hollywood hasbara - imperial propaganda

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Hollywood’s Imperial Propaganda

by JOE GIAMBRONE

Hollywood likes to pretend that things aren’t political when they are.  It’s that bi-partisan nationalist myth that if both corporate parties agree to cheer for the empire, then everyone cheers for the empire.  It’s gotten so bad now that races like the Oscars and the Writer’s Guild screenwriting award are tight contests between one CIA propaganda film and another CIA propaganda film.  The first one helps to demonize Iranians and set up the next World War scenario, while the second film fraudulently promotes the effectiveness of state-sanctioned torture crimes.

Kathryn Bigelow, America’s Leni Riefenstahl, claims that Zero Dark Thirty tells “a true story,” even when confronted by evidence that it is a lie.  She is unapologetic and completely divorced from the real world damage her propaganda encourages.  If this film takes home the Best Picture Oscar, it should serve as the cherry on top of a brutal, deceptive, decrepit and immoral empire, and signal this reality to the rest of the world.  If this is allegedly the “best” of America, then we are truly finished.

As for Ben Affleck’s Argo, its sins aren’t so readily apparent.  Both films show wonderful Central Intelligence “heroes” acting to further US interests and take care of imperial problems.  The Argo scenario is a rescue, however, instead of a hit.  The problem is that Iran, a country thrown into a bloodthirsty dictatorship after its nascent democracy was murdered by the very same CIA in 1953, is now the bad guy.  There are clearly two sides, and the film takes sides with the people who destroyed democracy in Iran and propped up an illegitimate monarch in order to control its oil and its refineries.  When this despotic monarch whose secret police disappeared, tortured and murdered the political opposition – with the help and training of the CIA – is overthrown, we are supposed to overlook all that, because America is always good.  We rescue our people.  We risk our lives, and we come up with elaborate creative plans to help our people.  We are heroic and triumphant vs. the inferior wild-eyed Persians and Arabs of the world.

So why are Argo and Zero Dark Thirty receiving all these awards?  Are the awarding bodies so full of hyper-patriots who believe pro-American films can deceive and demonize with impunity, that they want to send an unequivocal message of support for these practices?

Is hyper-nationalist propaganda in vogue now?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/20/hollywoods-imperial-propaganda/