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lyu07282today at 3:26 PM1 replyview on HN

That's mistakenly conflating two concepts: the media propaganda in a more general sense of the word (like the pentagon reviewing movie scripts for war propaganda) and the underlying material and ideological reasons for US foreign policy (see natural resources, petrodollar, etc.). It would be a severe mistake to think the current conflict is somehow detached from the "grand chessboard" type of neoconservative thought dominating foreign policy for decades. In other words you shouldn't disagree with the war on Iran because Trump is an idiot, you should disagree because its an horrific atrocious war even if it were run by competent people instead.

Just as a very basic example: 4 presidents in a row have bombed Yemen: Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. This is consensus on very fundamental ideas on US foreign policy. But way more importantly than whether or not you agree with bombing Yemen, you should start to recognize that the real reasons for bombing Yemen or any other conflict are completely absent from public discourse and media.

Also once you broaden your horizon on film a bit it becomes very hard to watch modern mainstream western movies at all. Like watch The Battle of Algiers or any Costa-Gavras movie and you realize most western cinema is at best just infantilizing and at worst outright propaganda.

Like if you watched One Battle After Another and thought it was profound, did you not notice the absence of any real ideological exploration beyond "racism is bad"? What did the caricatured resistance really believe in? What can such a movie really say about "radical" politics on immigration if the liberals who made it have to account for liberals approval and funding of ICE? Like it said nothing at all, that's the issue with everything. We are so politically atrophied that we think its the most political movie ever, but its really apolitical if you think about it a bit more.


Replies

rakejaketoday at 3:44 PM

The word "profound" is a bit overused when it comes to movies. I agree that The Battle of Algiers is an excellent film, one of the best ever made even. One Battle After Another is also excellent but it is not really political in the way the TBoA is. It uses a political setting very effectively in a chase thriller. A movie like The Parallax View is a better comparison. That movie used the post-60s paranoia very effectively in a great suspense thriller.