Bella Hadid posted up a picture of her and the Weekend, a ghetto kid from Toronto, who is now the voice of America….and her caption was “HOME”….because she’s a fucking lame piece of shit, with her hopeless romantic young love, despite me knowing people who have FUCKED the Weekend while he was dating Bella the first time, but I guess she’s just a self involved rich kid with Daddy issues, who is so into herself she doesn’t even care where dude’s putting his dick as long as it ends up in her and she gets to be the public girlfriend…. The point of the story is that I don’t consider Bella Hadid a model, even if the rest of the world and her bank account and portfolio tell a different story. I am a firm believer that she’s just an amateur pretending to be a model, because it’s not that hard to be a model, and she only gets jobs because America is fucked in the head. I don’t care when this fake face, that is still a rat face, gets naked…but I guess other people do..because America likes what they are told to like…it’s what happens when Propaganda in the media has been a thing for 100 fucking years, you eventually don’t have a mind of your own. I do have to post these nudes, because…Bella Hadid….is relevant, unfortunately…Lame, rich, no substance, zero inspiring…but relevant. I blame you. JOIN THE NEWSLETTER YOU ASSHOLES! The post Bella Hadid Still Naked and Annoying of the Day appeared first on DrunkenStepFather.com .
Katy Perry attended some MINNIE MOUSE event, who she refers to as Minerva Mouse, because she’s just on such good terms with the secret society at Disney who basically run Hollywood, from pedophile rings to deciding which shitty puppet they will use for their propaganda…because the only explanation that Katy Perry has such a lucrative and prolific career being an ugly monster of a woman, with no good song, nothing interesting to say, no great stage presence…or talent…is she’s a pawn in some bigger picture…. That said, it was Minnie’s 90th Birthday of giving women Unrealistic body expectations, you know they have to grow up knowing they’ll never grow ears as big, and it’s too bad that it’s not Katy Perry’s 90th birthday, because the liklihood of her dying would be far greater than they are…instead, we’re going to be stuck with this fat ass cankle pile of shit and her smut for years to come thanks to her constant self promotion. Yay. TO SEE THE REST OF THE PICS WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO CLICK HERE The post Katy Perry is Disgusting of the Day appeared first on DrunkenStepFather.com .
I woke up with a morning election. Here’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to the Colbert Report as Letterman… Obviously, I watched the RNC, not because I am American or can vote, but because I am a citizen of the fucking world and seeing a reality show muppet talk total nonsense as idiots cheer on – is serious comedy, satire, a joke…in what should be the most serious of venues. I watched the speech – he said nothing – he didn’t even make sense, he wasn’t even charming, he was just making sounds in weird voices – with an occasional dismissive “USA USA USA” and an occasional “Believe It”…it is a fucking joke. I love when the ignorant idiots on my social media say “get back to tits” as if all I do is tits, but they have the mental capacity that can only see tits, so I get how trump got into this. The TV and He has told me he’s a billionaire over and over again, he’d be a President…but we all know at our core that he only ran as a joke, a publicity stunt, and it went way further than expected, which played to his ego – all while he is laughing at all of you….and now he’s in over his head and committed to the troll, which as a troll, is the ultimate and only impressive thing about the campaign….that’s not to say Trump is a comedian or trying to be funny or even realizes he is trolling, he was obviously driven by ego and narcissism to get started on this, it was all marketing himself in the beginning, not a joke but rather self promotion and thanks to weak contenders got this far….he doesn’t actually care about making America Great…but he’ll keep saying it over and over so people on an emotional level believe…. I am not American but I have a brain, eyes and ears and I know when people are lying, when they are pandering to basic people by saying what they want to hear… I also looked up the MURDER rate of the last 30 years which is down, so making America Safe in an era where it is statistically its safest, by putting a lot of attention to crime like sensationalized media does for ratings…is just manipulation tactics…and if you don’t see that, you just want to believe so bad that the root of your problems is illegals who help your economy and Big Business manufacturing overseas – which has everything to do with BIG BUSINESS making those decisions to rape you of your money. It’s not trade deals….they made those trade deals to make higher margins and cheaper manufacturing….. So Make America Great…it’s already fine..so this propaganda is jokes, but works, which is bigger jokes… Here he is rubbing his daughter inappropriately after her bullshit leftist speech about her dad like a good Christian who converted to Orthodox Judaism like all good Republicans… The post John Stewart Does Coblert on RNC of the Day appeared first on DrunkenStepfather .
