The 25th hour and propaganda

Although I can see someone interpreting Spike Lee's intentions with those scenes, that's not what the film is about. It's about the hypocrisy of our drugs laws which ignore the fact that corporate executives get away with much more money bilking the stock holders and employees out of billions of dollars. The glorification of the CIA in films is a mass media propaganda blitz. It is still an ignoble agency which inadvertently does some good. Not to forget that their abortive assassination attempt in the 80's of the Lebanese Muslim leader where many innocent bystanders were killed really is what set off the rash of terrorist retaliation.

There is no terrorist retaliation, that's my whole point.

Islamic terrorism is a CIA creation. So-called terrorists are mercenaries sometimes holding American passports, with connections to Saudi oil men like bin Mahfouz, buddy of the Bush crime family. Look it up.

Hence, spreading the continuously unproven rumor that bin Laden planned 9/11 and that his Cessna cronies executed it, through motion picture, is necessary to let this horrible cover up succeed.

This has nothing to do with the message of the movie - which you portrayed correctly - but is inserted by more powerful offices than Spike Lee's.

I too am doubtful that Bin Laden is solely responsible for hiring these mercenaries but because they were willing to sacrifice their own lives as Islamic martyrs puts a twist in this that belies conspiracy theories involving oil and a coverup. I am curious as to Spike Lee's attempt at symbolism at the end of the film -- it's nearly tantamount to the enigma of the Star Child in 2001. He may subscribe to the same suspicions and inserted the scene as a kabosh on swallowing everything the government wants one to believe. I doubt that he had any CIA or government influence to insert that scene considering who he is. He has made films in his career that are specifically anti-authority, anti-government, "Malcolm X" being one of the most notable. It is indeed a mystery and the CIA has actually gone against this administration in it's findings regard terrorists.

Just so I'm clear - Some outside agency has injected into Lee's movie material which blurs the true nature of the 9/11 attacks and favorably propagandizes for the CIA?

Is that at all what you're saying?

I will be waiting for the answer too, snood.

Not only in 'the 25th Hour'. Have you counted the number of CIA heroes and spin in movies the past two years? Nearly one in two motion pictures shows elegant or attractive CIA agents and operations.

The links between giant corporations such as Time Warner and the Bush/ CIA establishment are vivid. It must be hidden at all costs that the CIA is not a spying agency, but a lying, propagandizing, coup-plotting, murderous criminal organization. To camouflage this, movies are thrown into the public to keep the classical image of the CIA alive.

But it's a lie. Movies are the best way to bend the public opinion, by inserting 'memes' that support the official explanation for this whole Bush scam. The fascists did no less after they took power in Germany. Don't expect for a second it couldn't happen in your so-called free country.

Take that power back, do not obey this horrible Bushist system you live in.

Dude, I'll only say this:

It's probably no fun takin' in a matinee with you on a Saturday afternoon.

I agree that the TV moguls have decided that glamourizing the CIA and FBI are even more highly marketable due to 9/11 -- the same was true during the Cold War with shows doing exactly the same thing.

I respect your opinion of the CIA but can't help feeling that the overblown propaganda is being practiced by both sides.

I will add to that propaganda the significant percentual increase in movies glorifying cars, the military, and the animosity towards extraterrestrial life. Tie it all together and you'll find qui bono.

What films glorify cars and the military besides "Fast and the Furious?" We've had invading alien films since the huge upsurge of the 1950's, some of them a parable to the Communist threat ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers") and the only recent film I can think of is "Signs" which attempts to be a new twist on the aliens infiltrating and conquering (and boring, boring, boring, at that). Over the last two decades, I've seen more anti-war films than films glorifying the military ("Tigerland" being a serious indictment of the military during the Vietnam conflict) other than the dumbest action flicks. If that's the kind of movies one goes to and takes them in the least bit seriously, they deserve to be brainwashed. I perceive too many people worrying about everyone else being brainwashed without examining themselves. The sword of propaganda (and conspiracy theories) cuts both ways.

You can't just summarily enter that films do this or that, you have to name the films.

See "The Quiet American" for a very dark picture of the CIA's role in the beginning of the Vietnam conflict.

