts "What is this, Russia?" The short-
running show Allegiance was entirely about a Russian
sleeper cell in the US which was suddenly reactivated and
whose members -- now fully adapted to blissful life in
America -- no longer wanted anything to do with Russia.
How original.
NBC's Blacklist has given us multiple Russian baddies and
the sitcom 2 Broke Girls has made its fair share of Putin
jokes. The third installment of The Purge introduced us
to a gang of menacing Russian "murder tourists" who take
advantage of the annual 12-hour period during which any
crime, including murder, becomes legal. I could go on,
but you get the idea: Russians are bad.
Is it all CIA influence? Is it all the result of the
State Department's "anti-Russia messaging" campaign? Not
necessarily. While the CIA does have huge influence in
Hollywood on specific projects, many of the random
negative references to Russia are probably the result of
a media information war which naturally spills over into
the creative output of writers and directors. Many of
them probably shouldn't be blamed too harshly. They're
fed a diet of anti-Russia messaging through the news
media, so it's no wonder these kinds of lines end up in
their movies and TV shows.
Interestingly, in June, the Senate Intelligence Committee
included an amendment to Congress' annual intelligence
spending bill which would require the Director of
National Intelligence to submit reports detailing the
relationship between the CIA and Hollywood. But the
Senate committee is no doubt less worried about the
propaganda effects and more worried about the CIA
divulging sensitive and classified information to movie
directors, as was the case, controversially, with Zero
Dark Thirty.
Anyway, tip for aspiring filmmakers and TV producers:
Leave the Russia jokes out. It's getting boring.
Dhanyavaad for posting the article.
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
http://bit.do/jaimaharaj
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)