Military-entertainment complex

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The military-entertainment complex is the cooperation between the military and entertainment industries to their mutual benefit, especially in such fields as cinema, multimedia, virtual reality, and multisensory extended reality. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Movies

Major General Graves B. Erskine talks with John Wayne during the filming of Sands of Iwo Jima. Major General Graves B. Erskine and John Wayne on Set of Sands of Iwo Jima, 1949.jpg
Major General Graves B. Erskine talks with John Wayne during the filming of Sands of Iwo Jima .
Director Michael Bay (in a white shirt) filming Transformers in an E-3 Sentry in Edwards Air Force Base, United States (2006). Michael Bay at filming of Transformers at Edwards AFB 2006-09-08 1.jpg
Director Michael Bay (in a white shirt) filming Transformers in an E-3 Sentry in Edwards Air Force Base, United States (2006).

In Hollywood, many movie and television productions are, by choice, contractually supervised by the Department of Defense's (DoD's) Entertainment Media Unit within the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, and by the public affairs offices of the military services maintained solely for the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Producers looking to borrow military equipment or filming on location at a military installation for their works need to apply to the DoD, and submit their movies' scripts for vetting. Ultimately, the DoD has a say in every US-made movie that uses DoD resources, not available on the open market, in their productions. [4]

During World War II, Hollywood "became the unofficial propaganda arm of the U.S. military". The United States Office of War Information (OWI) had a unit exclusively dedicated to Hollywood called the Bureau of Motion Pictures. From 1942 to 1945, the OWI's Bureau of Motion Pictures reviewed 1,652 film scripts and revised or discarded any that portrayed the United States in a negative light, including material that made Americans seem "oblivious to the war or anti-war." Elmer Davis, the head of the OWI, said that "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 they're being propagandized". [5]

Four decades after the release of the 1954 adult animated film Animal Farm , Cold War historian Tony Shaw discovered, through looking at archives of the film, that the CIA had secretly purchased the rights to the film. The CIA also altered the ending of the film so that the pigs, who represent communists, were overthrown by the other animals on the farm. [6]

The movie Top Gun , produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer at Paramount Pictures, and with DoD assistance, aimed at rebranding the US Navy's image in the post-Vietnam era. By the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, Hollywood producers were stressing script writers to create military-related plots to gain production power from the US military. [7]

Some US movies co-scripted with the DoD include: [8]

The website Spy Culture compiled a list of 410 DoD-sponsored movies. [9]

In 2011, Washington Post journalist David Sirota questioned if that strategy was not unconstitutional, since the DoD directly influences the outcome of movie scripts (abridging freedom of speech) and uses public material (the Army's gear paid by the tax-payers) to grow its influence in the movie industry. [7]

The CIA collaborated extensively in the production of the 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty . [10]

Music videos

Katy Perry's 2012 music video "Part of Me", in which she signs up to join the Marines, was shot at USMC Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, with the support of the Marines. [11] [12] [13]

On YouTube, a new music video genre appeared, the military music videos. Typically, these are video clips portraying singers in military gears and surrounded by military vehicles and weapons. This video genre is used by the Army across the globe (list of examples below) [12]

The United States Air Force has an official rock band, Max Impact, and released a punk version of its official anthem. [12] In early 2019, the US Army released a promotional military hip hop video, "Giving All I got", with the explicit intent to get the attention of the younger crowd. [14] [15]

In February 2019, the armies of The People's Republic Of China and Republic Of China (more commonly Taiwan) made dueling propaganda videos, creating a music video battle. The PRC video (My War Eagles Are Flying Around The Treasured Island) showed PLA jets flying over the Republic Of China (Taiwan), and the ROCAF responded by showing muscles with the video clip Freedom Isn't Free glorifying the strength of the country's army. [16]

Video games

In his book From Sun Tzu to Xbox , Ed Halter wrote "The technologies that shape our culture have always been pushed forward by war". Video games "were not created directly for military purposes, [they] arose out of an intellectual environment whose existence was entirely predicated on defense research". The first known virtual military training equipment, a flight simulator made of wood, was created in the 1920s by Edward Link. Since the Second World War, the US Army and its sub-agencies played a major role in the development of digital computers. [17] The DARPA, an agency of the DoD, contributed to the development of Advanced computing systems, computer graphics, the Internet, multiplayer networked systems, and the 3-D navigation of virtual environments. [17]

Arguably the first video game (faux-military simulation), the PDP-1-powered Spacewar! , was developed in 1962. [17] The US Army's first video game created for training purposes, the board game Mech War, was implemented in the staff officer training curriculum in the 1970s at the Army War College. [17] During the 1980s, Academic and military researchers led the development of distributed interactive simulations (DIS) that enable the creation of real-time, virtual theaters of war. The release by Atari of the game Battlezone was a revolution for the graphics perspective, introducing first-person shooter games for the first time. Donn A. Starry, head of the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), said in a conference in 1981: "[Today's soldiers have] learned to learn in a different world, ... a world of television, electronic toys and games, computers, and a host of other electronic devices. They belong to a TV and technology generation... [so] how is it that our soldiers are still sitting in classrooms, still listening to lectures, still depending on books and other paper reading materials, when possibly new and better methods have been available for many years?" [17] The Air Force captain Jack A. Thorpe developed SIMNET with DARPA, a real-time distributed networking to modernize virtual simulation capacities and enable soldiers to experience war situation in times of peace. The magazine Wired argued this was the real embryo of the Internet. [17]

After the first-person-shooter hit Doom came out in 1993, the Marine Corps Modeling and Simulation Office (MCMSO) released the online Personal Computer Based Wargames Catalog where Army personnel published detailed reviews of the video games they investigated. Doom became the MCMSO's absolute preference, and in 1995, the game Marine Doom was released, and the alien-themed graphics of the game's first version was replaced by military-themed graphics. [17]

Dave Anthony, a writer for Call of Duty , left his job and became an "unknown conflict" adviser for the Department of Defense. [18]

The video game Homefront was created by John Milius, who also wrote/directed the 1984 war film Red Dawn that gave its name to the Operation Red Dawn which led to the capture of Saddam Hussein. [19]

Sometimes the military will create their own games, such as America's Army , a free first-person shooter that was intended to educate and recruit prospective soldiers. [20]

Professional sports

The U.S. Air Force's NASCAR No. 21 is parked May 8, 2007 on display at an unveiling ceremony at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C., in recognition of "American Heroes Memorial Day Salute to the Armed Forces". NASCAR salutes Air Force 070508-D-1142M-042.jpg
The U.S. Air Force's NASCAR No. 21 is parked May 8, 2007 on display at an unveiling ceremony at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C., in recognition of "American Heroes Memorial Day Salute to the Armed Forces".

The U.S. military has provided $53 million in funding to professional sports organizations in exchange for pro-military messaging, such as a "salute" to active duty soldiers and war veterans. This practice is common in the NFL and NASCAR with the "Crucial Catch" and "NASCAR Salutes" programs respectively. [21] [22] [23]

Film Liaison Unit Heads

Philip Strub

Philip Meredith Strub was the head of the DoD's Film Liaison Unit from 1989 to 2018. Strub oversaw the creation of "Dara", a DoD database of all entertainment productions that had approached the department for assistance. Strub received his bachelor's degree in political science from Saint Louis University in Missouri in 1968; was commissioned as a US Navy officer; and received a master's in cinema production in 1974 from the University of Southern California. [24] [25]

David Evans

David Evans became head of the DoD's Film Liaison Unit after Strub's retirement in 2018. Evans spent 13 years as a public affairs specialist at the DoD and then spent four years working as Strub's deputy. Less is known about Evans than even Strub. Shortly after his appointment, his LinkedIn profile was deleted. [26] [27]

See also

Related Research Articles

Simulation Imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time

A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the simulation represents the evolution of the model over time. Often, computers are used to execute the simulation.

<i>Americas Army</i> Series of video games

America's Army is a series of first-person shooter video games developed and published by the U.S. Army, intended to inform, educate, and recruit prospective soldiers. Launched in 2002, the game was branded as a strategic communication device designed to allow Americans to virtually explore the Army at their own pace, and allowed them to determine whether becoming a soldier fits their interests and abilities. America's Army represents the first large-scale use of game technology by the U.S. government as a platform for strategic communication and recruitment, and the first use of game technology in support of U.S. Army recruiting.

A massively multiplayer online game is an online video game with a large numbers of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are games that differ. These games can be found for most network-capable platforms, including the personal computer, video game console, or smartphones and other mobile devices.

