The US and Hollywood have worked together for over a century collaborating on hundreds of projects. The origin of the relationship came about once the United States joined World War 2, and the two began producing military propaganda to boost morale. It was vital for the public to get behind the war effort, and propagandized films such as 'Wings' (1929) and 'Prelude to War (1942) did exceptionally well, even winning Oscars, and proving to be very effective when promoting the idea of a war to the public. This would have been because it is estimated that over 90 million Americans were going to the cinema each week, which meant it was easy for big film companies along with the military to create a sense of unity and togetherness, via these propaganda films all at the same time. During this period, the propaganda was much more obvious, as several statements and documents were released declaring the propagandistic intentions of any collaborations between the military and film companies. When the Manual for Motion Pictures was created in 1942 by the Bureau of Motion Pictures, it was announced that a key question asked when deciding whether or not to collaborate on a film, was 'Will this film help us win the war?'. This is a clear demonstration of the military's intentions when working with the film industry; their number one priority at this time was how the projects would benefit them, something that is less spoken about publicly nowadays but is still obvious in the media we consume. Similarly, President Harry S. Truman famously used Hollywood films when asking Congress to provide him more military funding, to 'scare the hell out of them', showing the extent to which the media we consume can impact our perception of certain ideas, something the military was all too aware of.
However, it could be argued that this was only a common concept throughout the war years because they needed people to be on board with the idea of the military for them to win, so in the more peaceful years comparison that followed the 1940s, surely the concept of propagandized media was forgotten? There was much less need for enlistment, and since the US just won the war, there was a fairly positive perception of the army, so some may argue that the military had no need for promotion, and any reference in pop culture was purely coincidental. This is far from the truth; military cooperation in films continued for years after the war, with films such as The Green Berets (1968), after the US Army had been actively involved in the Vietnam War for over a decade. This film portrayed many of the horrendous actions the Vietnamese people were subject to, possibly in an attempt to push people towards enlistment with the idea that they were the 'good guys''. However, it was discovered that many of the heinous actions toward the Vietnamese people in the film were caused by the US military, but this was left out to avoid any negative feeling toward the army in the US, which would have been extremely detrimental to the war effort and the military's image at the time. The ignorance of the army's actions in this film is a clear example of the military using Hollywood to promote their organization in an overly positive manner at this point, making it difficult to disagree completely with the idea that the media the film industry produces may have some underlying propaganda messages.
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Essay on Is Propaganda Detrimental to Society.
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