The CIA Really Wants to Make Hollywood’s Next Blockbuster
Source: gizmodo.com
Are you an aspiring filmmaker who wants to produce a spy thriller? Well, you’re in luck because the CIA has a pile of script ideas lying around.Ironic, you say, that an organization known for secrecy is doling out helpful hints to Hollywood? The CIA doesn’t think so. For them it’s all about image control. And they’re just the start of it. The Department of Defense and just about every branch of the military has an entertainment industry liaison similar to the CIA’s.
If you want to make a war film and need a fleet of F-22s, a crowd of Marines, or a Navy aircraft carrier, just call up the Department of Defense’s entertainment media office and they’ll tell you if the Army can spare that M1A1 Abrams tank you’ve always wanted for a day or two of filming.
"The scripts we get are only the writer’s idea of how the Department of Defense operates," Vince Ogilvie, deputy director of the Defense Department’s entertainment liaison office, told Danger Room. "We make sure the Department and facilities and people are portrayed in the most accurate and positive light possible."
Hollywood has been working with government organizations to make more credible films for years (for instance, Jerry Bruckheimer and Paramount Pictures worked closely with the Pentagon when filming the 1986 blockbuster "Top Gun"). But the phenomenon is under newfound scrutiny. There was a bit of a kerfuffle recently when some in the press and in Congress speculated about whether the government will give Sony Pictures any pointers while they make a film about the killing of Osama bin Laden.
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In a letter to the Defense Department and CIA last month, Rep. Peter King expressed outrage at the Pentagon’s relationship with the film’s director, Kathyrn Bigelow. King claimed that she had already been made privy to sensitive information that could put American lives at risk. (King may have also have been thinking about the fact that the movie is scheduled to hit theaters one month before America decides whether or not to reelect President Obama.)
[October surprise conspiracy theory]
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney assured the media that the Pentagon does not discuss classified information and suggested that King could work on "more important things to discuss than a movie."
[...]
"We want these movies to help us in terms of recruitment and retention," said Ogilvie.
OK, fair enough I guess, but why has the Defense Department recently partnered with 20th Century Fox to make an X-Men/U.S. Army ad or with explosion-enthusiast Michael Bay to make all three Transformers movies? In The Washington Post, David Sirota suggests entertainment like this is "government-subsidized propaganda."
Ogilvie assures Danger Room that the Pentagon’s Hollywood ventures are much more innocent than that. Sure, they’d like to see a boost in military support, but it really all comes back to accuracy in terms of standard operating procedures - "whether it be a combat mission in Iraq or how we might fight a three-legged alien in outer space."
Read the full article at: gizmodo.com
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Video from: YouTube.com