James H. Korris, a pioneer of the current trend in game-based simulation for military training, served as Creative Director of the Institute for Creative Technologies (Institute), University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles from its founding in August 1999 until October 2006. Dubbed "The Military Entertainment Complex", the modern collaboration of Hollywood and the Department of Defense at the institute was first discussed in a National Research Council study published in 1997. At the institute, Korris worked with talents as diverse as John Milius, Randal Kleiser and David Ayer The initial $44.5 million contract grew substantially as basic research in immersive virtual reality and prototype application development was expanded.

Military exercise Employment of military resources in training for military operations

A military exercise or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat. This also serves the purpose of ensuring the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment from a home base. While both war games and military exercises aim to simulate real conditions and scenarios for the purpose of preparing and analyzing those scenarios, the distinction between a war game and a military exercise is determined, primarily, by the involvement of actual military forces within the simulation, or lack thereof. Military exercises focus on the simulation of real, full-scale military operations in controlled hostile conditions in attempts to reproduce war time decisions and activities for training purposes or to analyze the outcome of possible war time decisions. War games, however, can be much smaller than full-scale military operations, do not typically include the use of functional military equipment, and decisions and actions are carried out by artificial players to simulate possible decisions and actions within an artificial scenario which usually represents a model of a real-world scenario. Additionally, mathematical modeling is used in the simulation of war games to provide a quantifiable method of deduction. However, it is rare that a war game is depended upon for quantitative results, and the use of war games is more often found in situations where qualitative factors of the simulated scenario are needed to be determined.

United States Office of War Information United States government agency created during World War II

The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other forms of media, the OWI was the connection between the battlefront and civilian communities. The office also established several overseas branches, which launched a large-scale information and propaganda campaign abroad. From 1942 to 1945, the OWI revised or discarded any film scripts reviewed by them that portrayed the United States in a negative light, including anti-war material.

<i>Mission to Moscow</i> 1943 film by Michael Curtiz

Mission to Moscow is a 1943 film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on the 1941 book by the former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph E. Davies.

Institute for Creative Technologies Research institute of the University of Southern California

The Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) is a research institute of the University of Southern California located in Playa Vista, California. ICT was established in 1999 with funding from the US Army.

Virtual cinematography

Virtual cinematography is the set of cinematographic techniques performed in a computer graphics environment. It includes a wide variety of subjects like photographing real objects, often with stereo or multi-camera setup, for the purpose of recreating them as three-dimensional objects and algorithms for the automated creation of real and simulated camera angles. Virtual cinematography can be used to shoot scenes from otherwise impossible camera angles, create the photography of animated films, and manipulate the appearance of computer-generated effects.Virtual cinematography is the set of cinematographic techniques performed in a computer graphics environment

<i>Prelude to War</i> 1942 film by Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak

Prelude to War is the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight film series commissioned by the Office of War Information (OWI) and George C. Marshall. It was made to educate American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis powers during World War II based on the idea that those in the service would fight more willingly and ably if they knew the background and the reason for their participation in the war. The film was later released to the general American public as a rallying cry for support of the war.

Psychological Warfare Division Military unit

The Psychological Warfare Division of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force was a joint Anglo-American organization set-up in World War II tasked with conducting (predominantly) white tactical psychological warfare against German troops and recently liberated countries in Northwest Europe, during and after D-Day. It was headed by US Brigadier-General Robert A. McClure. The Division was formed from staff of the US Office of War Information (OWI) and Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the British Political Warfare Executive (PWE).

SIMNET was a wide area network with vehicle simulators and displays for real-time distributed combat simulation: tanks, helicopters and airplanes in a virtual battlefield. SIMNET was developed for and used by the United States military. SIMNET development began in the mid-1980s, was fielded starting in 1987, and was used for training until successor programs came online well into the 1990s.

Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations." Concepts associated with irregular warfare are older than the term itself.

At various times, under its own initiative or in accordance with directives from the President of the United States or the National Security Council staff, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has attempted to influence public opinion both in the United States and abroad.

A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to video games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, and politics. Serious games are a subgenre of serious storytelling, where storytelling is applied "outside the context of entertainment, where the narration progresses as a sequence of patterns impressive in quality ... and is part of a thoughtful progress". The idea shares aspects with simulation generally, including flight simulation and medical simulation, but explicitly emphasizes the added pedagogical value of fun and competition.

Morale Operations was a branch of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. It utilized psychological warfare, particularly propaganda, to produce specific psychological reactions in both the general population and military forces of the Axis powers in support of larger Allied political and military objectives.

