by Attack Ships on Fire » Wed Aug 30, 2006 4:40 pm
<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>ASonF, you make my case that the Psychic Puppeteers of Propaganda are way up the food chain from the technicians and enablers who turn the machine's compartmentalized gears for their daily bread-<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>No, I'm not. The case that I am making is that any kind of imagery can be taken and used by a third party to promote their agenda(s). As an example, you can take the photo of everyday morning breakfast, such as eggs cooking on a frying pan, and use it as an example of how to eat nutritiously. You can take the same image and use it as a visual allegory for taking drugs (i.e. "This is your brain on drugs.") and it becomes a anti-drug message.<br><br>ALL images can be used this way. The mind behind the message uses the image as raw material, combining it with colors, words or a setting/context and uses it to deliver their message to the viewer. Depending on how tailored the edited image/message was, the viewer may have more latitude in how the message is understood by the viewer. For example, a photo of a naked woman can be taken a variety of ways ranging from art, to erotica, to comedic, to pornographic.<br><br>Marvel Comics produces dozens of comics each month and only a handful of these books don't have images that can be used for third parties interested in promoting patriotism, militarism or violence. You can take one panel from Ed Brubaker's run on "Captain America" showing Steve Rogers/Captain America punching some bad guy and use it for an ad suggesting that Cap battles the forces of terrorism to protect the good ol' USA, but if you had read Brubaker's run on "Captain America", you would have understood that he was commenting on the changing face of American patriotism and what role a figure like Captain America should or should not have in it.<br><br>Similarly Hugh, you are taking excepts from popular culture and using them to fit pre-conceived notions about the true agenda of movies and comic books. I may have suspicions that *SOME* movies/comic books/forms of popular entertainment have received input from selective groups with their own agenda, but I very much doubt that the majority of pop culture is tailored in this way. I know of many instances where the kernel of a movie, including the movie's title, premise and main character's name, began in the mind of a writer but eventually wound up intact on the big screen...and that would blow holes right into your theory that these films are being embedded with memes for control by some black ops group working behind the scenes. I challenged you to a debate on "The Fountain" and you backed off quite fast when you realized that you were in over your head.<br><br>I also agree with an above poster that some of your ideas have merit, and would make for an interesting examination of the way pop culture is shaped to deliver an impact to audiences in minimal awareness time. However, I believe that the people shaping the promotional aspect of movies aren't in league with the shadowy mysterious group that may or may not control our world, and that the reason "Truth, Justice and the American Way" changed its title to "Hollywoodland" is because Time/Warner refused to give permission to show the Superman symbol on Reeves' costume, and so the show's producers may have wanted to distance themselves from the Reeves biopic promo angle to a period murder mystery set against the backdrop of showbiz. Last minute changes to the way a movie is marketed happens all the time, and when you're awash it in like I am, your theory of a secret group pulling the strings doesn't have much resonance for me.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you watch the Spielberg-Tom Hanks' movie 'The Terminal' from 2004 you will see dozens of propaganda themes carefully sewn into the fabric of a 'comedy romance.'<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>I haven't seen "The Terminal" but from those that did, I heard it was quite awful, so I don't have an interest in seeing it.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>This tells me there is also a level of complicity well below the CIA-Studio Honcho level, although Tom Hanks is writing his own military-themed scripts and is tight with the Pentagon and Spielberg has a status that probably puts him in the 'Honcho' bracket.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>In a parallel universe close to ours, Peter Scolari is an A-list movie star while Tom Hanks is reduced to guest roles on TV shows.<br><br>(A little in-joke for any "Bosom Buddies" fans that happen to be out there...)<br><br>Hugh, UFOlogy is kind of my favorite field in all this parapolitical/occult/paranormal material that Jeff writes about. I've read many books and I wander across the net reading about it, and one of the stories that's made some waves recently is a website that purports to blow the secret behind a team of 12 volunteers that went to live on an alien planet for a decade. The website, called SERPO, has an astonishing volume of material chronicling the "mission", what life was like amongst the aliens, what their planet is like and so on. Many of those that have spent time investigating the SERPO mystery have written it off as a hoax (if you want to know why in detail, I recommend that you go research it.)<br><br>In any case, one of the tangents of the SERPO story is that the idea of 12 volunteers going off to live with aliens originated first in the popular culture at the end of Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Here we are, nearly 3 decades later, and someone has used it in a cyber urban legend myth, claiming that it "inspired" Spielberg to use it in his movie. This kind of circular evidence is in fact incorrect, but unless you're versed in critical thinking you may accept it as proof of the reality of the SERPO story.<br><br>I suggest that you are using the same reasoning for *some* of your examples, for instance your connection between the roles of males fighting the wars depicted in film. James Cameron uses strong female protagonists in all of his films and they rank amongst the most popular and successful films of all-time, but you chose to ignore these facts for your theory. You can't have it both ways and expect people to swallow your theory without critical examination of it first!<br><br>Finally, I don't know Tom Hanks from a hole in the wall so I have no idea if he attends meetings with other members of the shadow cabal every other Tuesday at the Holiday Inn on Sunset Bvld., but my gut tells me that he doesn't, that he isn't high on anyone's "Honcho" list of shadow cabals (which I do believe exist) and that, at best, he's a millionaire hired by other millionaires to make mass entertainment for a global audience.<br><br>And that is my bottom line belief for mainstream movies and comic books: they're made to acquire money from people, no more, no less. If pop culture were being used in the widescale manner that you suggest, I believe our society would resemble one even more like the one in "Brave New World" than it presently does. Too much is left to chance for movies to escape your alleged system of control and if there were shadowy overlords controlling the system, they wouldn't leave anything to chance.<br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
