Hollywood War Movies: is it truly a Pentagon propaganda?

The U.S. government and Hollywood have always been close. Washington D.C. has long been a source of attractive plots for filmmakers, and LA (Hollywood) has become a luxury provider for the political class.

Washington D.C. considers that film is an important element in spreading propaganda. This was mostly due to propaganda films have successfully led the U.S. to victory in World War I and World War II. Therefore, the U.S. Government after World War II saw the potential of soaring Hollywood cinema.

In order to maximize Hollywood’s potential, The Pentagon established an entertainment liaison office (Entertainment Liaison Office, The Pentagon, Room 2E592 Washington, DC 20301–1400 (703) 695–2936 / FAX (703) 695–1149) in 1948. Meanwhile, the CIA also established the same agency in 1996.

The presence of the liaison offices could benefit the studios in different ways. The studios that agree to join the Entertainment Liaison Office will have almost unlimited access to U.S. military facilities and can use them FOR FREE! The facilities given to them are from military bases, tanks, aircraft carriers or other warships, fighter aircraft, to military personnel who are not on duty. All the facilities that are lent for free do not include fuel. So, if the studio wants to take a picture of an airplane in flight, they have to pay fuel costs.

However, what benefits does the Pentagon get from lending military hardware for free? The answer is exposure. When the studio and the Pentagon sign a cooperation contract, the studio must provide Pentagon with the film’s script. Then, special personnel at the Pentagon will review the script of the film to censor prohibited content. Movies that want to get Pentagon’s assistance are prohibited from having elements that can degrade the status of the U.S. military, such as actions of racism, war crimes, and shooting their friends (friendly fire) on purpose. If a movie has only a few prohibited elements, the Pentagon will only censor some of its contents. However, if a movie has many prohibited elements, the filmmaker must rewrite the movie script. This situation made many movie studios finally declare their withdrawal from the cooperation contract because rewriting the writing is not as easy as imagined. Many movie studios have also been banned for collaboration because they refuse to correct a script following Pentagon censorship.

From 1911 to 2017, a total of 800 cinema films have received Pentagon support. Meanwhile, 1,100 television films have received support for the same period — as many as 800 films alone when counting from 2005. In addition, Netflix films to T.V. series also received support from the Pentagon, the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, local police department, etc. There are 60 films supported by the CIA alone.

The examples of films that fall into the aforementioned categories are Transformers series (2007–2018), Iron Man (2008), Flight 93 (2006), Air Force One (1997), Act of Valor (2012), Black Hawk Down (2001), NCIS (2003-present), and Zero Dark Thirty (2012). Examples of films rejected by the Pentagon are Green Zone (2010), Windtalkers (2002), Thirteen Days (2000), Platoon (1986), and Full Metal Jacket (1987).

In the movie Act of Valor (2012), many real members of the Navy SEAL and SWCC (Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen) participated in the making of the movie. In the Transformers film (2007), Tyrese Gibson, who plays the character, Epps, a JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller) operator, received JTAC training from the United States Air Force to understand and deepen his role in the movie.

However, of all the movies supported by the Pentagon, the most successful was Top Gun (1986). Top Gun was a film that has succeeded in increasing public confidence in the U.S. military after the Vietnam War ended. Due to its success, the U.S. Navy placed the Recruiting Booth in front of the theater showing the movie Top Gun so that the enthusiastic public could easily become an F-14 pilot like the one in the film. Top Gun received assistance in the form of F-14 aircraft from VF-51 “Screaming Eagles,” VF-114 “Aardvarks,” VF-213 “Black Lions,” and USS Enterprise. Top Gun also succeeded in acquiring a Sidewinder missile. Because they only received one missile, the film studio had to change or inverse the video of the missile so that it could be seen that the missile was launched from the right and left of the plane.

Movie studios are free to decide if they want U.S. Government assistance or not. If the studio wants assistance, they had to agree to the Pentagon’s changes and can produce the movie at a lower cost. On the other hand, if the movie refused the assistance program, film studios are free to make movies to their pleasure, even if they want to slander the U.S. Government, but the production costs will be higher than the studio that accept the assistance program because they have to rent or buy military equipment. Thus, some Hollywood films can be categorized as “propaganda films” because they only elevate the name of the U.S. Government, but not all of them can be classified as “propaganda films” because there are studios who refuse to cooperate with the U.S. Government.

Reference:

• Alford, Matthew. 2017. “Washington DC’s role behind the scenes in Hollywood goes deeper than you think.” Independent Newspaper. September 3rd, 2017.
• US Department of Defense Special Assistant for Entertainment Media