This week we watched a movie called Triumph of Will, a film of Nazi Germany propaganda during WW2. It was very interesting to watch, providing a stark contrast to how we Americans viewed Germans post WW2. The movie showed marching parades, smiling soldiers, and rousing speeches directed towards national pride and involvement.
It got me thinking about what kinds of propaganda Americans are exposed to. And do they even realize it? Its hard to imagine but some people will argue that propaganda on the level of Triumph of Will doesn't exist in American society.
I invite those people to go watch the following movie and try and tell me afterwards that propaganda doesn't exist.
Its the next Chris Helmsworth movie, a remake of a 1984 war story by the same name, Red Dawn. Helmsworth, known more popularly as his role of Thor from the Marvel movies, plays an ex soldier who organizes a resistance against an invading army from North Korea that uses new technologies to shut down America's defenses. The movie employs a "healthy" amount of explosives and small arms to sow chaos against the Asian oppressors.
This movie is the very definition of war propaganda. It targets freedom as the basis of American culture and security, and the fear of having it taken away. The resistance is reminescent of American Revolution, using guerilla tactics and warfare to take on the larger force.
Yet the truth of the matter is the premise of the movie relies heavily upon the imaginations of the viewers to work. The technology used in the movie sounds like a large scale EMP bomb, for which the N. Koreans planned for ahead of time. The American military, which uses technology in many of their armaments, would not be crippled by EMP considering the contingencies in place, and the vast amount and ability of the nation to arm itself independently. The logisitics also don't make sense, considering that the movie originally was designed with China in mind, but was switch to N. Korea post production.
This movie is propaganda thinly veiled to prepare the public for war with an Asian nation. Even the director made a statement that the purpose of the movie was to scare the public much in the way that the original movie scared movie viewers. "The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the
post-9/11 world that we're in. As 'Red Dawn' scared the heck out of
people in 1984, we feel that the world is kind of already filled with a
lot of paranoia and unease, so why not scare the hell out of people
again?" - Carl Ellsworth, screenwriter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn_%282012_film%29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6T2Q4bBcUU
Two points, one has to do with the image of the enemy. In 1984 it was Russians, now it was supposed to be Chinese until the Studio execs realized that Chinese may want to see this movie. Second one has to do with the question of whether it is propaganda. Triumph of the Will was made by the political party to project a particular image of that party. This movie may be jingoistic, but I wonder if it is equivalent.
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