Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning to you with a
Speaker 1: classic today. This is something that we had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun with. We've all heard of the military industrial complex,
Speaker 1: but what about the military entertainment complex.
Speaker 2: That was the sound of a Navy jet flying by
Speaker 2: and it was on your TV screen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tanks rolling in the distance. The American Army is
Speaker 1: coming in Acts three to rescue our heroes.
Speaker 2: What is that an official M sixteen rifle? It looks
Speaker 2: like it came right off of the line.
Speaker 1: Hey, you know what's amazing about this video game? I
Speaker 1: love it. Turns out that Uncle Sam actually paid for
Speaker 1: a lot of it.
Speaker 2: I think that's a real XM foreign call of duty.
Speaker 1: We are talking about the US military entertainment complex. This
Speaker 1: is related kind to Eisenhower's old warning from his nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one farewell address there is a conspiracy afoot. There
Speaker 1: are very close links between Hollywood and the Pentagon and Matt,
Speaker 1: I think we had a ton of fun with this one.
Speaker 2: I recall that it was fun. I also recall how
Speaker 2: disturbing it was just realizing that we are being conditioned
Speaker 2: in this very specific way that Ben I know personally,
Speaker 2: I have had exposure to a lot in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: Hmm, same same, Who doesn't love Gi Joe?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Let's roll the day from UFOs to psychic powers and
Speaker 1: government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can
Speaker 1: turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 1: superproducer Alexis code name Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are you are here, and that makes this stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. Let's start in January of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, although this isn't really where our story begins.
Speaker 1: On January seventeenth, nineteen sixty one, an outgoing US president
Speaker 1: named Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke to the American nation in
Speaker 1: his farewell address. Now, as history buffs know, Eisenhower was
Speaker 1: a military guy. He wasn't a diplomat. He wasn't kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, like a a lawyer or something. He wasn't
Speaker 1: given to prevarication. He didn't guild the lily very well.
Speaker 1: He was pretty blunt in his speech that day, and
Speaker 1: he issued the following warning.
Speaker 3: And the councils of government, we must guard against the
Speaker 3: acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
Speaker 3: military industrial complex.
Speaker 1: So we've heard that phrase. That phrase has come up
Speaker 1: in our show pretty often before, right, guys, the military
Speaker 1: industrial complex.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's a bit of a buzzphrase at this
Speaker 4: point in history.
Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, and it means a great number
Speaker 2: of things. And to have Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man
Speaker 2: who knew his stuff, speaking about it in that way
Speaker 2: was certainly a warning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a warning that would go on to become infamous
Speaker 1: and tremendously impactful, especially as more and more of the
Speaker 1: public became aware of the truth behind the thirty fourth
Speaker 1: president's words. Because for a long time, you know, the
Speaker 1: heads of business and the heads of politics, and the
Speaker 1: heads of the military knew about this agglomeration of influence,
Speaker 1: but you know, like the average person in Nebraska maybe
Speaker 1: wasn't so aware of what went on in the halls
Speaker 1: of Washington. Especially fun fact that speech is edited, and
Speaker 1: I don't know if everybody knows that Eisenhower had kind
Speaker 1: of a shaky relationship with Congress and his original speech
Speaker 1: had the phrase as military industrial congressional complex doesn't have
Speaker 1: the same ring to it.
Speaker 2: We can just add a tiny bit to that, right,
Speaker 2: just to discuss how the constituents of a senator or
Speaker 2: a congressman may have an interest in that whole military
Speaker 2: industrial complex side.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, yeah, because you're supposed to serve your constituents.
Speaker 1: The problem is defining constituent gets kind of sticky, right.
Speaker 4: Do you think it was removed as to not throw
Speaker 4: Congress under the bus, because I mean, is it said
Speaker 4: as a negative? It's a negative, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's a negative. Well, it has the potential
Speaker 1: to be a huge negative, and it's it's removed for
Speaker 1: any number of speculated reasons. It could have been removed
Speaker 1: to be an olive branch to Congress or to avoid
Speaker 1: poking their particular legislative beehive. But either way, we're not
Speaker 1: here to talk about the military industrial complex today. We
Speaker 1: have plenty of episodes that mention aspects of it, Please
Speaker 1: check them out. Instead, we're talking about another similar phenomenon
Speaker 1: that you have definitely seen. Even if you don't live
Speaker 1: in the US, you have definitely been witnessed to this
Speaker 1: and you may not have known exactly what was going on,
Speaker 1: because it's the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: Today's episode, Folks, is about something called the Military Entertainment Complex.
Speaker 1: Here are the facts. To answer that question, we first
Speaker 1: have to say, well, what the hell is this like?
Speaker 1: A Is it like a high rise entertainment center where
Speaker 1: you can go and get a day path and get
Speaker 1: an Abrams tank? There there is a place where you
Speaker 1: can ride a tank for fun here in Georgia.
Speaker 4: Maybe just an elaborate paintball course.
Speaker 2: See to me, it sounds like an arcade, like a
Speaker 2: dope arcade.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you get all the you can also get
Speaker 1: some simulators, right, Like you can get a virtual Apache
Speaker 1: flying machine, you can do all the space camp stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm still mad that I couldn't get the budget from
Speaker 1: from our bosses to ride in the tank. I should
Speaker 1: have done a better job picture there. I was just like,
Speaker 1: let's get in a tank.
Speaker 4: And all the arcade machines are manufactured by Lockheed.
Speaker 1: Martin or Pratt Whitney. The ones that blow up are
Speaker 1: made by Pratt Whitney.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's Joe King aside. That is not what
Speaker 2: we're talking about here. Yes, we're we're talking about the relationship.
Speaker 2: Just just as with the military industrial complex. It is
Speaker 2: the military, as you know, one large thing, and all
Speaker 2: the branches of that military working together with the industries
Speaker 2: that create the things that are necessary for that military
Speaker 2: to function. Right exactly, This is the military again as
Speaker 2: a thing with the branches, but working with the entertainment
Speaker 2: industry in some.
Speaker 1: Way, yes, in multiple ways. We're talking feature films, we're
Speaker 1: talking VR and AR, virtual NOUGMA and reality. We're talking
Speaker 1: multimedia video games, music videos, we're talking television. Here in
Speaker 1: the US, for a long time, it's been common for
Speaker 1: the armed forces to work directly with production companies in
Speaker 1: all areas of the media to supply things like troops, gear, equipment, logistics,
Speaker 1: even some modeling, for instance, in the case of video games.
Speaker 1: This is this is a symbiosis of a sort which
Speaker 1: would be common to everybody from your high school biology.
Speaker 1: There are five types of semiotic relationships, right we all
Speaker 1: remember commensalism, predation, parasitism, and competition. This would be when
Speaker 1: it works for everyone involved. This is mutualism. The production
Speaker 1: company saves a lot on budget and the military gets
Speaker 1: a lot of good will, so of course it makes
Speaker 1: sense and This is not a huge secret. A lot
Speaker 1: of people don't know about it, but it's not a
Speaker 1: huge secret. What do I mean when I say that
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense has a statement about it on
Speaker 1: its website. They're excited. They think this is a great idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. Their official position on this is that
Speaker 4: they've been working for nearly a century to quote accurately
Speaker 4: depict military stories and make sure sensitive information isn't disclosed.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of a quid pro quo situation. Like,
Speaker 4: you know, let's say a big production needs, you know,
Speaker 4: some kind of military you know, set piece that's very
Speaker 4: expensive and also would probably require some sign off from
Speaker 4: the military in general. So this is sort of like
Speaker 4: a we'll help you out, you help us out. We
Speaker 4: kind of help guide the way you depict our brand,
Speaker 4: because let's be honest, the military is a brand, especially
Speaker 4: in this context. And you get free tanks or whatever
Speaker 4: for your tenpole movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there. Let's take an example from LA So
Speaker 1: this happens a lot in Hollywood. There's an Army lieutenant
Speaker 1: colonel who is the director of the LA Office of
Speaker 1: the Chief of Public Affairs. His name is Tim Hyde,
Speaker 1: and heide says, we take both of these roles very seriously,
Speaker 1: meaning accurate depictions and keeping the secret stuff secret. His
Speaker 1: office isn't in charge of the entire armed forces in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: His office just focuses on the stuff for the army,
Speaker 1: and every other branch of the armed services, including the Coastguard,
Speaker 1: has its own office in Hollywood just for this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can talk. I think we all were.