During World War II, the entertainment industry changed to help the war effort. Often the industry became more closely controlled by national governments, who believed that a supportive home front was crucial to victory. Through regulation and censorship, governments sought to keep spirits high and to depict the war in a positive light. They also found new ways to use entertainment media to keep citizens informed.

<i>Zero Dark Thirty</i> 2012 film by Kathryn Bigelow

Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. The film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden, leader of terrorist network Al-Qaeda, after the September 11 attacks. This search leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the military raid where bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011.

History of propaganda Aspect of history

Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information presented. The term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples.

<i>Five Came Back</i> (TV series) US television program

Five Came Back is an American documentary based on the 2014 book Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by journalist Mark Harris. It was released as a stand-alone documentary in New York and Los Angeles, and as a three-part series on Netflix, on March 31, 2017.

References

  1. ↑ The Military-Entertainment Complex: A New Facet of Information Warfare, The Fibreculture Journal, Issue 1 – 2003. Retrieved Apr 2013.
  2. ↑ Theaters of War: The Military-Entertainment Complex, Tim Lenoir and Henry Lowood, Stanford University, 2002. Retrieved Apr 2013.
  3. ↑ Tales Of The Military-Entertainment Complex: Why The U.S. Navy Produced 'Battleship', Movieline, 6 Feb 2013. Retrieved Apr 2013.
  4. ↑ Keegan, Rebecca (21 August 2011). "The U.S. military's Hollywood connection". Los Angeles Times .{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ↑ "How Hollywood became the unofficial propaganda arm of the U.S. military". CBC News . 11 May 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  6. ↑ "How Hollywood became the unofficial propaganda arm of the U.S. military". CBC News . 11 May 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  7. 1 2 David Sirota (26 August 2011). "25 years later, how 'Top Gun' made America love war". Washingtonpost.com.
  8. ↑ Underhill, Stephen (January 2013). "Complete List of Commercial Films Produced with Assistance from the Pentagon". Foia.
  9. ↑ "Updated 'Complete' List of DOD Films". Spyculture.com. 23 November 2016.
  10. ↑ Leopold, Jason; Henderson, Ky (9 September 2015). "Tequila, Painted Pearls, and Prada — How the CIA Helped Produce 'Zero Dark Thirty'". Vice News. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  11. ↑ Amos Barshad (19 March 2018). "Enlisting audience: How Hollywood peddles propaganda". Theoutline.com.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Matthew Gault (16 April 2018). "YouTube's Scariest Genre Is Military Music Videos". Vice.com.
  13. ↑ Helle Malmvig 'Soundscapes of War' The audio-Visual Performance of War International Affairs, 2020
  14. ↑ Matthew Cox (31 January 2019). "Army to Release Music Video Aimed at Recruiting Gen-Z". Military.com.
  15. ↑ Haley Britzky (1 February 2019). "The Army's Latest Recruiting Spot Is A Hip-Hop Ode To Service". Taskandpurpose.com.
  16. ↑ Ryan Pickrell (4 February 2019). "China and Taiwan are waging war online with these dueling military propaganda videos". Businessinsider.com.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Corey Mead (19 September 2013). "Shall we play a game?: The rise of the military-entertainment complex". Salon.com.
  18. ↑ Simon Parkin (22 October 2014). "Call of Duty: gaming's role in the military-entertainment complex". Theguardian.com.
  19. ↑ David Sirota (16 March 2011). "How Your Taxpayer Dollars Subsidize Pro-War Movies and Block Anti-War Movies". Huffpost.com.
  20. ↑ "What is the Military-entertainment Complex? - Stuff They Don't Want You To Know". iHeartRadio. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  21. ↑ Mach, Andrew (10 May 2015). "Report: Defense Dept. paid NFL millions of taxpayer dollars to salute troops". NPR . Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  22. ↑ Boren, Cindy (4 November 2015). "Report: At least 50 teams were paid by Department of Defense for patriotic displays". The Washington Post. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  23. ↑ "DoD paid $53 million of taxpayers' money to pro sports for military tributes, report says". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  24. ↑ Weisman, Aly. "One Man In The Department Of Defense Controls All Of Hollywood's Access To The Military". Business Insider .{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  25. ↑ Chadbourne, Lawrence. "Philip M. Strub, Biography". IMDb .{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  26. ↑ "Phil Strub Retired 6 Months Ago and No One Reported It". 11 December 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  27. ↑ "To Tap Into the Military's Arsenal, Hollywood Needs the Pentagon's Blessing".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Bibliography

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