7 ms·

It's even crazier because when you are not american you realize that Hollywood is also the biggest soft propaganda agency for the USA. When have you seen a mov

by satao 5y ago

It's even crazier because when you are not american you realize that Hollywood is also the biggest soft propaganda agency for the USA. When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Or about the Guantanamo Bay?

jturpin 5y ago
Hollywood is highly critical of the USA. Pretty much every sentiment in a post 90's war movie is "The US also did some bad stuff that we should feel ashamed about."
- trasz 5y ago
  “Some”? That doesn’t sound “highly critical” at all.
A_non_e-moose 5y ago
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay? I'd love to see something similar from China or North Korea.
msla 5y ago
> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? The USSR didn't defeat Japan. The Second World War was against Japan, Germany, and, to some extent, Italy. The USSR only fought Germany.
- satao 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria
  - msla 5y ago
    A few days before the end of the war, yes. That's not a significant amount of fighting.
msla 5y ago
> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Tell that to the Finns.
pedrosorio 5y ago
> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Any Russian movies about the US winning the WW2? Naturally each country tells their own narrative. This seems like a silly point to make.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Not so when you consider that Hollywood is pretty much defining the culture for good half of the planet.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  It's not a silly point to make when you realize that Hollywood is not a government agency. It is a reasonable question to ask how this coordination is possible when there are no legal restraints on failing to coordinate.
  - bmicraft 5y ago
    Hollywood gets to borrow millions in us army equipment for free if the producer runs the script by them first. Part of the deal is that the us army always have to be the good guys and not have any internal problems related to things like sexism homophobia or anything else
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      That only explains it when the movie involves borrowed equipment.
    - jonathankoren 5y ago
      And yet, these movies continue to get made.
  - dan-robertson 5y ago
    The theory is probably that the characters must be relatable and therefore American. Films about British actions in the war often have random American characters thrown in too. (I’m not sure that is unrealistic though) Perhaps another thing is that when the memory of the war was still fresh and people (at least in eg France) generally knew that the USSR had a big impact, McCarthyism was also at its height and there were strong reasons not to show communists in a good light. And then maybe later films mostly copied the trend.
lelandfe 5y ago
> 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. - Elmer Davis, director of the US Office of War Information
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Where is that quote from? I don't want to ironically get caught by propaganda (or misinformation) myself.
  - slater 5y ago
    i think it's from > - Elmer Davis, director of the US Office of War Information
    - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
      I assume they wanted proper references[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_War_Information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_War_In...
  - lionsdan 5y ago
    Here's an article that includes it. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-hollywood-became-the-unofficial-propaganda-arm-of-the-u-s-military-1.5560575 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-hollywood-became-the-unof...
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    Fun one to track down. Had to hop through a couple papers and books, but this is what everything winds up referencing: > It was an organization designed not only to disseminate information and to clarify issues but also to arouse support for particular symbols and ideas. "The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people's minds," said Davis, "is to let it go in through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized." Koppes, C. and Black, G., 1977. What to Show the World: The Office of War Information and Hollywood, 1942-1945. The Journal of American History, 64(1), p.2, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1888275 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1888275> That paper then points to this ultimate source: > Elmer Davis to Byron Price, Jan. 27, 1943, Box 3, Records of the Office of War Information, RG 208 (Federal Records Center, Suitland, Md.) Dead end. I emailed the Archives but the entire facility is closed because of the pandemic. I also tried tracking down the paper's authors but both are retired. The document likely lives somewhere in this trove: https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=%22Records%20of%20the%20Office%20of%20War%20Information%20%22&f.dateRangeFacet=%221940%20-%201949%22&f.recordGroupNoCollectionId=208 https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=%22Records%20of%20the%... Anyway, I'm satisfied it's a real quote (both authors are reputable) though I definitely want the surrounding context now :)
CamperBob2 5y ago
Enemy at the Gates is pretty good.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  The GP asked for movies about winning the WWII, not winning in the WWII. Enemy at the Gates was just a sniper duel movie (a good one, though).
