Atlantic Calls on Hollywood to Produce More Government Propaganda

by Jim Naureckas

This Atlantic (9/15/19) essay’s main complaint about Chinese propaganda seems to be that Beijing is better at it than Washington.

The Atlantic (9/15/19) published a curious plea for more propaganda in Hollywood movies. The essay, by Boston College’s Martha Bayles, is ostensibly a warning about the growing power of China over the US film industry:

Simultaneously the world’s most profitable and censorious market, China has led Hollywood down the path of submission to a state censorship apparatus whose standards are as murky and unpredictable as those of most democratic countries are clear and consistent.

This may be a legitimate concern—absent the “clear and consistent” bit—but Bayles doesn’t offer much in the way of specific examples; the closest she comes is a complaint that

the trailer for the forthcoming Top Gun: Maverick—a sequel financed in part by the Chinese firm Tencent—omitted the Japanese and Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise’s jacket.

Instead, her chief worry about propaganda seems to be that Beijing is better at it than Washington:

Beijing has a very clear idea of how a film industry should operate—namely, as an essential part of the effort to bring public opinion in alignment with the party’s ideological worldview.

The “Chinese propaganda machine,” Bayles writes, produces

bloody, ultra-violent action flicks, in which heroic, righteous Chinese soldiers kick some serious ass, including cowardly, decadent American ass, in exotic foreign places that are clearly in need of Xi Jinping Thought.

The prime example is Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), a nonstop tsunami of gun battles, massive explosions, wrenching hand-to-hand combat, and a spectacular tank chase, which hammers away at a single message: China is bringing security, prosperity and modern healthcare to Africa, while the United States is bringing only misery.

The Atlantic‘s writer complains that Hollywood doesn’t make movies like Wolf Warrior 2—even though it does.

Bayles’ claim, and complaint, is that the United States doesn’t make films like this—or at least doesn’t anymore. She explicitly pines for the days when Washington and Hollywood worked arm in arm to promote the American dream:

Over the years, the US government has often praised and defended Hollywood films as a key component of American soft power—that is, as a storytelling medium that can, without engaging in blatant propaganda, convey American ideals, including free expression itself, to foreign populations around the world. But Hollywood has long since abandoned that role. Indeed, not since the end of World War II have the studios cooperated with Washington in furthering the nation’s ideals.

The government helps the film industry fight “piracy” and pushes other countries to accept US entertainment products, Bayles notes:

But even while providing that help, Washington refrains from asking Hollywood to temper its more negative portrayals of American life, politics and global intentions.

After all those FBI warnings on all those DVDs, the film studios can’t even suppress criticism of the US government?

It is quite strange that an essay appearing under the banner of “Free Expression” is openly asking for the movie business to “cooperate with Washington” and censor content in the name of “soft power.” But equally strange is the suggestion by someone whose job involves studying the relationship between government and the culture industry that this kind of cooperation and censorship does not in fact go on routinely.

There is, in fact, a parenthetical admission in the piece that undermines its whole thesis: “(The exception is the Department of Defense, which insists on approving the script of every film produced with its assistance.)”  Oh, just the Department of Defense? I guess that does leave a lot of potential Housing and Urban Development–themed blockbusters going unfilmed.

If unvarnished military propaganda is what you want, Hollywood is happy to provide.

The Pentagon’s support for Hollywood is not a minor sidelight: Based on a FOIA request by Matthew Alford (Conversation, 7/26/17), who studies propaganda at the University of Bath, the DoD has helped produce 800 feature films between 1911 and 2017—including major franchises like Transformers, Terminator and Iron Man. It’s been even more involved with television, aiding series like  24, Homeland and NCIS.

Bayles is well aware of this practice; in the quote above about script approval, she links to a piece in Business Insider (3/5/14) in which the military official who decides which projects get the Pentagon’s help boasts that through such government-subsidized entertainments, “the image and message of the American armed forces gets projected before a global audience.” The article notes that in return for military assistance, which can shave tens of millions off a film’s production costs, Hollywood accepts strict censorship:

Films are denied Pentagon support…if they show the military in a negative light, such as scenes that include drug use, murder, or torture without subsequent punishment.

The Pentagon, in fact, supports exactly the kind of cheerleading, nationalistic entertainment that Bayles says China makes and the US (regrettably) doesn’t: Movies like Lone Survivor, 12 Strong, The 15:17 to Paris and Captain Phillips, and TV shows like NBC’s The Brave, CBS’s SEAL Team and CW’s Valor, are in every way the equal of China’s Wolf Warrior 2 in combining action thrills with a didactic message of the superiority of their country’s values and warfighting ability alike. Bayles buried this premise-destroying admission in a parenthetical—but at least she admitted it.

That’s not true of the other glaring contradiction to her article’s thesis, which goes entirely unmentioned: The CIA’s active and highly effective program to insert its messages in Hollywood product. The covert agency hasn’t been involved in as many projects as the Pentagon—60 since 1947, by Alford’s count—but arguably it’s had more cultural impact: The CIA-aggrandizing Argo won an Oscar for Best Picture, beating out the torture-apologetic Zero Dark Thirty (FAIR.org, 4/8/16). The CIA’s input into TV shows like 24 and Homeland (which were also aided by the Pentagon) helped to crucially shape the public narrative of the “war on terror” (Extra! , 4/14 ).

Why does Bayles ignore these clear examples of what her article is calling for, namely Hollywood cooperation with Washington to incorporate sophisticated messaging into entertainment products? And why didn’t anyone at the Atlantic notice the obvious omission, particularly when the website published an excerpt (7/14/16)  just three years ago from Nicholas Schou’s book on the very topic, Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood?

Just to venture a guess: Maybe it’s because when Hollywood cooperates with Washington, the “American ideals” it ends up promoting are not “free expression” but militarism, xenophobia and the efficacy of torture. Ignoring this sorry record makes for very poor journalism—but excellent propaganda, so perhaps according to Bayles’ own value system, she’s doing the right thing.

You can send messages to the Atlantic here (or via Twitter: @TheAtlantic). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.

Featured image: Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty.