When members of the Hollywood establishment (most notably Jerry Bruckheimer with Black Hawk Down) partnered with the Pentagon after 9/11 to promote the war on terror, a dark shadow dimmed Hollywood’s bright lights. It usually takes about 10 years for historical pendulums to start to swing back, and the choice of Argo for Best Picture seemed to flash a beam of light up against Hollywood’s dark decade.
Ben Affleck in a fictionalized Iran in Argo.
Standing with co-producers, including George Clooney, director Ben Affleck accepted the Academy Award for a quirky film that stands as a humanist rejection of what has dominated Hollywood of late. How many films open, like Argo, with a voiced historical vignette admitting to a moment of American infamy in the Middle East? The U.S.-engineered 1953 coup in Iran began the Shah’s reign and set the country into a vortex of repression and violence, chaos that would ultimately result in American hostages.
Grounded in this context, Argo tells the story of a nonviolent rescue mission driven by a fantastical science-fiction film fantasy, instead of a mission that fills movie screens with Black Hawk helicopters and post-9/11 tropes that dictate mass murder of stereotyped enemies who so richly deserve to die.
Though it’s based on the actual 1980 CIA-inspired escape of Americans from Tehran, many have exposed the fictions of Argo. Most of the heavy lifting was actually done by the Canadians, and the real history of the U.S. in Iran remains hidden. NBC‘s Brian Williams (2/21/13) questioned the film’s claim to reality because of the suspenseful, dramatized airport chase in the final get-away scene, and others point out that the cover story never had to be implemented. Salon‘s Andrew O’Hehir described the film as “a propaganda fable,” but when the Academy chose Argo and almost ignored Zero Dark Thirty, I cheered.
Actors playing Navy SEALS in Zero Dark Thirty
Zero Dark Thirty was given thumbs down, receiving no major awards. (It shared Best Sound Editing with Skyfall.) At least during Oscar night, global audiences were spared the torture sequences that have proven so hard for director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal to explain, and more importantly, justify. With its lengthy and graphic attention to “enhanced interrogation techniques” and a main character who accepts torture as a pathway to Bin Laden, the tone and sensibilities of ZDT couldn’t be more different from Argo, though both are fictionalized, historical spy thrillers.
The first frames of ZDT claim the story is “based on real events,” and the early buzz promoting the film touted Bigelow’s journalistic background and her admirable ability to expose onscreen the gritty process of the hunt and the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Indeed, the term “procedural” has now entered media’s descriptive lexicon.
But the most valuable quality of the film has proven to be the outrage and public discussion it has evoked around the topic of torture. Sadly for the filmmakers, these are not Oscar criteria. Flags were raised almost immediately about the accuracy of the film’s narrative assertions that torture resulted in “actionable intelligence.” The filmmakers were then forced to reverse course and declare that their movie was, after all, fiction. It was the graphic experience that was real, the larger truth of the war on terror, not the sequencing of events that tied torture to Bin Laden’s end.
ZDT follows the post-9/11 escalation of torture as entertainment in popular culture, but it is usually depicted as a necessity for national security. When the enhanced interrogation techniques in ZDT had no compelling justification in what was now acknowledged to be a fictional rendering, Hollywood and filmgoers were left in the awkward position of having to accept such horrific brutality as simply entertainment. Hopefully for some, the criticisms of the film have led to the realization that torture doesn’t work as an intelligence strategy.
The makers of ZDT showed an astounding lack of judgment in embellishing such a raw and monumental moment in American history. It was certainly predictable that an army of ground truthers, both online and in mature media, would pick through every detail.
The film’s embrace of torture in the tale of getting Bin Laden shows how deeply and uncritically many in Hollywood accepted the tactics of the war on terror and promoted them as entertainment. The best long-term outcome of ZDT may turn out be the fissure that the film has opened up between the entertainment industries and the military. We can only hope that entertainment stamped with the Pentagon seal of approval may become less prominent in American media culture in the future. And Oscar will have played a role in that.
Now Hollywood needs to work on telling the real story of Iran.
Robin Andersen, a professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University, is a member of FAIR’s board of directors.
Ever Since the “Acting President” took over Washington, Hollywood has been in it’s pocket. Now that it is established, TASS weeps for such propaganda ability.
Well, I posted this in response to IPA’s item on “Argo” today, but it works here, as well:
“Argo” or “Zero Dark Thirty”
What a choice
Pick your era
The revisionism, agitprop and empire excusing fill the screen to bursting in both
————-
For someone on the board of a media watchdog group, Anderson displays a rather astonishing capacity for naivete in stating that there’s some “fissure” between corporate media – which, after all, is what “Hollywood” is – and the National Security State.
These box office boffo collaborations will become even more frequent, as the financial and propaganda benefits manifest themselves with each “other” annihilating and empire glorifying paean to American exceptionalism that hits the silver screen.
These propanganda pieces aren’t made to win awards
But hardened hearts and addled minds.
Sometimes it is the more subtle propaganda that sinks in most deeply, and I worry that Argo fits that description.