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Is the claim here that the US has organizations that actively work to prevent a movie showing Russians winning WW2? It is easier for me to believe that a movie specifically about the Russians winning WW2 simply would not get financed due to low probability of earning a decent ROI due to American/English audiences not wanting to pay to watch it. I was also taught in US history AP class in high school that a significant, if not necessary, element of winning WW2 was the Russians tying up the Germans on the eastern front, and it was stressed that the Russians suffered the most casualties by far.
    - rndgermandude 5y ago
      >I was also taught in US history AP class in high school that a significant, if not necessary, element of winning WW2 was the Russians tying up the Germans on the eastern front The Soviets along with some remaining Polish forces also won the battle of Berlin (which caused Hitler to commit suicide), having pushed back the German army all the way back from the gates of Moscow to the gates of Berlin. The Third Reich, left with no "leader" and no capital and no significant territory neither in the east nor in the west really had no option other than total capitulation or total defeat. The capitulation happened a week later. The Western Front and the Eastern Front in the end had about the same amount of German causalities and captures. Anyway, the Soviets did a little more than "just" tying up Germans on the Eastern Front.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Thanks for expounding, I should have remembered more of the details.
GauntletWizard 5y ago
I believe Enemy at the Gates was a major blockbuster.
perihelions 5y ago
The US didn't use soft power to censor Soviet cinema within the USSR. It's an absurd power.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
> Or about the Guantanamo Bay? Sure, here's one from this year: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4761112/?ref_=kw_li_tt https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4761112/?ref_=kw_li_tt And here's the list https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=guantanamo-bay https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=guantanamo-bay
Blikkentrekker 5y ago
The intro sequence for Star Trek: Enterprise[1] was quite interesting to say the least. — It details the history of human exploration culminating in man's achievement of a method of faster than light travel, so it implies, but strangely the first man in space and the first artificial satellite are omitted, and in their stead we may behold a majestic sight of an unknown U.S.A. submarine. Careful now, lest the audience actually learn that it were the Soviets who launched the first man into space. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnTZREMEJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnTZREMEJI
- msla 5y ago
  You're right, the sequence should give more focus to the first (and only) humans on the Moon.
reaperducer 5y ago
When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Right now. There's a current multi-season show about the Axis winning WWII on Amazon Prime. From what I've read, it's pretty successful.
- ignoranceprior 5y ago
  The USSR was not part of the Axis. Quite the opposite. (Although they did have a non-aggression pact with Germany before the start of the war, that did not last long.) Which just goes to show that many Americans aren't really aware of how the Soviets were crucial to winning that war.
  - sprayk 5y ago
    anecdotal evidence doesn't really go to show anything
  - coldacid 5y ago
    It lasted long enough to split Poland up between the two of them.
  - jonathankoren 5y ago
    It is true to that they joined the Allies, and the Eastern Front was very important to defeat of Nazi Germany, but let’s be honest when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ended: after Stalin and Hitler coordinated a joint invasion of Poland. To act like the Soviet Union was Ireland or Switzerland at the start of the war, is disingenuous. Stalin and Hitler made a secret plan to carve out an Eastern European sphere of influence, not unlike the Japanese sphere of influence in East Asia. The irony of course is that Stalin still got his sphere influence, albeit through the Treaty of Yalta.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
zeckalpha 5y ago
Idi I Smotri is worth a watch. Many references to it in more recent movies.
sigstoat 5y ago
> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? ...almost all of them? the USSR was one of the Allies. who won WW2. so every WW2 movie which doesn't engage in some sort of alt-history has the USSR winning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender
rsj_hn 5y ago
Fun Fact: In Action in the North Atlantic (1943), Humphrey Bogart plays a first officer aboard a Liberty Ship sending supplies to Murmansk. It has some pro-Soviet and even pro-Communist propaganda, with brave Soviet pilots escorting the ship and cheering people shouting "tovarisch!" to the crew. They are even told "Tovarisch means 'comrade', which is a good thing!" Then all the ship's crew shout "comrade" back to the throngs of happy, well-fed, smiling Soviet citizens in WW2. Other fun propaganda lines: "I believe in God, President Roosevelt, and the Brooklyn Dodgers!". They even feature radio recordings of Roosevelt set to patriotic music. Despite being heavy handed and not having the best effects (you can see lines pulling the subs) it's a fun movie for Bogart fans and those interested in propaganda films. On Amazon Prime, tagged with "Cerebral, Joyous, Intense".
msla 5y ago
> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? No single country won WWII. Saying so is nationalist propaganda which devalues and demeans the sacrifices of every other country.
nova22033 5y ago
Yes...Hollywood never makes movies portraying the US in a bad light. very insightful..

by satao 5y ago

jturpin 5y ago

Hollywood is highly critical of the USA. Pretty much every sentiment in a post 90's war movie is "The US also did some bad stuff that we should feel ashamed about."

trasz 5y ago
“Some”? That doesn’t sound “highly critical” at all.

A_non_e-moose 5y ago

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay? I'd love to see something similar from China or North Korea.

msla 5y ago

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? The USSR didn't defeat Japan. The Second World War was against Japan, Germany, and, to some extent, Italy. The USSR only fought Germany.

satao 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria
- msla 5y ago
  A few days before the end of the war, yes. That's not a significant amount of fighting.

msla 5y ago

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Tell that to the Finns.

pedrosorio 5y ago

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Any Russian movies about the US winning the WW2? Naturally each country tells their own narrative. This seems like a silly point to make.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
Not so when you consider that Hollywood is pretty much defining the culture for good half of the planet.
whatshisface 5y ago
It's not a silly point to make when you realize that Hollywood is not a government agency. It is a reasonable question to ask how this coordination is possible when there are no legal restraints on failing to coordinate.
- bmicraft 5y ago
  Hollywood gets to borrow millions in us army equipment for free if the producer runs the script by them first. Part of the deal is that the us army always have to be the good guys and not have any internal problems related to things like sexism homophobia or anything else
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    That only explains it when the movie involves borrowed equipment.
  - jonathankoren 5y ago
    And yet, these movies continue to get made.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  The theory is probably that the characters must be relatable and therefore American. Films about British actions in the war often have random American characters thrown in too. (I’m not sure that is unrealistic though) Perhaps another thing is that when the memory of the war was still fresh and people (at least in eg France) generally knew that the USSR had a big impact, McCarthyism was also at its height and there were strong reasons not to show communists in a good light. And then maybe later films mostly copied the trend.

lelandfe 5y ago

> 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. - Elmer Davis, director of the US Office of War Information

wolverine876 5y ago
Where is that quote from? I don't want to ironically get caught by propaganda (or misinformation) myself.
- slater 5y ago
  i think it's from > - Elmer Davis, director of the US Office of War Information
  - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
    I assume they wanted proper references[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_War_Information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_War_In...
- lionsdan 5y ago
  Here's an article that includes it. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-hollywood-became-the-unofficial-propaganda-arm-of-the-u-s-military-1.5560575 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/how-hollywood-became-the-unof...
- lelandfe 5y ago
  Fun one to track down. Had to hop through a couple papers and books, but this is what everything winds up referencing: > It was an organization designed not only to disseminate information and to clarify issues but also to arouse support for particular symbols and ideas. "The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people's minds," said Davis, "is to let it go in through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized." Koppes, C. and Black, G., 1977. What to Show the World: The Office of War Information and Hollywood, 1942-1945. The Journal of American History, 64(1), p.2, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1888275 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1888275> That paper then points to this ultimate source: > Elmer Davis to Byron Price, Jan. 27, 1943, Box 3, Records of the Office of War Information, RG 208 (Federal Records Center, Suitland, Md.) Dead end. I emailed the Archives but the entire facility is closed because of the pandemic. I also tried tracking down the paper's authors but both are retired. The document likely lives somewhere in this trove: https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=%22Records%20of%20the%20Office%20of%20War%20Information%20%22&f.dateRangeFacet=%221940%20-%201949%22&f.recordGroupNoCollectionId=208 https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=%22Records%20of%20the%... Anyway, I'm satisfied it's a real quote (both authors are reputable) though I definitely want the surrounding context now :)

CamperBob2 5y ago

Enemy at the Gates is pretty good.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
The GP asked for movies about winning the WWII, not winning in the WWII. Enemy at the Gates was just a sniper duel movie (a good one, though).
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Is the claim here that the US has organizations that actively work to prevent a movie showing Russians winning WW2? It is easier for me to believe that a movie specifically about the Russians winning WW2 simply would not get financed due to low probability of earning a decent ROI due to American/English audiences not wanting to pay to watch it. I was also taught in US history AP class in high school that a significant, if not necessary, element of winning WW2 was the Russians tying up the Germans on the eastern front, and it was stressed that the Russians suffered the most casualties by far.
  - rndgermandude 5y ago
    >I was also taught in US history AP class in high school that a significant, if not necessary, element of winning WW2 was the Russians tying up the Germans on the eastern front The Soviets along with some remaining Polish forces also won the battle of Berlin (which caused Hitler to commit suicide), having pushed back the German army all the way back from the gates of Moscow to the gates of Berlin. The Third Reich, left with no "leader" and no capital and no significant territory neither in the east nor in the west really had no option other than total capitulation or total defeat. The capitulation happened a week later. The Western Front and the Eastern Front in the end had about the same amount of German causalities and captures. Anyway, the Soviets did a little more than "just" tying up Germans on the Eastern Front.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Thanks for expounding, I should have remembered more of the details.

GauntletWizard 5y ago

I believe Enemy at the Gates was a major blockbuster.

perihelions 5y ago

The US didn't use soft power to censor Soviet cinema within the USSR. It's an absurd power.

spywaregorilla 5y ago

> Or about the Guantanamo Bay? Sure, here's one from this year: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4761112/?ref_=kw_li_tt https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4761112/?ref_=kw_li_tt And here's the list https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=guantanamo-bay https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=guantanamo-bay

Blikkentrekker 5y ago

The intro sequence for Star Trek: Enterprise[1] was quite interesting to say the least. — It details the history of human exploration culminating in man's achievement of a method of faster than light travel, so it implies, but strangely the first man in space and the first artificial satellite are omitted, and in their stead we may behold a majestic sight of an unknown U.S.A. submarine. Careful now, lest the audience actually learn that it were the Soviets who launched the first man into space. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnTZREMEJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnTZREMEJI

msla 5y ago
You're right, the sequence should give more focus to the first (and only) humans on the Moon.

reaperducer 5y ago

When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Right now. There's a current multi-season show about the Axis winning WWII on Amazon Prime. From what I've read, it's pretty successful.

ignoranceprior 5y ago
The USSR was not part of the Axis. Quite the opposite. (Although they did have a non-aggression pact with Germany before the start of the war, that did not last long.) Which just goes to show that many Americans aren't really aware of how the Soviets were crucial to winning that war.
- sprayk 5y ago
  anecdotal evidence doesn't really go to show anything
- coldacid 5y ago
  It lasted long enough to split Poland up between the two of them.
- jonathankoren 5y ago
  It is true to that they joined the Allies, and the Eastern Front was very important to defeat of Nazi Germany, but let’s be honest when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ended: after Stalin and Hitler coordinated a joint invasion of Poland. To act like the Soviet Union was Ireland or Switzerland at the start of the war, is disingenuous. Stalin and Hitler made a secret plan to carve out an Eastern European sphere of influence, not unlike the Japanese sphere of influence in East Asia. The irony of course is that Stalin still got his sphere influence, albeit through the Treaty of Yalta.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

zeckalpha 5y ago

Idi I Smotri is worth a watch. Many references to it in more recent movies.

sigstoat 5y ago

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? ...almost all of them? the USSR was one of the Allies. who won WW2. so every WW2 movie which doesn't engage in some sort of alt-history has the USSR winning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender

rsj_hn 5y ago

Fun Fact: In Action in the North Atlantic (1943), Humphrey Bogart plays a first officer aboard a Liberty Ship sending supplies to Murmansk. It has some pro-Soviet and even pro-Communist propaganda, with brave Soviet pilots escorting the ship and cheering people shouting "tovarisch!" to the crew. They are even told "Tovarisch means 'comrade', which is a good thing!" Then all the ship's crew shout "comrade" back to the throngs of happy, well-fed, smiling Soviet citizens in WW2. Other fun propaganda lines: "I believe in God, President Roosevelt, and the Brooklyn Dodgers!". They even feature radio recordings of Roosevelt set to patriotic music. Despite being heavy handed and not having the best effects (you can see lines pulling the subs) it's a fun movie for Bogart fans and those interested in propaganda films. On Amazon Prime, tagged with "Cerebral, Joyous, Intense".

msla 5y ago

> When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? No single country won WWII. Saying so is nationalist propaganda which devalues and demeans the sacrifices of every other country.

nova22033 5y ago

Yes...Hollywood never makes movies portraying the US in a bad light. very insightful..