Celebrity culture is dead. The Emmys are 67, which is retirement age….ridden with diabetes, high blood pressure and impending stroke, and/or breast cancer….and that makes me pretty happy…because celebs and useless, nonsense, irrelevant awards for people who make tens of thousands of dollars a day, making millions of dollars a year, polluting our minds with garbage content that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things…. Sure, some people binge watch TV, between taking selfies, watching porn, and having porn-like size, and I believe that anyone with a brain under 40 didn’t care that these happened, myself included, I only found out they were happening the day they were happening…I had no idea… I also don’t watch TV, but if I did, the last thing I would watch….is any award show…that further strokes the ego of this insular, average at best, lazy industry…. I’ve never watched award shows – or been into award shows…the good stuff never gets nominated…it’s too obscure…so they go against my everything and the good news, is that the young I fuck don’t care about that nonsense – and it’s a good sign, even though I have a celebrity hate blog…which is also something 20 year olds find compelling at that works for me…because older girls are disgusting and don’t understand why I’m like a teen girl in what I do all day…it’s a format…you know.. All this to say, fuck the Emmmy, while I fuck 20 year olds who are too self involved to notice the Emmys, but not too self involved to try to fist their friend they are experimenting with while I watch… I guess, what I am saying is when a bunch of idiots got overpaid to do a silly, average at best, variety show act…in an era where we have options to not watch the propaganda….-for people to watch other bitches awarded for shit and not them is against the “me”generation mentality. So instead, I sexted so hard my hand cramped up…..be jealous… Here are some of the sluts from the event, none of whom matter, none that were that hot or interesting…but I figure if all these money and hype went into the shit, might as well look at what matters, the tits, legs and bullshit around these idiots getting dolled up to perpetuate their lies… I don’t even know half of these idiots…So out of the loop… TO SEE EVERYTHING EMMYS CLICK HERE Heidi Klum in Yellow…. Nancy O’Dell Celebrating her 67th Birthday….along with Padma Lakshmi GUNT…. Emma Roberts is a Babe… Lady Gaga Fart Stance…Cuz She’s Pre-Shit Some Chick Named Dascha Polanco and her THIGHS Sofia Vergara the Whore…Fooling all you fools… Sophie Turner…. Christina Hendricks Tank…. TO SEE EVERYTHING EMMYS CLICK HERE Giuliana Rancic Weak Chin – Mr Burns Stance…How is She On TV Token Scientologist – Donna from that 70s Show Aubrey Plaza….because people like her… Claire Danes and her So Called Face… Morena Baccarin…Tits. Cat Deeley – Pregnant… Zoe Kazan…Weak Chin… TO SEE EVERYTHING EMMYS CLICK HERE Jamie Lee Curtis was born with a Dick… Sarah Hyland looks like a Creepy Never Aging Doll…. I don’t know who Witney Carson is but I want to pay her 10 dollars a song… Abigail Spencer is not Abigail Breslin… Abigail Breslin is Little Miss Sunshine..Who is big… Halston Sage is the future…. Some January Jones….in September…How is that even Possible… Natasha Lyonne…No Longer a Wreck…BOOOOO! Stephanie Tanner was a Better Meth Addict…Jodi Sweetin not Sweetin Enough… Julianne Hough…fucks her brother… Jesus that was so fucking uneventfull…..awful….boring and not porning…if any of this turns you on, you’re fucked…let’s make it worse…with Amy Schumer Terrifying Bloated Face TO SEE EVERYTHING EMMYS CLICK HERE The post The 67th Emmys Happened of the Day appeared first on DrunkenStepfather .
Three new Ender’s Game propaganda posters have emerged, recruiting capable soldiers in the fight against alien attacks. Take a look at this one, which urges you to joint he next generation of heroes: Asa Butterfield stars as Ender in the adaptation from the Orson Scott Card novel. Following an alien attack, Earth is preparing the new generation of soldiers in case the aliens return. Ender may turn out to be the skilled leader they’ve been looking for. Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Abigail Breslin, Hailee Steinfeld, Aramis Knight, Moises Arias, and Viola Davis round out the cast. Gavin Hood directs the film, which he also wrote. See Ender’s Game in theaters November 1.
The biggest upset of this year’s Oscars took place weeks before the actual ceremony, when Zero Dark Thirty helmer Kathryn Bigelow was snubbed for a Best Director nod. Conventional wisdom holds that debates about torture and political bias in the Osama Bin Laden thanato-pic, which began weeks before the film’s release, derailed Bigelow’s chances at a second statuette. But the bigger story – one that’s hardly been told – is that Bigelow’s partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency during the production of ZDT inadvertently shined an unwelcome spotlight on the military-entertainment complex: the surprisingly close and definitely reciprocal relationship between Hollywood and the Pentagon. If, as some have alleged, the CIA did share confidential information with Bigelow and ZDT screenwriter Mark Boal – or lied to them – about the role of torture in the manhunt for Bin Laden, that’s certainly cause for debate, censure, and possibly even stronger measures.(Right.) But it’s not just the isolated cases of Bigelow, Boal and their sources that merit closer political scrutiny: It’s time we took a good, hard look at how the military-entertainment complex operates. Cooperation between Hollywood and the military brass goes back to the 1920s, when the Pentagon helped produce Wings , the first Best Picture Oscar-winner. The relationship between the studios and the armed forces has waxed and waned in the decades since, but tends to get cozier in times of conflict. During World War II, for instance, the Department of Defense enlisted Hollywood as its virtual press agent: one Pentagon memo called wartime Disney shorts aimed at children – tomorrow’s recruits – “an excellent opportunity to introduce a whole new generation to the [newly] nuclear Navy.” According to The Hollywood Reporter , it wasn’t until the 1980s, after memories of Vietnam had begun to fade, that “a steady growth [occurred] in the demand for access to military facilities and in the number of films, TV shows and home videos made about the military.” Sure, the decade saw the release of a number of searing films about Vietnam, such as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket , but most of the military-themed films fed to the public were hyper-macho, bazooka-toting fantasy fare like Top Gun , Red Dawn , Rambo II , and Predator . That increasing synergy between Hollywood and the Pentagon