Speaker 1: We're kind of thinking about this as we're gearing up
Speaker 1: for this episode, but we can talk pretty easily about
Speaker 1: feature films and fiction that we've seen here, because I
Speaker 1: think feature films are probably probably the stuff that people
Speaker 1: most easily recognize this complex from.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the first things I think about is
Speaker 2: just how cool big action movies are when some tanks
Speaker 2: show up, like some actual tanks, and you're looking at
Speaker 2: the screen, you could tell it's an actual tank, especially
Speaker 2: movies from my childhood where computer graphics weren't as sophisticated,
Speaker 2: where you know, oh, that's an actual Huey helicopter. Oh
Speaker 2: that's an actual you know, if you're thinking about top gun,
Speaker 2: that's an actual I think it was an F eighteen.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was a Tomcat. I don't know, but of
Speaker 2: the actor that was then top Gun. But yeah, but
Speaker 2: you when you know that it's a real thing, it
Speaker 2: just makes it that much cooler. And what I end
Speaker 2: up remembering are the times when the military in some
Speaker 2: form or fashion comes in and saves the day, such
Speaker 2: as in Jurassic Park three. Do you guys remember that
Speaker 2: movie at all?
Speaker 1: Nope?
Speaker 4: Is that the one with the pterodactyls. Yes, all the
Speaker 4: pterodactyls in the and and they like walk like weirdly,
Speaker 4: like they're on crutches or something. I remember that part
Speaker 4: and it looked really awkward.
Speaker 2: Yes, But but I have a very vivid memory of
Speaker 2: the end of that movie when they're on I want
Speaker 2: to say, they like come back to the beach area
Speaker 2: where they're just trying to get the heck off the island.
Speaker 2: They're hoping they're going to be saved, and then there's
Speaker 2: just some dude standing there on the island in a suit.
Speaker 2: I think, maybe I'm wrong. I think that's what happens,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden the military shows up.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming the Navy in these uh these these they
Speaker 2: look like a PC's but they can they're they function
Speaker 2: in water as well. And they just roll up with
Speaker 2: a bunch of military personnel and save the day and
Speaker 2: get everybody off the island.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a common trope, you know. I remember
Speaker 1: I remember watching Independence Day, the original Independence Day, saw
Speaker 1: it in the theaters, thought it was kick ass, And
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those things where we don't
Speaker 1: worry too much about the plot holes, like how did
Speaker 1: that guy from Jurassic Park also end up in Independence Day?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Why is everybody in those
Speaker 1: films acting except for Jeff Goldbloom And what an interesting
Speaker 1: life he leads aliens and dinosaurs. But the military plays
Speaker 1: a huge role in Independence Stay. And just like your point, Matt,
Speaker 1: there are at length depictions of actual military craft. You know,
Speaker 1: we see the jets, just like in Top Gun. We
Speaker 1: see uniformed individuals carrying out their duties and operations. And
Speaker 1: you can still see, of course, you can see this
Speaker 1: in blockbuster action films. It's amazing, and it's it's so expensive,
Speaker 1: Like if you look at Okay, you can think of
Speaker 1: those obvious examples. Top Gun is probably one of the
Speaker 1: most famous examples, but there are a ton of the
Speaker 1: movies in the eighties, nineties, and the modern day that
Speaker 1: do this Apollo thirteen, Red Dawn, Blackhawk down, of course.
Speaker 1: But then there's other stuff you might not have thought of,
Speaker 1: like the Transformers franchise. All of the films in the
Speaker 1: Transformers franchise benefited from the military entertainment complex. Yeah.
Speaker 4: A great place to see it is the types of
Speaker 4: disaster movies like Towering Inferno or whatever.
Speaker 2: That andres or something like that, something like that. It
Speaker 2: was about the fault. It's about the fault.
Speaker 4: I don't remember. There's so many and it's such a
Speaker 4: well worn trope. It's been around forever. But there's always
Speaker 4: an opportunity for folks to get rescued from a burning
Speaker 4: building by military personnel, and you're right, they always look
Speaker 4: like the heroes. I got to ask you before we
Speaker 4: get into it. Do you think movies like Apocalypse Now
Speaker 4: had military co sign where it kind of makes the
Speaker 4: military look bad and sort of shows the flaws that
Speaker 4: can arise from leadership and people that go power, Matt,
Speaker 4: I would think, maybe.
Speaker 1: Not excellent questions. So there are, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: we have to ask about the opposite of this practice.
Speaker 1: So there are, of course many films many also in
Speaker 1: the United states that put the military in less than
Speaker 1: a positive light to apocalypse. Now, I was thinking of
Speaker 1: that one because I'm such a huge fan of that
Speaker 1: that story, but I was also thinking of Full Metal Jacket,
Speaker 1: which itself is a somewhat damning condemnation of the effects
Speaker 1: that war can have on people. Those films were still
Speaker 1: were still made, obviously to great acclaim, But did they
Speaker 1: have that same level of help as we're going to see.
Speaker 1: Not exactly. Not exactly, because this practice is cyclical. Funding
Speaker 1: for US productions of this sort actually went down in
Speaker 1: the seventies because US audiences were so very fatigued about
Speaker 1: the ongoing conflicts in Vietnam, and of course the fact
Speaker 1: that the war in Vietnam was one of the first
Speaker 1: times the American public saw uncensored footage of what happens
Speaker 1: on the ground during a hot conflict. So, yes, there
Speaker 1: are caveats, and they're really what today's episode hinges on
Speaker 1: the implications of those caveats and the employment of those
Speaker 1: Some version of this practice, it's so old. Some version
Speaker 1: of it dates all the way back to nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: seven a little Bit of War for the movie Buffs
Speaker 1: in the Crowd. The first year of the Academy Awards
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven, the Army helped with the production of
Speaker 1: a silent film you may have never heard of. It
Speaker 1: was called Wings. It has nothing to do with the sitcom.
Speaker 1: It was about World War One fighter pilots. This film
Speaker 1: went on to win the very first Oscar for Best Picture.
Speaker 1: So this is like a known thing, and there's a
Speaker 1: guy named Tom Secker from outfit called Spy Culture which
Speaker 1: does great work. He was able to compile a list.
Speaker 1: He set out to say, like to say, let me
Speaker 1: make the most comprehensive possible list of just feature films
Speaker 1: that have employed that have benefited from this relationship. As
Speaker 1: of his list, which was current as of twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: contains more than four hundred different films that were made
Speaker 1: with some form of cooperation or collusion with the Department
Speaker 1: of Defense.
Speaker 2: Wow, four hundred films. Now I want to add in
Speaker 2: one extra little piece here, just that I've found Ben
Speaker 2: and I just want to talk with you guys about it.
Speaker 2: To my understanding, there was very much a position of
Speaker 2: the various militaries, especially the Army, where they didn't want
Speaker 2: to fund or work with films where the bad guy
Speaker 2: wasn't extraterrestrial or a monster or some big bad thing.
Speaker 2: For quite a long time, it was they were generally
Speaker 2: looking at pieces that would highlight the actual military operations
Speaker 2: or you know, possible military operations. And then when the
Speaker 2: Marvel Cinematic Universe, and then a little bit before that
Speaker 2: became so popular, they were just noticing that, well, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what the opposing force is, as long as
Speaker 2: the military itself and the operations look legitimate and correct,
Speaker 2: and the military is placed in a good light.
Speaker 4: Yeah, are the protagonists are aiding the protagonists in some way,
Speaker 4: shape or form.
Speaker 1: Right, they're the cavalry coming, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And those I mean, those are militaristic tones or intentions
Speaker 1: that we see in things that might not ostensibly be
Speaker 1: war stories even or military stories, just stories that evolve
Speaker 1: a conflict where you need the best of the best
Speaker 1: to intervene. And who is that in the third act? Well,
Speaker 1: if you play your cards right, it's the US military.
Speaker 1: And it saves you a ton of money on production.
