Dark Hollywood: Media Control in Hollywood... Government Propaganda and Celebrities' PAID PR
Another Friday, another Dark Hollywood post! Today’s Dark Hollywood post will be all about the media and how it gets touched up, edited, and works hand in hand with Hollywood. We will also talk about the ways Hollywood celebrities can control the media.
Blogmas part 2 just went up, so go check out the new schedule here.
A common statement we always say here on ESMG is that celebrities are really just an image of power, and often times it’s the things that happen behind closed doors with the people we can’t name off the top of our heads that are the ones holding control.
This brings us to something we often hear about and that is propaganda.
What is Propaganda?
Propaganda is usually defined as a type of communication aimed to serve a goal to the masses. It’s a huge “message-sending” method that urges you to move towards something or to believe in something.
People are often times split between liking propaganda and hating it because in many cases, propaganda conceals real issues and uses keywords like freedom, integrity, or patriarchy to get you to think something is okay.
It’s like when the United States aids in a war somewhere and tries to cover up its role by adding the word freedom to it.
Getty Images
For example, the US and Iraqi war which lasted from 2003 to 2011 was called “Operation Iraqi Freedom” rather than just calling it a war. This was to serve the purpose that freedom is something America does and needs.
Not sure what killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians does but by adding freedom and operation, it acts as a patriarchal disguise that lets the U.S. do whatever they want in the eyes of an American.
Luke Sharrett/Getty Images
Don’t get me wrong, not all acts of propaganda are bad, in fact, many people argue that propaganda can’t be boxed into a “good or bad” category because some social movements need propaganda to work as well.
The Government’s Involvement IN Hollywood
Politics and Hollywood work so hand in hand it’s almost merged into one. The reason for this is that… Hollywood is all about media, and politics is also all about media.
So when you have two huge forces (Hollywood & politics) using one massive communication factor (the media), you wanna make sure you share the power while pulling the strings.
The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and the Pentagon (Department of Defense) work with Hollywood filmmakers to send out messages.
It sounds silly, but that’s because we’ve been programmed to think Hollywood is foolish while the government is the opposite.
This is a fact though. The CIA and the Pentagon have been involved in making some of the biggest films known today. Their involvement consists of assisting films, approving movie messages, clarifying facts for a script, and even going as far as writing their own parts to give to directors.
In the 1990s, there was an increase in the CIA’s involvement with Hollywood films because they wanted to be portrayed as heroes and protectors of America.
What better than to get iconic actors, Al Pacino, Bruce Willis, Richard Dean Anderson, Brad Pitt, James Bond and SO MUCH MORE to get the message across?
There are over hundreds of different actors and actresses who have all played a part in at least one military CIA agent movie storyline. This type of propaganda is to put the CIA’s name out there and make them look like the superheroes of America.
A lot of the time the storylines for these movies are about American nationalism, stopping terrorist attacks, fighting in the wars overseas, spy missions, and overall storylines targeting countries like Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq, and so on.
This type of media propaganda is to ensure that the United States stays one of the most powerful countries and gets Americans to believe how the government is being run.
The Pentagon is much more powerful than the CIA and its involvement in movies almost works as a business deal between them and filmmakers.
Basically, the Pentagon has really cool tools and weapons like submarines, aircraft carriers, tanks, and all that fun stuff. Filmmakers who enjoy going above and beyond (especially if they’re making a huge blockbuster movie) will ask the Pentagon if they can borrow their stuff.
This comes with a price of course. Not only does this business deal cost a lot of money, but it also costs giving up your script to be changed.
Supposedly they’ll ask to see your script and if they like the message you’re promoting such as painting the military in a good light, they’ll let you borrow their stuff. If they don’t like your script, they’ll either change certain parts or simply deny you any sort of help.
How Did The Government Get Involved With Hollywood?
During the Cold War era, the American government was facing a lot of criticism from the Soviet Union and its supporters.
In order to counter what their opposing sides said about them, the CIA urged the movement to use propaganda in films to send out mass-scale messages. They also allegedly tried to stop any bad press about them coming from their own side in Hollywood.
At the height of the Cold War, Hollywood was under a lot of scrutiny by U.S. political forces and the CIA sent its own undercover agents to studios to monitor and take note of what was going on.
For example, a senior executive from Paramount Studios said in order to combat what the Soviet Union said about how badly America treats and views African Americans, they started putting African Americans in movies and presented them really well. They had them wear respectful clothes and gave them respectful jobs.
After the Cold War ended, the CIA continued working with Hollywood filmmakers to show Congress and the rest of the nation, how important their agency and institution is.