led to the current military-entertainment complex in which studios get to use taxpayer-subsidized military locations, equipment, personnel, and expertise in exchange for giving the military script approval. In this disproportionate exchange of power, the studios get significantly reduced production budgets, while the Pentagon gets to harness the power of cinema (and television) to advance a pro-war, pro-military agenda where multiplexes, flat screens and PCs become virtual recruitment offices. A prime example of this dynamic at work was last year’s Navy SEAL porn flick, Act of Valor , which hit theaters just a few months after SEAL Team Six assassinated Bin Laden. As a film drafted within the Pentagon and pitched to studios — a reversal of standard operating procedure — Act of Valor hails back to the days of World War II, when the military enlisted Hollywood in the production of naked propaganda. (In an inspired but ultimately unsuccessful move, active-duty NAVY Seals also made up the cast.) The film was received as the propaganda that it was; the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in its review that ” Act of Valor is intended to wow audiences with high-test action while planting a giant wet kiss on the smacker of the U.S. military – and it scores at both tasks.” The Military-Entertainment Complex doesn’t just produce overt propaganda, by the way. It has also had a hand in mindless, seemingly apolitical popcorn movies. Take Battleship , director Peter Berg’s board game-based stinker from last summer. (The picture is noteworthy for practically ending the big-screen dreams of Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna .) Along with Act of Valor and the upcoming Captain Philips and Lone Survivor , Battleship was one of four films that the U.S. Navy had a hand in producing last year. U.S. Navy documents, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request via Muckrock (where you can view them in their entirety), show that the Department of Defense’s decision to work with Berg and Universal hinged on one main question: “Do we believe that [the movie] could have a positive impact on recruiting?” The Navy concluded yes, confidently declaring, “ Battleship will certainly continue to be a conversation starter that carries our ‘brand’ to many Americans who aren’t familiar with their Navy.” Apparently unconcerned that Battleship is about naval forces battling an alien invasion, Navy officials got Universal to agree “to consult with the DoD Project Officer [the technical advisor] in all phases of pre-production, production, and post-production that involve and/or depict the U.S. military” in order to ensure that the script “positively represents our service and our Sailors” and “accurately portray[s] the Navy.” Specifically, that meant the Department of Defense had veto power over every word of the script, with any military-related changes having to go through another approval process. The DoD also mandated contractually obligated screenings of the rough cut, when changes to the film could still be made, as well as a screening of the final cut in Washington, D.C., before the film’s theatrical release. The Department of Defense also insured that its public affairs personnel were able to take pictures and videos of the film’s cast, crew, and sets and were granted full permission to use those images, as well as any of the film’s marketing materials. The Department of Defense Production Assistance Agreement states that the Navy would employ those pictures and videos solely for internal use, but doesn’t guarantee that they won’t be visible to the public. “Some of the imagery may be viewed by the general public if posted on an open DoD web site or on ‘The Pentagon Channel,’ or other publicly-accessible media source,” states the agreement, opening the door to use those backlot shots as a recruitment aid. As if life as a Navy sailor had anything to do with a mission to destroy an alien mothership hovering over Hawaii. In the case of Battleship , the Navy reportedly agreed to participate because “whether or not we supported Battleship , the film was going to be made – it was going to carry our brand and represent who we are to the American people.” That would have been an unfavorable scenario for the Navy, but also an extremely unlikely one, since Battleship ’s production budget – already $209 million with the help of the Navy’s resources, including props, backgrounds, extras, and technical expertise – would have probably been too prohibitive had Universal been forced to bear all those costs. The Navy also considered the question “Can we support a film without impacting our operations?” It answered for itself: “Because filming took place on top of already scheduled training events, it did not impair the exercise and there was no cost to the Navy or American taxpayers.” But the lack of any immediate or upfront costs in this one case doesn’t address the questions of why citizens should subsidize Hollywood films – since all the military expertise and materiel appearing in these films are paid for with taxes – or how Americans would benefit from publicly funded propaganda for state-supported violence. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times , an Army spokesman indirectly responded to those concerns, stating, “We [the military] get asked all the time, ‘Why do you market?’ We’re a nation at war going on 11 years, which is … the longest period of consistent conflict that the U.S. Army’s ever been involved in”. Given the recent news that military suicides surpassed combat deaths and surged to a record high in 2012 and that sexual assault remains a disturbingly frequent and unpunished behavior within the armed forces, you can expect Pentagon brass will be looking for more positive depictions of the lives of U.S. soldiers and sailors in the coming months. And as studio budgets continue to rise and military enlistment continues to decline, neither Hollywood nor the Pentagon has any reason to disengage from the military-entertainment complex. And if studios are going to continue to get into bed with the military then taxpaying moviegoers have a right to know when they are being bombarded with propaganda that they’ve essentially financed. A modest step toward greater transparency – one that’s easy and cost-efficient to boot – would be adding a disclosure tag at the beginning of movies that have involved the participation of the armed forces. The Department of Defense already mandates that all movies the military helps to produce must thank the relevant branch of service, but that acknowledgement typically occurs at the very end of the closing credits. Such a disclosure tag wouldn’t just provide a franker context for the film to come. Given the Pentagon’s less-than-stellar track record with film production, it would also serve as a warning to audiences that they should lower their expectations. Now that’s patriotism. Inkoo Kang is a film critic and investigative journalist in Boston. She has been published in Indiewire, Boxoffice Magazine, Yahoo! Movies, Pop Matters, Screen Junkies, and MuckRock. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of All About Eve with an all-dog cast. FOIA battleship Follow Inkoo Kang on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The biggest upset of this year’s Oscars took place weeks before the actual ceremony, when Zero Dark Thirty helmer Kathryn Bigelow was snubbed for a Best Director nod. Conventional wisdom holds that debates about torture and political bias in the Osama Bin Laden thanato-pic, which began weeks before the film’s release, derailed Bigelow’s chances at a second statuette. But the bigger story – one that’s hardly been told – is that Bigelow’s partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency during the production of ZDT inadvertently shined an unwelcome spotlight on the military-entertainment complex: the surprisingly close and definitely reciprocal relationship between Hollywood and the Pentagon. If, as some have alleged, the CIA did share confidential information with Bigelow and ZDT screenwriter Mark Boal – or lied to them – about the role of torture in the manhunt for Bin Laden, that’s certainly cause for debate, censure, and possibly even stronger measures.(Right.) But it’s not just the isolated cases of Bigelow, Boal and their sources that merit closer political scrutiny: It’s time we took a good, hard look at how the military-entertainment complex operates. Cooperation between Hollywood and the military brass goes back to the 1920s, when the Pentagon helped produce Wings , the first Best Picture Oscar-winner. The relationship between the studios and the armed forces has waxed and waned in the decades since, but tends to get cozier in times of conflict. During World War II, for instance, the Department of Defense enlisted Hollywood as its virtual press agent: one Pentagon memo called wartime Disney shorts aimed at children – tomorrow’s recruits – “an excellent opportunity to introduce a whole new generation to the [newly] nuclear Navy.” According to The Hollywood Reporter , it wasn’t until the 1980s, after memories of Vietnam had begun to fade, that “a steady growth [occurred] in the demand for access to military facilities and in the number of films, TV shows and home videos made about the military.” Sure, the decade saw the release of a number of searing films about Vietnam, such as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket , but most of the military-themed films fed to the public were hyper-macho, bazooka-toting fantasy fare like Top Gun , Red Dawn , Rambo II , and Predator . That increasing synergy between Hollywood and the Pentagon led to the current military-entertainment complex in which studios get to use taxpayer-subsidized military locations, equipment, personnel, and expertise in exchange for giving the military script approval. In this disproportionate exchange of power, the studios get significantly reduced production budgets, while the Pentagon gets to harness the power of cinema (and television) to advance a pro-war, pro-military agenda where multiplexes, flat screens and PCs become virtual recruitment offices. A prime example of this dynamic at work was last year’s Navy SEAL porn flick, Act of Valor , which hit theaters just a few months after SEAL Team Six assassinated Bin Laden. As a film drafted within the Pentagon and pitched to studios — a reversal of standard operating procedure — Act of Valor hails back to the days of World War II, when the military enlisted Hollywood in the production of naked propaganda. (In an inspired but ultimately unsuccessful move, active-duty NAVY Seals also made up the cast.) The film was received as the propaganda that it was; the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in its review that ” Act of Valor is intended to wow audiences with high-test action while planting a giant wet kiss on the smacker of the U.S. military – and it scores at both tasks.” The Military-Entertainment Complex doesn’t just produce overt propaganda, by the way. It has also had a hand in mindless, seemingly apolitical popcorn movies. Take Battleship , director Peter Berg’s board game-based stinker from last summer. (The picture is noteworthy for practically ending the big-screen dreams of Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna .) Along with Act of Valor and the upcoming Captain Philips and Lone Survivor , Battleship was one of four films that the U.S. Navy had a hand in producing last year. U.S. Navy documents, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request via Muckrock (where you can view them in their entirety), show that the Department of Defense’s decision to work with Berg and Universal hinged on one main question: “Do we believe that [the movie] could have a positive impact on recruiting?” The Navy concluded yes, confidently declaring, “ Battleship will certainly continue to be a conversation starter that carries our ‘brand’ to many Americans who aren’t familiar with their Navy.” Apparently unconcerned that Battleship is about naval forces battling an alien