The Global Research site has an interesting piece today about a University of Bath researcher’s Freedom of Information requests — which have netted 1,400 pages of Pentagon documents about Hollywood movies the US Army gave free support to in 2004-5 and 2005-6. This isn’t just motion pictures – it’s Toby Keith concerts and other entertainments which our taxpayer dollars go to.
The documents are thoroughly redacted (don’t want to know the names of any Paramount executives, do we?) but also seem quite fascinating. You can download all the docs as .pdfs, plus what the Pentagon claims is a “complete list” of all the Hollywood movies funded/supported/re-written by the military. Since the list doesn’t include ZERO DARK FORTY it’s either incomplete, or the support for that film came directly from the White House. Or both.
The academic doing this research is Dr. Matthew Alford, “whose research focuses on the relationship between entertainment, political power, and propaganda in the United States.” Excellent area of research!
2020 Update — The Hollywood War Machine, by Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard, now has a second edition. It is an excellent book which deals with Hollywood’s relentless bowing before the military money machine. Unfortunately it appears to be from an academic press, which means that no one will ever read it outside a university library, so after you enjoy a good laugh about the pricing (more than fifty bucks for a .pdf! a hundred and eighty five dollars for a hardback!) you can pick up the first edition for a couple of bucks from a used book site like Thriftbooks or Alibris.
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