Speaker 1: But as it saves you money as someone making the film,
Speaker 1: if you live in the US, it very much does
Speaker 1: not save you money. Spoiler alert. But this happens in
Speaker 1: other things that I think a lot of people don't,
Speaker 1: We don't think about. So it happens in television, It
Speaker 1: happens in talk and even game shows. Like there are
Speaker 1: so many unscripted documentaries, right because those are very inexpensive
Speaker 1: to make. You'll see them on History Channel, Discovery Channel,
Speaker 1: or you know when History is going through its annual
Speaker 1: Hitler phase. There's so many documentaries about this. Of course,
Speaker 1: the DoD keeps an eye on some of those documentaries,
Speaker 1: especially if they're about something more recent like desert storm,
Speaker 1: and they have to because they have to make sure
Speaker 1: that nothing is being divulged. And I would say, I
Speaker 1: would argue that is completely above board, and that needs
Speaker 1: to happen because a lot of the people speaking in
Speaker 1: those things have signed legal agreements that constrain what they
Speaker 1: can say, so of course they should have final writer
Speaker 1: or refusal there.
Speaker 4: Well, let's not forget too. I mean, we've all been
Speaker 4: involved in podcast projects where we had to license audio,
Speaker 4: you know of like archival footage, and oftentimes various networks
Speaker 4: have very specific criteria for how and when they will
Speaker 4: allow their footage to be used. I can't imagine the
Speaker 4: military is any different, and they obviously have a lot
Speaker 4: of archival stuff as well. So I wonder if possibly,
Speaker 4: you know, if you know your documentary is portraying the
Speaker 4: military in the right light, you could save a whole
Speaker 4: lot of money on licensing costs by getting that stuff
Speaker 4: gratis from the US military.
Speaker 1: Yeah, quite possibly.
Speaker 2: Or just go to fedflicks on archive dot org and
Speaker 2: use the public domain stuff that was created with our
Speaker 2: tax dollars, actually as our parents and grandparents' tax dollars.
Speaker 1: Well, they still have server costs, so we're we've got
Speaker 1: what corporate America calls buy in. Another thing that happens
Speaker 1: would be stutent listeners. You just sort of say game shows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. I'm sorry if you are. If you are
Speaker 1: very anti military for some reason and you very much
Speaker 1: love Jeopardy, well Jeopardy is also in this big, big
Speaker 1: bed with Uncle Sam Price, is right? Is there talk
Speaker 1: shows like Ellen? If anybody still likes or listens to
Speaker 1: Ellen or Steve Harvey? Those also all of those have
Speaker 1: military themed episodes. Surprisingly, one thing here that could be
Speaker 1: an episode all its own. It's spent a whole hour
Speaker 1: on this military financed and produced music videos. Music videos
Speaker 1: they come out like. There's a bevy of them that
Speaker 1: comes out every day, especially on YouTube. And there's a
Speaker 1: great piece by Vice journalist named Matthew Galt who says
Speaker 1: the following, from China to Russia to a rock to
Speaker 1: the good old US of A militaries love spending money
Speaker 1: to produce lavishly surreal music videos. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you something. There are some hard working folks on production
Speaker 1: and on camera on Mike in these videovideos on the
Speaker 1: US side. But for my money, if you want to
Speaker 1: watch the really really elaborate, weird ones, check out the
Speaker 1: ones from other countries Azerbaijan for some reason, China, Russia,
Speaker 1: they all got really into hip hop too. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say it's all good. Maybe some is lost
Speaker 1: in translation, but they're not pinching pennies on it.
Speaker 4: These are certainly certainly a good way to reach a
Speaker 4: different audience, you know, that might have a tempered view
Speaker 4: of the military. And it's essentially I mean, I wouldn't
Speaker 4: go so far as maybe to call it propaganda, but
Speaker 4: it's approaching that, or it can approach that.
Speaker 1: Right for sure. I mean, Katie Perry joins the Marines
Speaker 1: in one particular music video The Air Force, and I
Speaker 1: did not know this has a punk cover of its
Speaker 1: official theme song. The Air Force also has an official band.
Speaker 1: I think their name is like Maximum Impact or something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: That's metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And of course this is something I imagine
Speaker 1: the four of us are going to be returning back
Speaker 1: to later in the show. But of course video games
Speaker 1: that should be a less surprising outlet. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is very difficult to look at some of the some
Speaker 1: of the world's most famous video games and not imagine
Speaker 1: the military taking interest here. Although I will say one
Speaker 1: note this was this was an aspect of media where
Speaker 1: the military really struggled at first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the military has been interested in simulating anything
Speaker 2: that they could consider like a war game or you know,
Speaker 2: training or you know, for pilots to fly in aircraft,
Speaker 2: to tank operators, to all this stuff. They've been interested
Speaker 2: in making a simulation version for a long time of
Speaker 2: their operations. And you know, it should be no surprise
Speaker 2: that they wanted to get in the game as soon
Speaker 2: as they possibly could. And just made a quick note here.
Speaker 2: You may have heard of it but before we've mentioned
Speaker 2: it before on this show. But a little video game
Speaker 2: called America's Army that made its first version debut I
Speaker 2: think in two thousand and two, and then there are
Speaker 2: several versions. The latest one I'm aware of is called
Speaker 2: America's Army Proving Ground and it went into beta in
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, came out and officially released in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: But it's an actual game, created, developed and published by
Speaker 2: the US Army.
Speaker 1: And this is completely legal, This is above board. There's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with this, and this is just one example
Speaker 1: of other things. But what I like about this example, Matt,
Speaker 1: is it's more overt and it's more apparent, because we
Speaker 1: get into the sticky stuff when we leave the realm
Speaker 1: of transparency, and that's where we get to what I
Speaker 1: in my mind is the bloody multi billion dollar question here.
Speaker 1: What exactly is Uncle Sam and other global versions of
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam getting in return for this? Are they investing?
Speaker 1: Are they really investing billions and billions of dollars worth
Speaker 1: of labor and manpower and equipment just to make sure
Speaker 1: stories are accurate and to keep an eye out for
Speaker 1: leaked information. The answer is absolutely not. They get much much,
Speaker 1: much more than that, and we'll tell you exactly what
Speaker 1: they're getting or hope to get after word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. It is so much, so
Speaker 1: much more, so much more dangerous than just like accurate depictions. Like,
Speaker 1: it's not someone going on set just to say okay,
Speaker 1: that means we need to make sure that's an Abrams tank.
Speaker 1: It's not just someone going onto the set of a
Speaker 1: you know, a History Channel documentary about the Iranian Revolution
Speaker 1: and saying, okay, well i'll see I said, as we
Speaker 1: can't technically say this guy's name, so let's call them
Speaker 1: Marty Finkelbean's or something like that. Those are but that's
Speaker 1: not that's not near what it is. It's it is
Speaker 1: we dropped the P word just a little bit earlier.
Speaker 1: It is a direct avenue to the heart's minds and
Speaker 1: future decisions of millions of people.
Speaker 4: Well, after all, if they just wanted an authenticity consultant,
Speaker 4: they could get a retired military person that could just
Speaker 4: you know, keep an eye on it and make sure
Speaker 4: they got all the beats right or like everything looked accurate.
Speaker 4: So this is something more than that, isn't it? Very much?
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, yeah, that's a good point, because
Speaker 1: I think it would be easy and in the long term,
Speaker 1: a little less expensive to just have a retired military
Speaker 1: member or an historian on on on the on the
Speaker 1: set or in the writer's room of a World War
Speaker 1: two film, to be able to raise their hand and say,
Speaker 1: I hate to be that I hate to be that guy.
Speaker 1: But Hitler was the bad one. And then so what
Speaker 1: the producers is like? Great point, great point, herman, All right,
Speaker 1: we'll do we'll do some rewrites. We'll do some rewrits.
Speaker 1: But this is coming out in March. Still, okay, so
Speaker 1: everybody hustle. You're right, Uh, the military helps out with
Speaker 1: these productions. With that one be with one or two
Speaker 1: big caveats, and those are where the problems are found.
