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YVAN EHT NIOJ This is what happens when you take Simpsons sketches seriously

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R

replicashooter

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David L. Robb was sitting in his house one day watching reruns of The Simpsons when he happened upon this little ditty and decided to run with it and published a book stating that the Feds use Hollywood movies to recruit people into the military.

Yvan eht nioj, indeed. Why the hell would anyone think that simply watching the homoerotic overtures of one Thomas Cruise in Top Gun would make you want to join the Air Force? If anything it did the opposite as I didn't like the idea of having to toss salad in order to fight for the safety of my country.
 
They're not actively censoring anything but it's no news that they're willing to cooperate with film productions if they're offering a positive portrayal of the military, and vice versa. He makes the case that it's unconstitutional.
 
I only have vague recollections of the Backstreet Boys references, but I have a vivid memory of thinking it a particularly poor episode.
 
I think I remember watching a documentary that said Black Hawk Down was one film that was partially intended to recruit people.
 
The_Hitcher89 said:
I only have vague recollections of the Backstreet Boys references, but I have a vivid memory of thinking it a particularly poor episode.
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Don't you mean N'Sync?

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That's just the effect of good movies... I always hear about jumps in certain majors when something is popular. Just what happens.
 
NekoFever said:
Didn't Top Gun cause a huge spike in Navy recruitment?
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The Navy set up recruitment tables outside the theaters. I don't how successful it was, though.

Nothing here is suspect. The military has a long history of cooperating with Hollywood. The military, of course, demands to be shown in a good light as a tradeoff. This is a symbiotic relationship and it is no secret.

Ultima_5 said:
That's just the effect of good movies... I always hear about jumps in certain majors when something is popular. Just what happens.
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Case in point, there is currently a jump interest in archery due to Hunger Games.
 
Out of interest, are there any clear examples of a film being oppressed (what's the right word in this context?) by Hollywood because its been seen as anti-military/USA as a whole
 
The navy has an entire department to liaise with Hollywood, they worked on Battleship most recently. That much isn't really a mystery.
 
zeitgeist said:
I think I remember watching a documentary that said Black Hawk Down was one film that was partially intended to recruit people.
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That's interesting. I've not seen the movie, but the book I'd have a hard time calling a recruiting tool or jingoistic in really any sense. Sure as heck would not want to make me run and sign up.
 
The_Hitcher89 said:
Out of interest, are there any clear examples of a film being oppressed (what's the right word in this context?) by Hollywood because its been seen as anti-military/USA as a whole
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This one is recent and kinda funny. The pentagon refused to help with the production of the Avengers (they cooperated with the previous Marvel movies), because of the unclear chain of command of SHIELD.
 
The issue is that it quiets the voices of people who want to make more critical movies, because it's much easier for studios to make these movies if they are critical. Military loaner vehicles are far cheaper than any other source.

I think it's a conflict of interest, personally. I'm not sure it's unconstitutional, technically, but I think that it does effectively skew the speech of a very important cultural institution (the movie industry).

edit:
The_Hitcher89 said:
Out of interest, are there any clear examples of a film being oppressed (what's the right word in this context?) by Hollywood because its been seen as anti-military/USA as a whole
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The Hurt Locker had its military help pulled because they didn't want to change something in the script, I believe. Still came out as an excellent movie, though I understand why the military wouldn't like its portrayal of soldiers.
 
TheFightingFish said:
That's interesting. I've not seen the movie, but the book I'd have a hard time calling a recruiting tool or jingoistic in really any sense. Sure as heck would not want to make me run and sign up.
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The movie did make some scripting edits to satisfy the military to get loaner vehicles, iirc. I read something about that a while back.

The movie isn't really jingoistic, but it definitely puts elite military on a pedestal.
 
swoon said:
MASH wasn't allowed to be shown on military bases, but those are different.

pure censorship is rare,but they change source material a lot to make things less anti-war or less obviously anti-war.
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"Didn't that movie used to have a war in it?"

"Come on get up you've been warned"
 
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