This leads us to many…many…many…films about secret spy missions, the CIA as a whole, the military, war overseas, Osama Bin Ladin, and more.
Your Favorite Celebrities, Movies, and TV SHOWS that use Government Propaganda
Alias, starring Jennifer Garner, Bradley Cooper, Ron Rifkin.
Homeland Showtime, starring Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Mandy Patinkin
The Agency, starring Gil Bellows, Rocky Carroll, Ronny Cox
The Sum Of All Fears, starring Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, Ron Rifkin
Charlie Wilson’s War, starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Emily Blunt
The Recruit, starring Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynahan
007, starring Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Connery
Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges
This is just about 20% of the movies and shows being made out there that have the green light from the government.
Movie Parts The Government Took Out
In one of the Hulk movies, there was a reference to an American tactic during the Vietnam war where soldiers poisoned Vietnamese farmland and killed their crops. That was taken out.
In the 007 movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, there was a suggestion that the U.S. did not win World War 3, and that had to be cut out.
In one of the Iron Man movies, there was a reference to an increase in soldier suicides and the Pentagon insisted that it be removed.
Do you know what they didn’t remove? The scene in Iron Man where Tony Stark was kidnapped by Islamic Terrorists who communicated with each other in Arabic.
Do Celebrities control media?
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Celebrities have a form of media control as well. Since they are not political/public figures they don’t really have messages they’ll try to send out.
Their fame comes from them and their work so it’s not like they need to send you signals about joining a war.
Celebrities control narratives about themselves in the media. They do this in interviews, documentaries, and by hiring PR companies.
When a celebrity has a documentary coming out, this is usually done to promote a narrative or image that they want you to know.
They’ll show you how famous they are, how successful they are, how nice they are, how much charity they do, how the media affects their mental health, and so on.
Taylor Swifts Netflix documentary ‘Miss Americana’ tugged on the mental health issues the media gave her when it came to them analyzing her body.
This in return has fans and people go against the media and assures Taylor that any type of talk about her body, won’t be tolerated. She also took over the narrative of why she never spoke out on political issues because “label executives have been telling her not to.”
By coming against the media which is something we see today with Prince Harry and Meghan, you aim to DISCREDIT them… even if the story is TRUE. This is why celebrities who have a reputation to fix, will make a documentary so you can see it from THEIR PERSPECTIVE.
Justin Bieber’s documentary ‘Believe’ didn’t once open up about the drug abuse that was happening behind the scenes but rather focuses on him learning from his mistakes in the past years. This led fans to think that he was back to being the happy boy from 2010 when in reality… he wasn’t.
Selena Gomez’s documentary, ‘My Mind and Me’ doesn’t once open up about drug addiction and the fear of overdosing, but rather focuses on psychosis and lupus. Leading fans to believe all her issues stem from mental health and lupus.
Very few documentaries will sit there and point the blame on the celebrity for their wrongdoings. Justin Bieber only took back all his “I was always positive and healthy” bull and fully opened up ten years later.
Some won’t ever open up and some only will as a “ my last interview” special.
Other ways celebrities control the media is by having the PR company they hired pay magazines to put out a certain number of good stories about them each month.
The PR company will pay a monthly fee to ensure that the media outlets and magazines are putting out good stories about their client even if it’s a lie. Meghan Markle is notorious for doing this.
Celebrities are often not in control of threatening the government. Supposedly the ones who tried threatening them behind closed doors get killed.
There’s an entire conspiracy that Marilyn Monroe got killed because during her time with the Kennedy Brothers, she learned a lot of government secrets and tried threatening them.
Certainly doesn’t seem to be a coincidence when JFK was later assassinated because there were conspiracies that he wanted to expose the government as well.
There are even rumors that Justin Bieber tried to expose the PizzaGate controversy in his music video for Yummy and I was told by sources that allegedly, people in his team told him to stop and that he wasn’t big enough to take on an entire country’s secrets.
Millions of people around the world believe that Michael Jackson was killed because he started threatening to open up about the industry abuse he’d seen and all of their secrets as well.
There’s even a theory that he wanted to expose grooming in Hollywood and in turn, they filled back on him which goes back to what our source told you about Death in Dark Hollywood and that’s they will use a warning for you to BACK OFF before they take action.
So it’s pretty safe to say that celebrities are on the lower end of the ladder when it comes to the government and the media, but they still spend hundreds of thousands trying to control the media.
Hope you guys enjoyed this post! This is a crazy topic and we can dive deeper together in the comment section below where you can ask me any questions, and I’ll answer them!
We have an ongoing BLOGMAS schedule going on right now so check it out!