Speaker 1: First caveat is the military helps out with these productions
Speaker 1: so long as and only so long as the end
Speaker 1: result makes the military look great, a powerful cavalry, world's savers,
Speaker 1: America's police in a way. And this, you know, you
Speaker 1: can have problems with this, and you can you can
Speaker 1: point out rightly that the US military has not always
Speaker 1: been the good guy or has not always been saving
Speaker 1: the world, you know, depending on who you ask. But
Speaker 1: it does make sense, doesn't it. Why would you why
Speaker 1: would you give all these people all this stuff. If
Speaker 1: they were gonna take all of your individuals, all your
Speaker 1: gadgets and your equipment and they were, and all your expertise,
Speaker 1: of course, and then they were just gonna make it
Speaker 1: look terrible. Right, how are you gonna go to your superiors?
Speaker 1: How are you gonna end up being called into the
Speaker 1: joint chiefs or something, and then you're the person who
Speaker 1: greenlit the coastguard sucks or whatever, and you gave them
Speaker 1: billions of dollars worth of equipment, Like, of course you're
Speaker 1: not gonna do that. That makes sense to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's like, you know, we've worked in spaces
Speaker 4: called like branded content for example, where say you're working
Speaker 4: very closely with a brand to make a show or
Speaker 4: a movie or something, and it's sort of an advertisement
Speaker 4: disguised as pop culture or as cinema or as a
Speaker 4: podcast or whatever. When you work directly with those folks,
Speaker 4: they are very protective of how that brand is portrayed.
Speaker 4: And this is no different.
Speaker 2: There's another thing here. It's not like the military is
Speaker 2: getting a profit as in points on the how well
Speaker 2: the film does right, Yeah, like points on whatever the
Speaker 2: film takes in right. It's not like the military is
Speaker 2: getting that kind of deal, at least I'm unaware of it.
Speaker 2: If they are getting some kind of thing like that,
Speaker 2: and I don't know how you'd handle that when it
Speaker 2: comes to what it would be a donation to a
Speaker 2: branch of the military or something. I don't know. But
Speaker 2: what they are getting many times is something called like
Speaker 2: a final look or they get you know, they get
Speaker 2: say on the final cut essentially, where like that's what
Speaker 2: we're talking about. They'll be in the room with the
Speaker 2: editors and the director and they'll be able to say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, you cannot you cannot do that. You cannot
Speaker 2: make that choice and show that because it would make
Speaker 2: us look bad.
Speaker 4: It sounds like a devil's bargain. Though from a creative standpoint,
Speaker 4: doesn't it like it would be a nightmare to be
Speaker 4: that editor with that military lays on over your shoulder, say,
Speaker 4: I guess it's worth its way in tanks though, huh.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, there is definitely a trade off here,
Speaker 1: as there are in all sorts of mutual symbiotic relationships,
Speaker 1: which again is what this is. But I think it
Speaker 1: occurs in phases. So you've got the script writing idea, right,
Speaker 1: You want military approval. How do you get military approval? Well,
Speaker 1: first they want to know what the story is, So
Speaker 1: is that a synopsis with someone they've worked with before.
Speaker 1: Like I think a first time film in a franchise
Speaker 1: or a first time director probably has more scrutiny on
Speaker 1: them than say like Michael Bay coming in and saying
Speaker 1: I want to make Transformers six. They love Michael Bay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then they'll be like, oh, it's Mike. This is yeah,
Speaker 1: we know this guy. We know we pretty much and
Speaker 1: this is not a ding on Transformers films, but we
Speaker 1: pretty much know how the plot's going to go, right,
Speaker 1: so we don't have to get a lot of scrutiny.
Speaker 4: We also know he's going to play ball. You know,
Speaker 4: he's not going to like die on the hill of No.
Speaker 4: We must show this unflawed uttering moment with the commanding officer.
Speaker 4: It's not really on the table with the Michael Bay picture.
Speaker 1: Right, He's not gonna shamel on them or anything. But
Speaker 1: this all there's another thing that happens here, and I
Speaker 1: think it's it's something that it was something other critics
Speaker 1: have brought up, and it's something that we have to
Speaker 1: take some time to unpack. This provides a potential workaround
Speaker 1: to other types of recruitment that might be legally, or
Speaker 1: ethically or morally sticky when it comes to children. Right,
Speaker 1: So the military in this country is with you in
Speaker 1: some aspect for a lot of your life, especially if
Speaker 1: you are a young man. Right this this think of
Speaker 1: g I Joe's right. I mean the days of led
Speaker 1: soldiers were famous. Like this happens in other militaries across
Speaker 1: the world too. It's weird for it not to happen.
Speaker 1: It's probably the best way to put it. And the films,
Speaker 1: especially as we're such a media driven culture, the films
Speaker 1: can function as recruitment adds. You know, anyone of anyone
Speaker 1: who is like thirteen or older can watch a PG
Speaker 1: thirteen movie. Right. You can't go into the recruitment office
Speaker 1: legally and sign up for the military, but they can
Speaker 1: be sending messaging to you, perhaps even the kinds of
Speaker 1: implications where they'll come up later about the benefits of
Speaker 1: joining up, the responsibility and the nobility of it, just
Speaker 1: by you know, in a way that you don't consciously understand.
Speaker 1: And that's where it gets dangerous. And also, of course
Speaker 1: we need to say this. The Armed services are tremendously important.
Speaker 1: They do a lot of good work, and this should
Speaker 1: be taken as a ding on the people or the
Speaker 1: groups involved here, maybe as maybe as a little bit
Speaker 1: of ding on a Hollywood They get their own problems.
Speaker 1: This is this is functionally like like, it's easy if
Speaker 1: you're a kid in the US. It's easy for you
Speaker 1: to be nine years old, especially now when so many
Speaker 1: children are growing up native to the Internet and already
Speaker 1: inundated with information. It's easy to be like nine years
Speaker 1: old see a straight up propaganda film from World War
Speaker 1: Two and think, geez, that's weird and in no small
Speaker 1: way is it kind of uncomfortably racist. I'm not on
Speaker 1: board with this. But then that same nine year old
Speaker 1: might see, might see a film that does some of
Speaker 1: the stuff we're describing, and to them that's just super cool.
Speaker 4: Right, Oh yeah, exactly, And like we mentioned at the
Speaker 4: top of the show, it does start to enter into
Speaker 4: the realm of light propaganda, which we know is a
Speaker 4: powerful thing. Griffiths, Stephanie Stockwell, and Adam Muir had this
Speaker 4: to say about it, quote, the military have always found
Speaker 4: a use for entertainment, recruiting songs and marching songs, prepared
Speaker 4: the soldier's mind to override the self preservation mechanism in
Speaker 4: the heat of battle. Propaganda has always been best served
Speaker 4: as entertainment, you know, right, even things like marching songs,
Speaker 4: which which in the early days of the military were
Speaker 4: a very functional thing that allowed the military to communicate
Speaker 4: with different battalions and different groups. But it also they
Speaker 4: were very patriotic, and they instilled people on the battlefield
Speaker 4: with this like something greater than myself kind of vibe,
Speaker 4: and when they were really bought into it, it made
Speaker 4: them better soldiers and made them you know, borderline unstoppable. Well,
Speaker 4: I mean stoppable by like bullets and stuff, but in
Speaker 4: their minds they were willing to go over.
Speaker 1: The top, right, because you're part of something bigger than yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if this happens to everybody,
Speaker 1: but in my past it was. It was normal for
Speaker 1: people to have instead of lullabies that were sung to them,
Speaker 1: you were hearing marching songs, you know, one, two, three,
Speaker 1: four and so on, which.
Speaker 2: Now that I think there's a lot of people, but the.
Speaker 1: Lyrics also have an age very well. So we're not
Speaker 1: gonna we're not gonna put those out in the ether today.
Speaker 1: But but you're right. So the question then, is is
Speaker 1: this a viable and effective recruitment tool. The answer to
Speaker 1: that is yes, probably, even if it's Even if it's
Speaker 1: a little difficult to measure the performance, we know it
Speaker 1: works because it continues to be employed. However, the next
Speaker 1: question is is it ethical? Is it propaganda? Is propaganda
Speaker 1: always bad? The the thing is the from Griffith University, Stockwell,
Speaker 1: and you're the most important thing they say in that quote.
Speaker 1: In my mind, is that prop is what you just said. No,
Speaker 1: propaganda has always been best served as entertainment. People don't
Speaker 1: like to be lectured, right. People often hate learning stuff.