invasion, Navy officials got Universal to agree “to consult with the DoD Project Officer [the technical advisor] in all phases of pre-production, production, and post-production that involve and/or depict the U.S. military” in order to ensure that the script “positively represents our service and our Sailors” and “accurately portray[s] the Navy.” Specifically, that meant the Department of Defense had veto power over every word of the script, with any military-related changes having to go through another approval process. The DoD also mandated contractually obligated screenings of the rough cut, when changes to the film could still be made, as well as a screening of the final cut in Washington, D.C., before the film’s theatrical release. The Department of Defense also insured that its public affairs personnel were able to take pictures and videos of the film’s cast, crew, and sets and were granted full permission to use those images, as well as any of the film’s marketing materials. The Department of Defense Production Assistance Agreement states that the Navy would employ those pictures and videos solely for internal use, but doesn’t guarantee that they won’t be visible to the public. “Some of the imagery may be viewed by the general public if posted on an open DoD web site or on ‘The Pentagon Channel,’ or other publicly-accessible media source,” states the agreement, opening the door to use those backlot shots as a recruitment aid. As if life as a Navy sailor had anything to do with a mission to destroy an alien mothership hovering over Hawaii. In the case of Battleship , the Navy reportedly agreed to participate because “whether or not we supported Battleship , the film was going to be made – it was going to carry our brand and represent who we are to the American people.” That would have been an unfavorable scenario for the Navy, but also an extremely unlikely one, since Battleship ’s production budget – already $209 million with the help of the Navy’s resources, including props, backgrounds, extras, and technical expertise – would have probably been too prohibitive had Universal been forced to bear all those costs. The Navy also considered the question “Can we support a film without impacting our operations?” It answered for itself: “Because filming took place on top of already scheduled training events, it did not impair the exercise and there was no cost to the Navy or American taxpayers.” But the lack of any immediate or upfront costs in this one case doesn’t address the questions of why citizens should subsidize Hollywood films – since all the military expertise and materiel appearing in these films are paid for with taxes – or how Americans would benefit from publicly funded propaganda for state-supported violence. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times , an Army spokesman indirectly responded to those concerns, stating, “We [the military] get asked all the time, ‘Why do you market?’ We’re a nation at war going on 11 years, which is … the longest period of consistent conflict that the U.S. Army’s ever been involved in”. Given the recent news that military suicides surpassed combat deaths and surged to a record high in 2012 and that sexual assault remains a disturbingly frequent and unpunished behavior within the armed forces, you can expect Pentagon brass will be looking for more positive depictions of the lives of U.S. soldiers and sailors in the coming months. And as studio budgets continue to rise and military enlistment continues to decline, neither Hollywood nor the Pentagon has any reason to disengage from the military-entertainment complex. And if studios are going to continue to get into bed with the military then taxpaying moviegoers have a right to know when they are being bombarded with propaganda that they’ve essentially financed. A modest step toward greater transparency – one that’s easy and cost-efficient to boot – would be adding a disclosure tag at the beginning of movies that have involved the participation of the armed forces. The Department of Defense already mandates that all movies the military helps to produce must thank the relevant branch of service, but that acknowledgement typically occurs at the very end of the closing credits. Such a disclosure tag wouldn’t just provide a franker context for the film to come. Given the Pentagon’s less-than-stellar track record with film production, it would also serve as a warning to audiences that they should lower their expectations. Now that’s patriotism. Inkoo Kang is a film critic and investigative journalist in Boston. She has been published in Indiewire, Boxoffice Magazine, Yahoo! Movies, Pop Matters, Screen Junkies, and MuckRock. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of All About Eve with an all-dog cast. FOIA battleship Follow Inkoo Kang on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The biggest upset of this year’s Oscars took place weeks before the actual ceremony, when Zero Dark Thirty helmer Kathryn Bigelow was snubbed for a Best Director nod. Conventional wisdom holds that debates about torture and political bias in the Osama Bin Laden thanato-pic, which began weeks before the film’s release, derailed Bigelow’s chances at a second statuette. But the bigger story – one that’s hardly been told – is that Bigelow’s partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency during the production of ZDT inadvertently shined an unwelcome spotlight on the military-entertainment complex: the surprisingly close and definitely reciprocal relationship between Hollywood and the Pentagon. If, as some have alleged, the CIA did share confidential information with Bigelow and ZDT screenwriter Mark Boal – or lied to them – about the role of torture in the manhunt for Bin Laden, that’s certainly cause for debate, censure, and possibly even stronger measures.