In an atmosphere where the media unquestionably reports U.S. officials’ claims that Iran is not just evil, but soon approaching nuclear weapons and must be stopped, Argo’s implicit Orientalism no doubt serves the interests of warmongers. But my critique of the film goes beyond that. The entire concept of the movie itself is patronizing. In a just society, Argo would have wholly been about the 1953 coup in Iran, with the ‘caper’ taking the place of the coup as a footnote. Of course, a just society only really exists in our minds…
ZDT, for its part, was dangerous not just for its depiction of torture, but because of the way it treated the entire bin Laden saga. Rather than attempt to explain the nuance behind why all of this started in the first place (something which at least Argo hinted at, though not enough to excuse its scope), and explore possible alternatives to the kill-don’t-capture mission, it appealed to base patriotism and superhero fantasies. Make no mistake, ZDT was government propaganda from the moment it was decided its scope would be limited to the period of time between 9/11 and Seal Team 6, not to mention the moment the CIA got involved in the storytelling. The torture aspect is important, but pales in comparison to how the movie seeks to whitewash American imperialism.
It is not just that Hollywood accepted the tactics of the war on terror and blindly promoted them, it’s that it also uncritically accepted the entire framework of the war on terror (just as the majority of the media has) and blindly promoted it. When, if ever, will we see a top-tier movie which actually takes a wholly critical approach to US foreign policy?
“When, if ever, will we see a top-tier movie which actually takes a wholly critical approach to US foreign policy?” How about Ishtar? By the end of the movie, after a series of events that unfolds quite logically, if comically and somewhat horrifically, we are cheering on the two protagonists as they attempt to shoot down a CIA gunship, the occupants of which are trying to assassinate them at the behest of a middle eastern strongman who is designed along the lines of Saddam (a longtime friend of ours before we decided we wanted to eliminate the middle man. Is it any wonder that it’s been repeated that it’s one of the worst movies of all time until everybody believes it? Is it any wonder it is unavailable in the US, even though the rest of the world can get it, and every other “worst movie” is available (Plan 9 From Outer Space is available in multiple versions) here? I think it’s an extremely well crafted movie and I think it contains a powerful political message. No wonder that they say that it’s an epic fail, compared unfavorably to the Crosby and Hope ‘road’ movies it was modeled after – when those movies were shoddy, cheap and awful, but very favorable to the empire, and stereotypical and racist to the ‘natives’
If it turns out that the (lack of) Oscar Award recognition turns back any more would-be jerry bruckherimers from joining the millitary/entertainment complex, i will finally admit they have some earthly purpose and i promise to watch faithfully every year -altough, im not making plans for next year yet..but the selection of argo and the total rejection of ZDT gave me some hope also
All this furor around the odious Zero Dark Thirty and egregious Argo conceals the equally flagrant deceptions in “Lincoln”. For those who don’t know, this is what Lincoln actually said about Slavery and Slaves:
* “Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of whites will not. We cannot make them our equals.”
* “I will not undertake to judge our Southern friends for tardiness in this matter”( of freeing their slaves).
* “I will give them(the States) any legislation for reclaiming their fugitive slaves”.
* (he wanted to stress) “not abolishing slavery as it then existed.”
* “I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
* “Do the people of the South really entertain fear that a Republican administration would indirectly or directly interfere with their slaves, or with them about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy , that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.”
* “My paramount object, is to save the Union, and not either destroy or save slavery.”
* “What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps save the Union.”
* “It is my purpose to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the government existing there.”
* “If we turn 200,000 armed Negroes in the South among their former owners, from whom we have taken heir arms, it will inevitably lead to a race war. It cannot be done. The Negroes must be gotten rid of.”
* Ben Butler responded to this by saying: “Why not send them to Panama to dig the canal?” Lincoln was delighted with this suggestion, and asked Butler to consult Seward at once.
* “I am not now, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriages with white people. There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which will forever forbid the two races living together on social or political equality. There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I am in favor of assigning the superior position to the white man.”
* “I have no purpose to introduce political or social equality between the white and black race. There is a physical difference between the two which probably will forever forbid their living together on the same footing of equality. I, as well as any other man, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the position. I have never said anything to the contrary”.
Can anything be clearer? Can anything be more explicit? And yet when the name of Lincoln is mentioned the brain of the average American turns to mush.
Even this report is being shamefully Amerocentric. The “Canadian Caper” was NOT CIA inspired. In fact, when the contact in the Canadian embassy contacted the CIA to pitch the idea of the escape, the CIA wanted to pass on it at first. President Carter, the diplomats themselves that hid and sheltered the Americans, and even the hostages themselves have said over and over that it was a Canadian-inspired and implemented plan that was 90% ideas and efforts (and risk), while the CIA were little more than stewardesses to welcome the hostages back home. Argo isn’t based on history at all. It acknowledged that there were Americans trapped in Iran in the 1980s, and that they were rescued. The rest of the movie is drivel and propaganda. The Canadian Caper was the greatest act of espionage in the 20th Century, and America was little more than an audience as Canada pulled the whole thing off.
While it is quite accurate as to what you say about what happened in 1953 in Iran and US involvement. It is also quite misleading to not mention the geopolitical situation with regard to Soviet influence in the region. By doing this, FAIR is acting no better than conservative republicans.
You must report FAIRLY.
Cheering for Argo? I didn’t think FAIR would be cheering anti-Iranian propaganda.. Wake up!
Yeah the only movies and viewpoint that Hollywood should espouse is the type Michael Moore and Al Gore believe in.Anti american.And anti American is good. Everything else is suspect.