Speaker 1: People want to be entertained. So a preachy, stuffy lecture
Speaker 1: about the importance of military activity, even if it's Dwighteye
Speaker 1: as an hour coming back and doing a whole one
Speaker 1: to eighty and saying we need this stuff around, it
Speaker 1: can come off as like this boring political screed. But
Speaker 1: a movie with kick ass explosions and fight scenes, and
Speaker 1: like a model level attractive people, or a gut busting
Speaker 1: comedy or an odd couple will they won't they? Romance
Speaker 1: with a human interest story that's just like pull in
Speaker 1: at your heartstrings left and right. That impacts your mind
Speaker 1: in deep abiding ways that you are one hundred percent
Speaker 1: not fully conscious of. The association game is so so strong. Well,
Speaker 1: and look what.
Speaker 4: The military models there, actual proper ad campaigns after things
Speaker 4: like Army of One, you know very much, look like
Speaker 4: a video game, look like you're playing a video game.
Speaker 4: They're like checking these boxes of these pop culture depictions
Speaker 4: of the military in cinema and television and video games
Speaker 4: and selling it to you that way, selling you that
Speaker 4: image of military service.
Speaker 2: Well, and then just put into it the psychology that
Speaker 2: takes us to the theater in the first place, or
Speaker 2: gets us to turn on Netflix or Prime or whatever
Speaker 2: our desire to identify with some character. Right, and if
Speaker 2: that character, the protagonist whoever we're identifying with, is you know,
Speaker 2: a military personnel or thinking about joining the military, or
Speaker 2: a veteran of some kind like, and we place ourselves
Speaker 2: as the viewers the listeners, whoever, whatever medium it is,
Speaker 2: and we can see ourselves in that role that can
Speaker 2: also provide something for the military.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, it's in everyman argument, right, that thing I
Speaker 1: see on the screen I identify with, that's me, aren't I?
Speaker 1: Heroic says the uh, says the audience member. And there's
Speaker 1: then then there's a cathartic aspect to watching that victory, right,
Speaker 1: and it's something that you will recall later, uh, when
Speaker 1: you are in the situation yourself. And then we see
Speaker 1: this other pattern. So I mentioned this earlier, but I
Speaker 1: didn't mention it as a question. I should phrase it
Speaker 1: as a question, why does Hollywood seem to go through
Speaker 1: phases of depicting certain enemies? And Hollywood even isn't that accurate?
Speaker 1: We should say why does the zeitgeist go through these phases?
Speaker 1: Because it happens in video games too, like ta like
Speaker 1: the perennial bad guy in a Western war film is
Speaker 1: going to be the Nazis. Also Indiana Jones in the
Speaker 1: Last Crusade, another DoD production. This this question is easily
Speaker 1: answered with Nazis. First, they're easy to use because everybody
Speaker 1: can agree they were monstrous and they did monstrous things.
Speaker 1: But also second, they are extinct as a state level organization.
Speaker 1: There is no way for them to like object to
Speaker 1: their characterization, even if that characterization is like inaccurate. And
Speaker 1: when I say inaccurate, I'm not being a Nazi apologist.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like the schlocky horror films where they say,
Speaker 1: you know, secretly, the Nazis were really using this ancient
Speaker 1: evil from this well in Bavaria and turning people into
Speaker 1: zombie beetles or whatever the plot of those things might be.
Speaker 1: That's actually the plot of several I think that I
Speaker 1: just sort of smooshed together.
Speaker 2: But you know how one of the characters becomes a
Speaker 2: walrus for some.
Speaker 1: Reason, right right, right, Well, that was an integral moment
Speaker 1: in the plot. It's ss Walrus.
Speaker 4: It's also like one of the only ones that still
Speaker 4: works and isn't like a bad look. I mean, look
Speaker 4: at Disney military propaganda cartoons that had like, you know,
Speaker 4: Asians depicted in really really offensive, terrible ways. Those do
Speaker 4: not age well and are disavowed by you know, the
Speaker 4: Disney Company, unless you go to the Disney Family Museum,
Speaker 4: which is run by the trust of the Walt Disney family.
Speaker 4: But Nazis are still kind of fair game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. The thing that's important to notice here
Speaker 1: is that we're saying Western war films, like if you
Speaker 1: look at North Korean propaganda, can you take a wild
Speaker 1: guest and who plays the role of the Nazis there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's Uncle Sam. It's it's very very weird. And
Speaker 1: the story of the guys who acted as the troops
Speaker 1: in those films is also very weird. Please do check
Speaker 1: it out if you have an interest. We saw the
Speaker 1: Soviet Army start playing this role in times of growing
Speaker 1: international tension during the Cold War. Right now, now, Nazis
Speaker 1: are old beings, but the real antagonists are the Soviets.
Speaker 1: And do you know who's gonna save us in the
Speaker 1: third act? That's right, the US military.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of or just capitalism in general.
Speaker 1: Or just capitalism general, or just the monopoly man comes
Speaker 1: through and this time he's packing. Right. But but this
Speaker 1: what's interesting about this is, you know, Joseph Campbell would
Speaker 1: argue that most stories are the same story, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like the concept of story is kind
Speaker 1: of like the concept of ordering pizza. You get different
Speaker 1: toppings on it, but you're still eating pizza. I don't know,
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell, I don't know a stance on pizza.
Speaker 2: But make soup like a different ingredients in a soup.
Speaker 1: No, no, yes, soup makes more sense on so many levels.
Speaker 1: On like the timeline. It makes sense, the nominative determinism.
Speaker 1: Yeah you nailed it, Okay, strike that pizza thing. Soup,
Speaker 1: we're working live. It's still soup, is the point. So
Speaker 1: what you see when you see a lot of these
Speaker 1: war films, and anybody who's familiar with story structure, like
Speaker 1: a reader of Save Cad or Hero a Thousand Faces,
Speaker 1: you know this. In film as well as in many
Speaker 1: world traditions, the story has a lot of the same beats.
Speaker 1: You just have different people or entities slotted in. So
Speaker 1: it's not hard. It's not difficult to slot in, especially
Speaker 1: in work of fiction, to slot in a different thing.
Speaker 1: That's why you'll see in the days of the War
Speaker 1: on Terror, various terrorist organizations filled this role. People are
Speaker 1: no longer fighting Nazis in the Middle East. Now they
Speaker 1: are fighting. Now they're fighting things like isis right and
Speaker 1: again in these works of fiction. The argument here this
Speaker 1: applies to real life video games, music, other media. But
Speaker 1: the argument here is are these productions following real world events?
Speaker 1: Are they mirroring and responding to real world events, or
Speaker 1: are they in some way priming the pump? Are they
Speaker 1: pushing these events? It's a questionable tackle. After a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: We've returned before you jump in. I just the last
Speaker 2: thing you said before we went to a break, applying
Speaker 2: it to video games and all this other media, talking
Speaker 2: about the various enemies. I was thinking about the Call
Speaker 2: of Duty franchise and how it began with World War
Speaker 2: Two with the Nazis. Then you can watch it jump
Speaker 2: forward to the Cold War. You can watch it jump
Speaker 2: to terrorists. You could watch it. It's so interesting the way
Speaker 2: it kind of goes. It jumps around to like three enemies. Basically,
Speaker 2: it's either Russians of some sort, Soviets of some sort, Nazis,
Speaker 2: and terrorists of some sort of a Middle Eastern country somewhere.
Speaker 2: That's just how it always functions. Those are the three.
Speaker 1: Those are the three. It's the Holy t huh.
Speaker 2: And zombies. I forget about zombies.
Speaker 1: And zombie well, zombies like toward the end right usually.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and some of them I think are Nazis.
Speaker 2: Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I think
Speaker 2: they are.
Speaker 1: Well, this is this is U. This leads us to
Speaker 1: the next question, which is maybe a sensitive topic for
Speaker 1: some of us in the audience. Today, we talked about
Speaker 1: the power of propaganda, right, a clear motivator for this practice.
Speaker 1: But what about the problem of recruitment, because in a way,
Speaker 1: the military entertainment complex is meant to solve this problem.