(Right.) But it’s not just the isolated cases of Bigelow, Boal and their sources that merit closer political scrutiny: It’s time we took a good, hard look at how the military-entertainment complex operates. Cooperation between Hollywood and the military brass goes back to the 1920s, when the Pentagon helped produce Wings , the first Best Picture Oscar-winner. The relationship between the studios and the armed forces has waxed and waned in the decades since, but tends to get cozier in times of conflict. During World War II, for instance, the Department of Defense enlisted Hollywood as its virtual press agent: one Pentagon memo called wartime Disney shorts aimed at children – tomorrow’s recruits – “an excellent opportunity to introduce a whole new generation to the [newly] nuclear Navy.” According to The Hollywood Reporter , it wasn’t until the 1980s, after memories of Vietnam had begun to fade, that “a steady growth [occurred] in the demand for access to military facilities and in the number of films, TV shows and home videos made about the military.” Sure, the decade saw the release of a number of searing films about Vietnam, such as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket , but most of the military-themed films fed to the public were hyper-macho, bazooka-toting fantasy fare like Top Gun , Red Dawn , Rambo II , and Predator . That increasing synergy between Hollywood and the Pentagon led to the current military-entertainment complex in which studios get to use taxpayer-subsidized military locations, equipment, personnel, and expertise in exchange for giving the military script approval. In this disproportionate exchange of power, the studios get significantly reduced production budgets, while the Pentagon gets to harness the power of cinema (and television) to advance a pro-war, pro-military agenda where multiplexes, flat screens and PCs become virtual recruitment offices. A prime example of this dynamic at work was last year’s Navy SEAL porn flick, Act of Valor , which hit theaters just a few months after SEAL Team Six assassinated Bin Laden. As a film drafted within the Pentagon and pitched to studios — a reversal of standard operating procedure — Act of Valor hails back to the days of World War II, when the military enlisted Hollywood in the production of naked propaganda. (In an inspired but ultimately unsuccessful move, active-duty NAVY Seals also made up the cast.) The film was received as the propaganda that it was; the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in its review that ” Act of Valor is intended to wow audiences with high-test action while planting a giant wet kiss on the smacker of the U.S. military – and it scores at both tasks.” The Military-Entertainment Complex doesn’t just produce overt propaganda, by the way. It has also had a hand in mindless, seemingly apolitical popcorn movies. Take Battleship , director Peter Berg’s board game-based stinker from last summer. (The picture is noteworthy for practically ending the big-screen dreams of Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna .) Along with Act of Valor and the upcoming Captain Philips and Lone Survivor , Battleship was one of four films that the U.S. Navy had a hand in producing last year. U.S. Navy documents, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request via Muckrock (where you can view them in their entirety), show that the Department of Defense’s decision to work with Berg and Universal hinged on one main question: “Do we believe that [the movie] could have a positive impact on recruiting?” The Navy concluded yes, confidently declaring, “ Battleship will certainly continue to be a conversation starter that carries our ‘brand’ to many Americans who aren’t familiar with their Navy.” Apparently unconcerned that Battleship is about naval forces battling an alien invasion, Navy officials got Universal to agree “to consult with the DoD Project Officer [the technical advisor] in all phases of pre-production, production, and post-production that involve and/or depict the U.S. military” in order to ensure that the script “positively represents our service and our Sailors” and “accurately portray[s] the Navy.” Specifically, that meant the Department of Defense had veto power over every word of the script, with any military-related changes having to go through another approval process. The DoD also mandated contractually obligated screenings of the rough cut, when changes to the film could still be made, as well as a screening of the final cut in Washington, D.C., before the film’s theatrical release. The Department of Defense also insured that its public affairs personnel were able to take pictures and videos of the film’s cast, crew, and sets and were granted full permission to use those images, as well as any of the film’s marketing materials. The Department of Defense Production Assistance Agreement states that the Navy would employ those pictures and videos solely for internal use, but doesn’t guarantee that they won’t be visible to the public. “Some of the imagery may be viewed by the general public if posted on an open DoD web site or on ‘The Pentagon Channel,’ or other publicly-accessible media source,” states the agreement, opening the door to use those backlot shots as a recruitment aid. As if life as a Navy sailor had anything to do with a mission to destroy an alien mothership hovering over Hawaii. In the case of Battleship , the Navy reportedly agreed to participate because “whether or not we supported Battleship , the film was going to be made – it was going to carry our brand and represent who we are to the American people.” That would have been an unfavorable scenario for the Navy, but also an extremely unlikely one, since Battleship ’s production budget – already $209 million with the help of the Navy’s resources, including props, backgrounds, extras, and technical expertise – would have probably been too prohibitive had Universal been forced to bear all those costs. The Navy also considered the question “Can we support a film without impacting our operations?” It answered for itself: “Because filming took place on top of already scheduled training events, it did not impair the exercise and there was no cost to the Navy or American taxpayers.” But the lack of any immediate or upfront costs in this one case doesn’t address the questions of why citizens should subsidize Hollywood films – since all the military expertise and materiel appearing in these films are paid for with taxes – or how Americans would benefit from publicly funded propaganda for state-supported violence. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times , an Army spokesman indirectly responded to those concerns, stating, “We [the military] get asked all the time, ‘Why do you market?’ We’re a nation at war going on 11 years, which is … the longest period of consistent conflict that the U.S. Army’s ever been involved in”. Given the recent news that military suicides surpassed combat deaths and surged to a record high in 2012 and that sexual assault remains a disturbingly frequent and unpunished behavior within the armed forces, you can expect Pentagon brass will be looking for more positive depictions of the lives of U.S. soldiers and sailors in the coming months. And as studio budgets continue to rise and military enlistment continues to decline, neither Hollywood nor the Pentagon has any reason to disengage from the military-entertainment complex. And if studios are going to continue to get into bed with the military then taxpaying moviegoers have a right to know when they are being bombarded with propaganda that they’ve essentially financed. A modest step toward greater transparency – one that’s easy and cost-efficient to boot – would be adding a disclosure tag at the beginning of movies that have involved the participation of the armed forces. The Department of Defense already mandates that all movies the military helps to produce must thank the relevant branch of service, but that acknowledgement typically occurs at the very end of the closing credits. Such a disclosure tag wouldn’t just provide a franker context for the film to come. Given the Pentagon’s less-than-stellar track record with film production, it would also serve as a warning to audiences that they should lower their expectations. Now that’s patriotism. Inkoo Kang is a film critic and investigative journalist in Boston. She has been published in Indiewire, Boxoffice Magazine, Yahoo! Movies, Pop Matters, Screen Junkies, and MuckRock. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of All About Eve with an all-dog cast. FOIA battleship Follow Inkoo Kang on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The biggest upset of this year’s Oscars took place weeks before the actual ceremony, when Zero Dark Thirty helmer Kathryn Bigelow was snubbed for a Best Director nod. Conventional wisdom holds that debates about torture and political bias in the Osama Bin Laden thanato-pic, which began weeks before the film’s release, derailed Bigelow’s chances at a second statuette. But the bigger story – one that’s hardly been told – is that Bigelow’s partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency during the production of ZDT inadvertently shined an unwelcome spotlight on the military-entertainment complex: the surprisingly close and definitely reciprocal relationship between Hollywood and the Pentagon. If, as some have alleged, the CIA did share confidential information with Bigelow and ZDT screenwriter Mark Boal – or lied to them – about the role of torture in the manhunt for Bin Laden, that’s certainly cause for debate, censure, and possibly even stronger measures.(Right.) But it’s not just the isolated cases of Bigelow, Boal and their sources that merit closer political scrutiny: It’s time we took a good, hard look at how the military-entertainment complex operates. Cooperation between Hollywood and the military brass goes back to the 1920s, when the Pentagon helped produce Wings , the first Best Picture Oscar-winner. The relationship between the studios and the armed forces has waxed and waned in the decades since, but tends to get cozier in times of conflict. During World War II, for instance, the Department of Defense enlisted Hollywood as its virtual press agent: one Pentagon memo called wartime Disney shorts aimed at children – tomorrow’s recruits – “an excellent opportunity to introduce a whole new generation to the [newly] nuclear Navy.” According to The Hollywood Reporter , it wasn’t until the 1980s, after memories of Vietnam had begun to fade, that “a steady growth [occurred] in the demand for access to military facilities and in the number of films, TV shows and home videos made about the military.” Sure, the decade saw the release of a number of searing films about Vietnam, such as Platoon and Full Metal Jacket , but most of the military-themed films fed to the public were hyper-macho, bazooka-toting fantasy fare like Top Gun , Red Dawn , Rambo II , and Predator . That increasing synergy between Hollywood and the Pentagon led to the current military-entertainment complex in which studios get to use taxpayer-subsidized military locations, equipment, personnel, and expertise in exchange for giving the military script approval. In this disproportionate exchange of power, the studios get significantly reduced production budgets, while the Pentagon gets to harness the power of cinema (and television) to advance a pro-war, pro-military agenda where multiplexes, flat screens and PCs become virtual recruitment offices. A prime example of this dynamic at work was last year’s Navy SEAL porn flick, Act of Valor , which hit theaters just a few months after SEAL Team Six assassinated Bin Laden. As a film drafted within the Pentagon and pitched to studios — a reversal of standard operating procedure — Act of Valor hails back to the days of World War II, when the military enlisted Hollywood in the production of naked propaganda. (In an inspired but ultimately unsuccessful move, active-duty NAVY Seals also made up the cast.) The film was received as the propaganda that it was; the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in its review that ” Act of Valor is intended to wow audiences with high-test action while planting a giant wet kiss on the smacker