Speaker 1: Any experienced commander is going to tell you that a
Speaker 1: military force can only be as good as the individuals
Speaker 1: in it, only as good as its soldiers. And every
Speaker 1: military in the world that does not have an active
Speaker 1: conscription kind of policy or law spends a huge amount
Speaker 1: of time and money figuring out how to recruit people,
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly historically young men into their ranks, Like how do
Speaker 1: we how do we convince you that it is your
Speaker 1: duty and indeed your honor and your opportunity to possibly
Speaker 1: die for people who in future generations may not appreciate
Speaker 1: your sacrifice, Like this is this is a this is
Speaker 1: a rest of your life kind of situation. This is
Speaker 1: a career, this is a calling, This is a duty.
Speaker 1: I accidentally reinvented the name call of duty. I am
Speaker 1: so sorry, but I didn't mean to. But but you know,
Speaker 1: it's a question you have to have because you have
Speaker 1: to you have to be recruiting people. People are aging
Speaker 1: out of militaries right, People are maybe experiencing injuries that
Speaker 1: make it such that they can no longer serve even
Speaker 1: if they wish to. So you have to find new people.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that a blockbuster film can be
Speaker 1: a tremendously successful recruitment tool. Like imagine, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: an example we'll just make up. So you're a kid,
Speaker 1: You're watching one of those World War two era films.
Speaker 1: What are good World War two era films? There's a
Speaker 1: thin red line, right, band of brothers? What's that other one?
Speaker 1: There's another one there?
Speaker 2: Band of brothers is like a special right band of
Speaker 2: brothers has It's an HBO bunch of different movies, is
Speaker 2: it not? That's the one?
Speaker 1: Uh? So you see any of these? And uh another
Speaker 1: example of a war film would be Dunkirk, right.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: These these are very high production, high value films, you know,
Speaker 1: and in many ways they they they are accurate and
Speaker 1: don't shy away from the violence that people encountered. But
Speaker 1: let's say you're a kid watching this, maybe you're even
Speaker 1: a little young for it. So this is serious shocking
Speaker 1: stuff you're seeing, and while you're watching it, you're imagining
Speaker 1: one of your older relatives who had told you about
Speaker 1: his time fighting with the Alley World War two again.
Speaker 1: People tend to want to be part of something larger
Speaker 1: than themselves. So this movie may have been more than
Speaker 1: a diverting hour and a half to two and a
Speaker 1: half hours. This this film may have just made that
Speaker 1: kid feel like he is pursuing his destiny, that it
Speaker 1: is his fate to become the next in a long
Speaker 1: line of people fighting to make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying any of that is untrue. That
Speaker 1: very well may be true. But the kid learned about
Speaker 1: it through a blockbuster film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm remembering that movie Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 4: Now, yeah Bay, wasn't that Michael Bay.
Speaker 2: I don't remember who directed it. I just remember that
Speaker 2: iconic scene and you know when it's well, I don't
Speaker 2: I honestly don't remember much about the movie. Besides, there
Speaker 2: were nurses involved. Ben Affleck was there, and they spent
Speaker 2: a lot of money on you know, the depicting the
Speaker 2: attack on Pearl Harbor. Yeah, but it's a.
Speaker 4: Big flag waving tent pole movie. You know, that got
Speaker 4: slammed critically because of that very fact. It was almost
Speaker 4: like cloyingly that thing. And that's I think why Michael
Speaker 4: Bay is such a popular choice for some of these
Speaker 4: situations because he you know, we know where we the
Speaker 4: military know where we stand with Michael Bay.
Speaker 1: And without diving into the ideation and the genesis of
Speaker 1: that film, there's a fair question to ask, you know,
Speaker 1: was it Michael Bay's original idea or was he asked
Speaker 1: to join the team? Which is again again not insidious.
Speaker 1: That happens all the time with directors a studio as
Speaker 1: a script they really like and they have a director,
Speaker 1: they have a dream director they really want to work with,
Speaker 1: and they want to see if they can get that
Speaker 1: person on board.
Speaker 2: And they've got one more picture to make with Affleck
Speaker 2: according to his deal.
Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, right right, the Affleck deals, they
Speaker 1: just retavoc throughout the industry. So studies show that there
Speaker 1: are numerous factors leading to an increased likelihood of military recruitment.
Speaker 1: What we mean by that is that if you look
Speaker 1: at like if you look at a map of the
Speaker 1: US and its various territories, you will see there are
Speaker 1: a couple of things that correlate with someone's likelihood to
Speaker 1: join the military. Some of these things include stuff like
Speaker 1: painful socioeconomic background right leading to a lack of a
Speaker 1: viable long term economic future. The most apparent example to
Speaker 1: a lot of people nowadays would be something like, how
Speaker 1: can I afford to go to college? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? How on earth am I supposed to compete
Speaker 1: with those families who have intergenerational wealth and started a
Speaker 1: college fund for their kid when the kid was like
Speaker 1: negative two years old? And now you know, now I
Speaker 1: have to try to make my own way working three jobs,
Speaker 1: right how And unfortunately that is very common. And again,
Speaker 1: not everybody has to go to college. I think that's
Speaker 1: a myth that's been sold to the American public in particular.
Speaker 1: But there are other like there are other factors like
Speaker 1: to have you come from a military family, things of
Speaker 1: that nature. All of those things, however, they exist with
Speaker 1: a number of their own caveats, right, like not that.
Speaker 1: What this means is that every recruitment act you make
Speaker 1: or endeavor you set upon is going to have to
Speaker 1: target people in some way that may exclude other people
Speaker 1: you wanted to target. Right, So if you have, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you have solely English language ads, you're going to
Speaker 1: be missing part of the demographic, right. And that's what
Speaker 1: makes the media so powerful, Because the military is very
Speaker 1: much aware of the fact that everybody watches something. Right,
Speaker 1: you can't yet say everybody plays something, although I think
Speaker 1: you can in the future, but right now you can
Speaker 1: say everybody watches something, and that means that investing in
Speaker 1: media in this way cuts across all those social, demographic,
Speaker 1: financial boundaries. You were speaking to everyone at this point.
Speaker 1: That is something that is tremendously powerful. But it's also
Speaker 1: been used in sneaky, sneaky ways. And there's an example,
Speaker 1: Matt that you found, and we talked a little bit
Speaker 1: off air about that I recall, but I really think
Speaker 1: we should explore this. I think we owe it to
Speaker 1: everyone to talk about this one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think this is the best example at least that
Speaker 2: I was able to find when it comes to sponsoring,
Speaker 2: at least or partnering maybe with an ip an intellectual
Speaker 2: property and a big budget film franchise for recruitment purposes.
Speaker 2: Maybe not specifically for that, but dang, finding a way
Speaker 2: to really utilize recruitment in the promotion of a film.
Speaker 2: So we have to jump to twenty sixteen and look
Speaker 2: at the Yes, it is the sequel to Independence Day,
Speaker 2: that nineteen ninety six movie that lives in all of
Speaker 2: our hearts as children of at least for me of
Speaker 2: the eighties, Welcome to Earth, as I would say to
Speaker 2: all of my friends for a long long time, except
Speaker 2: I would do it as Will Smith. The first movie
Speaker 2: was just very, very popular, right, I mean, you guys
Speaker 2: loved Independence Day?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I did, oh on record in this episode earlier.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just want to make sure we're all there.
Speaker 4: Don't you drop a swear after saying welcome to Earth
Speaker 4: and then punches the thing in the face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, dude. It's perfect badass. So when they made
Speaker 2: a sequel for this film, part of the marketing and
Speaker 2: the trailers they would put out the teasers it one
Speaker 2: of There are several of these, like one of them
Speaker 2: is a look back, essentially a tribute to the quote
Speaker 2: War of nineteen ninety six that happened in the first movie, right,
Speaker 2: And they do just such a good job world building.
Speaker 2: They've got all the characters looking back, reflecting, talking about
Speaker 2: what happened, how they got so far. And one of
Speaker 2: the main pieces of them reflecting back is this thing
Speaker 2: called the Earth Space Defense Group. And in this trailer
Speaker 2: they create essentially a recruitment video for the Earth Space
Speaker 2: Defense and they implore you, essentially as the viewer, as
Speaker 2: this person who's watching their message in this this fake reality,
Speaker 2: in this world of the movie, to join this thing.
Speaker 2: And if it tells you go to a website, and
Speaker 2: you go to this website and it's like joinesd dot com.
Speaker 2: That's what it was. If you went there, you could
Speaker 2: actually play a couple really interesting video games, some simulations
Speaker 2: based on the movie's world. It's pretty cool. They're like
Speaker 2: testing you out. But in order to get access to it,
Speaker 2: you have to give the website access to your Facebook account.
Speaker 2: Now this is twenty sixteen, okay. Also keep in mind
Speaker 2: you're not signed into the movie franchise's website where you
Speaker 2: actually are online. When you go to that link is
Speaker 2: you've been redirected to go army dot com, which is
Speaker 2: the US Army's recruitment site official. It's the official one.
Speaker 2: So if you watch these trailers and they got they
Speaker 2: got a ton of clicks, a ton of views for
Speaker 2: all this content they were creating for join ESD, it
Speaker 2: was actually the military capturing intel on viewers. It doesn't
Speaker 2: matter how old you are. If you are old enough
Speaker 2: to have a Facebook account, they could capture data there
Speaker 2: and you'd go through these simulations video game style, and
Speaker 2: they were lightly pushing you to join the actual army
Speaker 2: using these skills because they're testing your skills with these
Speaker 2: various simulations. Right, it's brilliant, and really it feels messed up.
Speaker 2: It feels very messed.
Speaker 1: Up, and it's legal. Yeah, yeah, that's the problem because
Speaker 1: the way Facebook partnerships of that kind of of that
Speaker 1: ILK work. You know, if you've ever been to a
Speaker 1: website and it gives you a couple of options, it's
Speaker 1: really giving you the option of where you want where
Speaker 1: you want your data sold. Right, So sign them with Google,
Speaker 1: sign them with Facebook, or sign them with email. Takes
Speaker 1: a second, but there's some great throwaway email services you
Speaker 1: can use for that too if you prioritize this. So
Speaker 1: this happens and it's not illegal, but it is sneaky
Speaker 1: and it's not a super great look. I think we
Speaker 1: can all agree on that, especially consider like if you're
Speaker 1: a parent and your kid is on that website and
Speaker 1: then later you start getting these mailers about the army
Speaker 1: addressed not to the household but to like you're a
Speaker 1: fourteen year old, then you're a little freaked out that
Speaker 1: if that happens. We're saying that definitely did well.
Speaker 2: But but think about really, really think about it, guys.
Speaker 2: It's if they came right out and the director said,
Speaker 2: or there was a big title screen like this trailer
Speaker 2: is presented to you by the United States Army. This
Speaker 2: is recruitment material. Like parents probably wouldn't ever allow their
Speaker 2: kids to watch it real they would I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, then it seems less like entertainment, right, it's more
Speaker 1: overt paganda. And one thing you can one thing you
Speaker 1: can see in these films is that, especially in feature films,
Speaker 1: in the credits at the end of the film, you
Speaker 1: will see acknowledgment. You're never not going to see that
Speaker 1: if the army's involved, or if the military services are evolved.
Speaker 1: But here we go. So we've described things that are
Speaker 1: perfectly legal have some troubling potential. There have been times,
Speaker 1: just like with the Independence Day sequel trailer, where these
Speaker 1: things went a little wrong. But the thing, the thing
Speaker 1: here that should bother you is that it's not it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the process or the existence of this phenomenon,
Speaker 1: as Dennis Reynolds would say, because of the implication we
Speaker 1: did it. We finally thanks to code named Doc Holliday,
Speaker 1: we finally squeezed an actual always suddeny Philadelphia a quote.
Speaker 1: Don't sue us, guys, they're wealthy now, they don't need
Speaker 1: our money.
Speaker 2: We gave you our money already. Okay, jeez, we we did.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the implication, what do you mean by that? Well,
Speaker 1: if all this is true, and it very much is,
Speaker 1: is it really that much of a problem. I mean,
Speaker 1: Hollywood has never been a perfect place. Think of all
Speaker 1: the other things. Hollywood has done things that are terrible, right,
Speaker 1: like eighty sexual assault and sexual abuse for multiple generations
Speaker 1: and just covering it up forever and ever and ever
Speaker 1: and ever. I mean, in comparison, you could say this
Speaker 1: seems somewhat tamed, but there are serious, lasting issues with
Speaker 1: this arrangement. Like, here's the question. We've used the phrase
Speaker 1: slippery slope before. I know, some people hate it. I
Speaker 1: know sometimes it feels cliche, but you have to remember
Speaker 1: things are often only called cliche because they are freaking true.
Speaker 1: So think about this, there's a slippery slope. At what
Speaker 1: point does consulting on or influencing the plot of a
Speaker 1: movie script, you know, from checking for accuracy to co
Speaker 1: writing at what point does that slide into an attack
Speaker 1: on freedom of speech? Like, at what point is you know,
Speaker 1: someone's creative voice, whether director's script writer, et cetera. At
Speaker 1: what point is that silenced? Does this counter the same thing?
Speaker 1: I would say technically no, but troublingly close. What do
Speaker 1: you guys think?
Speaker 2: This makes me worry about the bubble that we're in
Speaker 2: as you know, United States citizens, as Westerners, Like what
Speaker 2: we've We've seen things that are critical of our country
Speaker 2: and our militaries. Right Uh there, there's there's a whole
Speaker 2: host of content that is critical in some way of
Speaker 2: those institutions and those powers. But I wonder if there
Speaker 2: are still holes in our knowledge just due to where
Speaker 2: we live and what information we have access to, or
Speaker 2: what is being prevented what what what is being shielded
Speaker 2: from us just by Maybe I don't think the government
Speaker 2: would do that, but maybe they do. Maybe that's that's
Speaker 2: something that occurs in the same way that other countries
Speaker 2: shield content from their citizens.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's an excellent and very disturbing point, Matt.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not going to see the controversy about
Speaker 1: depleted uranium rounds popping up in the next Transformers film, right,
Speaker 1: most likely? Yeah, because then we're in a situation of
Speaker 1: the famous unknown unknown. We don't know what we don't know? Uh,
Speaker 1: And this can be this can be dangerous because a
Speaker 1: less informed public is a less powerful public. And of course,
Speaker 1: of course there are things that have to remain classified
Speaker 1: because people's literal lives are on the line. But again,
Speaker 1: how do we how do we navigate that? How do
Speaker 1: we figure out I don't know, like, has there ever
Speaker 1: been I don't know if there's ever been in the
Speaker 1: history of public declassification in this country. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's ever been something released that made the entirety of
Speaker 1: the US public go wow. I wish I never knew that.
Speaker 1: Let's pretend it never happened. People want to know things,
Speaker 1: even if they are ugly and disturbing. Right. I tried.
Speaker 1: I tried over the weekend to think about this. I
Speaker 1: got bup. Gus, can you think? Can you guys think
Speaker 1: of one?
Speaker 2: I was just one of there's a human testing thing.
Speaker 2: But I think we all I think you know, when
Speaker 2: Tuskegee experiments came out, when the knowledge of that came out,
Speaker 2: I think that was exactly what you're saying, Like, thank god,
Speaker 2: we know about it, but geez, I think that's usually
Speaker 2: their action, just as you're saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the ugly truth, right, will prepare us for
Speaker 1: the future. But second one, and if we said this
Speaker 1: at the very beginning, another implication problem here. If you
Speaker 1: haven't wondered about this yet over the course of this episode,
Speaker 1: fellow conspiracy realist, who is paying for all this stuff?
Speaker 1: If you live in the United States, congratulations, it is you.
Speaker 1: You are, through your tax dollars, in a way, a
Speaker 1: contributing producer to every single media product of this type.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you don't like Katie Perry, it
Speaker 1: does not matter what you think of Michael Bay. And
Speaker 1: if you, for some ludicrous reason, do not understand the
Speaker 1: beauty of the original Independence Day, well, no refunds. You
Speaker 1: already paid for it for sure.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I have to say, I don't even remember the existence
Speaker 4: of Independence Day too. It's like a Mendela effect situation
Speaker 4: for me. When was this like far removed from Independence
Speaker 4: Day one? Or was it like how close on the
Speaker 4: heels of that day?
Speaker 2: There was some other stuff going on in the news.
Speaker 2: It was in twenty sixteen. The election like took over everything.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys remember it took over everything.
Speaker 2: I don't remember anything else that happened in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's got Brent Spiner in it. I remember that part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, he's back at Pullman, hanging out. Uh huh,
Speaker 2: getting like choke possessed by aliens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. You're right. So many things have happened
Speaker 1: since twenty sixteen. You know, I was just thinking earlier
Speaker 1: this morning, we're recording this on March first. Just hit me,
Speaker 1: it's March again. So weird.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I need to pay for my vehicles tags. Oh no, man,
Speaker 2: I need to get on that.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And I think we need to. I think
Speaker 1: we might be closely wrapping today. But let's give us
Speaker 1: some words from back to you mentioned earlier, Noel Stockwell,
Speaker 1: and you're at Griffith University. They say the following. The
Speaker 1: real danger for the entertainment business, which has for so
Speaker 1: long enjoyed the benefits of free speech, is that it
Speaker 1: is now in danger of becoming an agent for the
Speaker 1: closure of debate. We depend on the media to use
Speaker 1: their freedom of speech to allow a variety of opinions
Speaker 1: to circulate, and of course that that can be dangerous
Speaker 1: when those opinions are things like hate speech or someone saying,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're going to blow up the Smithsonian
Speaker 1: as to rally the cause for the Flat Earth Society
Speaker 1: of Northeastern District of Columbia or whatever. That's true. Again,
Speaker 1: there's a slippery slope here, but we have to ask
Speaker 1: ourselves what the responsibility of these folks entertaining us is.
Speaker 1: But either way, make no mistake, this is a clear
Speaker 1: successor to the complex that Eisenhower warned us about all
Speaker 1: those years ago, and it is not going away. It
Speaker 1: is going to continue evolving because it is successful. In fact,
Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking about I can't remember which
Speaker 1: show this was, you guys, but I remember when we
Speaker 1: talked about the growth of AR advertising. I feel like
Speaker 1: the US military and Uncle Sam is already much further
Speaker 1: along this path that a lot of corporations are gonna
Speaker 1: end up taking. I'm sure you know what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is, I think people might see a lot
Speaker 1: of films, which again might objectively be good, good films,
Speaker 1: and then they might not realize that they are in
Speaker 1: some way being served in ad Does that make sense? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where we go, we're going to I think we're
Speaker 1: going to see more and more tacitly sponsored video game products,
Speaker 1: and then again we'll see more war films that claim
Speaker 1: to follow the pulse of the zeitgeist. But what story
Speaker 1: are they telling you? Is the one the director wants
Speaker 1: you to know? Or is it one the military wants
Speaker 1: you to hear? I don't know, what do you I mean?
Speaker 1: What do you think? How involved should the DoD or
Speaker 1: any government agency of any country be in the creation
Speaker 1: of mass media entertainment. We didn't even talk about the
Speaker 1: CIA film companies. CIA is in this too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, man, I swear to you. We've covered some
Speaker 2: of this before, just in talking about propaganda and the military,
Speaker 2: but not not in this stepth and it is worth
Speaker 2: your time to look deeper into this stuff, especially when
Speaker 2: you watch anything, or you play anything, or you listen
Speaker 2: to anything where the military is involved. Just keep keep
Speaker 2: your ears and your eyes open to what story are
Speaker 2: actually being told outside of what the plot you know,
Speaker 2: the baseline plot is giving you, or what the protagonist
Speaker 2: is saying.
Speaker 1: Battleship right, amazing film, and a lot of people were
Speaker 1: surprised that the Navy produced it.
Speaker 2: Well, even the Tom Hanks one that came out not
Speaker 2: long ago. I think we named dropped this name dropped.
Speaker 2: This one not that long ago. What was it called
Speaker 2: Greyhound where he's on a battleship and he's fighting with
Speaker 2: a U boat. I think he Tom Hanks just fighting
Speaker 2: with this U boat.
Speaker 1: No, but it's like an ah white whale situation. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also has an appearance from a lesser known Hank's son,
Speaker 4: Chet Hanks, who is probably more known for his fake
Speaker 4: Rasta Patois gaffes than he is for his acting. But
Speaker 4: I follow him on Instagram and he made a post
Speaker 4: about check out my dad's new movie. You can see
Speaker 4: your boy here as on our operator in one scene.
Speaker 2: Nice, there you go, Here you go. You can also
Speaker 2: just see the actual, you know, actual Navy stuff. Another
Speaker 2: thing to put into context here. When you're making an
Speaker 2: historical movie like that, it is often the director's choice,
Speaker 2: or the studio's choice, or the writer's choice to be
Speaker 2: as authentic as possible, so, you know, working directly with
Speaker 2: whichever branch of the military, in this case the Navy,
Speaker 2: to get the actual ship or the actual what the
Speaker 2: guns actually looked like, even if it's all CGI, you know,
Speaker 2: working directly with an institution like that to get those
Speaker 2: things right. I mean, that's that to me is right,
Speaker 2: I guess, the right thing to do. But it's still
Speaker 2: it's still weird, and it it blurs the lines.
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe we say the issue here is not
Speaker 1: necessarily that it's happening, but the issue is that there
Speaker 1: is potential for there's potential for damaging effects to come
Speaker 1: about as a result of this. There's potential for this
Speaker 1: practice to in the future have consequences, and how would
Speaker 1: those consequences come to bear. They would come to bear
Speaker 1: in the absence of transparency. So like the whenever there's
Speaker 1: a hidden hand, that's when things start to get dicey.
Speaker 1: And in some cases there's very much there's a hidden
Speaker 1: hand here. And it's not a look, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: that these offices of public affairs or some kind of
Speaker 1: cloak and dag or outfit right now. It's just that
Speaker 1: the public seems largely unaware of what's happening.
Speaker 4: Well, and it's a it's a choice that the film
Speaker 4: production companies and studios have to make. Like we said,
Speaker 4: it's a it's a trade off. They can either you know,
Speaker 4: foot the bill for their own tanks or manufacture them,
Speaker 4: fabricate them, you know, make their own version of this
Speaker 4: stuff or CGI or they can you know, get a
Speaker 4: big break on their budget by working a little more
Speaker 4: closely with these offices.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, they can just swite it.
Speaker 1: They can just sweet they get some cardboard takes exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: Who's that director of the Michelle Gondry's That's what I
Speaker 2: always think about. We're also not saying that joining any
Speaker 2: branch of the military is wrong. We're just saying it
Speaker 2: should be an educated, informed choice, Right, That's all we're saying,
Speaker 2: Because I mean, there are varying levels of danger to
Speaker 2: being enlisted in any arm of the military, but it
Speaker 2: is it is much more dangerous than a lot of
Speaker 2: other occupations. That's why I think that's why some of
Speaker 2: this feels insidious, because the end user, the kid that
Speaker 2: ends up signing up or enlisting, needs to understand really
Speaker 2: what they're getting into. And it's not a video game,
Speaker 2: and it's not some war story where you're the hero.
Speaker 2: To me, that's the whole point of being slightly against
Speaker 2: that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, informed consent nail on the head, I'd say, delce
Speaker 1: Et Decorah Messed that's our show, folks. We can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear what you think. What should the role of
Speaker 1: the DoD be here? What was your experience? Do you
Speaker 1: feel like the depiction of the military, whether in the
Speaker 1: US or a different country, do you feel like it
Speaker 1: influenced maybe your decision to join or not join. If
Speaker 1: you did join, do you feel like do you feel
Speaker 1: like it was the right decision? Do you feel like
Speaker 1: you were maybe misled? There's no right or wrong answer.
Speaker 1: We just want to hear from you and we try
Speaker 1: to be easy to find online.
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Speaker 4: join our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, where
Speaker 4: you can join in on the conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great topic to discuss on. Here
Speaker 2: is where it gets crazy. So we do highlight recommend
Speaker 2: your head over there. If you're cool being on Facebook
Speaker 2: and you know, giving them all your information.
Speaker 1: I thought you were just going to say if you're
Speaker 1: cool that, if you're cool, No, nerds, I can't get
Speaker 1: on the Facebook anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, nerds, No, I would never say that or yeah, okay.
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Speaker 2: you give us a call. Our number is one eight
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