of the U.S. military – and it scores at both tasks.” The Military-Entertainment Complex doesn’t just produce overt propaganda, by the way. It has also had a hand in mindless, seemingly apolitical popcorn movies. Take Battleship , director Peter Berg’s board game-based stinker from last summer. (The picture is noteworthy for practically ending the big-screen dreams of Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna .) Along with Act of Valor and the upcoming Captain Philips and Lone Survivor , Battleship was one of four films that the U.S. Navy had a hand in producing last year. U.S. Navy documents, acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request via Muckrock (where you can view them in their entirety), show that the Department of Defense’s decision to work with Berg and Universal hinged on one main question: “Do we believe that [the movie] could have a positive impact on recruiting?” The Navy concluded yes, confidently declaring, “ Battleship will certainly continue to be a conversation starter that carries our ‘brand’ to many Americans who aren’t familiar with their Navy.” Apparently unconcerned that Battleship is about naval forces battling an alien invasion, Navy officials got Universal to agree “to consult with the DoD Project Officer [the technical advisor] in all phases of pre-production, production, and post-production that involve and/or depict the U.S. military” in order to ensure that the script “positively represents our service and our Sailors” and “accurately portray[s] the Navy.” Specifically, that meant the Department of Defense had veto power over every word of the script, with any military-related changes having to go through another approval process. The DoD also mandated contractually obligated screenings of the rough cut, when changes to the film could still be made, as well as a screening of the final cut in Washington, D.C., before the film’s theatrical release. The Department of Defense also insured that its public affairs personnel were able to take pictures and videos of the film’s cast, crew, and sets and were granted full permission to use those images, as well as any of the film’s marketing materials. The Department of Defense Production Assistance Agreement states that the Navy would employ those pictures and videos solely for internal use, but doesn’t guarantee that they won’t be visible to the public. “Some of the imagery may be viewed by the general public if posted on an open DoD web site or on ‘The Pentagon Channel,’ or other publicly-accessible media source,” states the agreement, opening the door to use those backlot shots as a recruitment aid. As if life as a Navy sailor had anything to do with a mission to destroy an alien mothership hovering over Hawaii. In the case of Battleship , the Navy reportedly agreed to participate because “whether or not we supported Battleship , the film was going to be made – it was going to carry our brand and represent who we are to the American people.” That would have been an unfavorable scenario for the Navy, but also an extremely unlikely one, since Battleship ’s production budget – already $209 million with the help of the Navy’s resources, including props, backgrounds, extras, and technical expertise – would have probably been too prohibitive had Universal been forced to bear all those costs. The Navy also considered the question “Can we support a film without impacting our operations?” It answered for itself: “Because filming took place on top of already scheduled training events, it did not impair the exercise and there was no cost to the Navy or American taxpayers.” But the lack of any immediate or upfront costs in this one case doesn’t address the questions of why citizens should subsidize Hollywood films – since all the military expertise and materiel appearing in these films are paid for with taxes – or how Americans would benefit from publicly funded propaganda for state-supported violence. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times , an Army spokesman indirectly responded to those concerns, stating, “We [the military] get asked all the time, ‘Why do you market?’ We’re a nation at war going on 11 years, which is … the longest period of consistent conflict that the U.S. Army’s ever been involved in”. Given the recent news that military suicides surpassed combat deaths and surged to a record high in 2012 and that sexual assault remains a disturbingly frequent and unpunished behavior within the armed forces, you can expect Pentagon brass will be looking for more positive depictions of the lives of U.S. soldiers and sailors in the coming months. And as studio budgets continue to rise and military enlistment continues to decline, neither Hollywood nor the Pentagon has any reason to disengage from the military-entertainment complex. And if studios are going to continue to get into bed with the military then taxpaying moviegoers have a right to know when they are being bombarded with propaganda that they’ve essentially financed. A modest step toward greater transparency – one that’s easy and cost-efficient to boot – would be adding a disclosure tag at the beginning of movies that have involved the participation of the armed forces. The Department of Defense already mandates that all movies the military helps to produce must thank the relevant branch of service, but that acknowledgement typically occurs at the very end of the closing credits. Such a disclosure tag wouldn’t just provide a franker context for the film to come. Given the Pentagon’s less-than-stellar track record with film production, it would also serve as a warning to audiences that they should lower their expectations. Now that’s patriotism. Inkoo Kang is a film critic and investigative journalist in Boston. She has been published in Indiewire, Boxoffice Magazine, Yahoo! Movies, Pop Matters, Screen Junkies, and MuckRock. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of All About Eve with an all-dog cast. FOIA battleship Follow Inkoo Kang on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