In fourty years someone will make a movie depicting the role of the CIA in the Philippine bombings. The scenes will be just as bloody and heart shattering as in The Quiet American. I hope there will also be more investigative cinema about the CIA and GHWBush, concerning 9/11. We waited too long for Oliver Stone's JFK.

Now that you mention it, Kennedy is portrayed quite badly in movies the last couple of years. More examples of mass influence through Hollywood are:

25th Hour: mentioned bin Laden as the 9/11 culprit (which is very debatable) in an out of context dialogue
Basic: drugs in the military?? "You've Seen Too Many Movies!" (YSTMM)
Solaris: in a certain dialogue, humanity is portrayed fighting against the evil planet of Solaris
The Matrix: the Oracle's monologue puts extraterrestrials in one pack with werewolves and vampires
The Recruit: join the CIA
The tailor of Panama: spy movie
A beautiful mind: psyops in the military? (YSTMM!)
Black Hawk Down: glorifying US troops, rallying the public behind the boys
The Bourne identity: join the CIA
The sum of all fears: spy movie
Nemesis: an approach by extraterrestrial lifeforms is portrayed as an assimilation attempt
Signs: idem
We were soldiers: pattriotic propaganda
Windtalkers: pattriotic propaganda
Behind enemy lines: rallying the public behind the boys
K 19: radioactive experiments in the military? (YSTMM) + pattriotic propaganda
Bad Company: spy movie
Collateral Damage: spy movie
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: spy movie
xXx: spy movie + fast cars and motor cycles
RPM: steal cars, they're so cool
The Crocodile Hunter: spy movie
Spy Kids 2: spy movie
Johnny English: spy movie
I Spy: spy movie

There are more.

You can either attribute this to chance, or to the sudden fashionability of these story themes (which would be hard to comprehend in the current climate of secret agencies being responsible for unseen human tragedies), or to Hollywood being politically biased and aware of its psychological influence on the world's audience. I believe in the latter.

Lightwizard, The Quiet American (I just watched it) has a very ambiguous approach, and instills dualistic emotions about the CIA. The agent is young and attractive, and you can't help but feel bad when he's overtly slaughtered. He has dozens of mutilated families on his conscience, yet even I felt sorry when he died. These emotions are triggered by the consciously dubious casting and character of the CIA actor -- same thing as in all the other spy movies mentioned above. Two: the end of the movie suggests, through 1960's news paper clips, that because of the CIA's bad luck, the evil communists could get a stronghold in Vietnam, and tens of thousands of American boys died as a result. Oh, and those stupid French quit on us -- another recurring movie theme the past two years. Yawn...

The reality is that the CIA, out of anti-communist paranoia (but mostly suffering of existential asocial sickness), triggered all the atrocities from the Vietnam disaster and is now repeating the same in its simulation of Arab terrorism.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. You can only conquer the world if you are the best economically, if you make your country prosper, if you connect with people abroad. Not if you act like treasonous hypocritical murdering and falsifying weasels. Pardon my French.

Your list of movies is fascinating -- not one of them is original and have been pumped out of the Hollywood machine for the total of its history. You're trying to propagandize based on a lot of pop entertainment that isn't going to move any thoughtful person to change any opinions and any Joe Blow movie goer to immediately forget the movie once they've left the multiplex. If you've seen all these films, my condolences for having to sit through a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. One of the very good films in your list, "Black Hawk Down" obviously went straight over your head.

As to "The Quiet American" that's the most unique mis-interpretation of a film I've seen in years.

Not everyone has the same critical and reflexive mentality as you have when he steps into a movie theater, Lightwizard.

No, that's true and I respect your right to opinion. Selecting a handful of films out of the hundreds made is not convincing, many of the titles ridiculous fluff aimed at teenagers (Hollywood's target audience it would appear). Your conspiracy theory to subliminally brainwash those who are more likely already convinced of their position with many films that are mostly fluff aimed at a teenage audience holds no water. Your interpretations to me are out in left (sic) field and you know I'm no conservative (or regressive as I like to call them).

There is still a dominant number of anti-War, anti-CIA films and you know which ones they are. Some of them are on your list. You just choose to interpret them differently from the way I interpret them to prove a point. The fact that not many want to participate in this thread shows there is little interest in your theory.

Come on, there have never been so much movies with CIA characters in them. It's clear that this stream of agency portraits is far from revealing the true CIA. However, these movies sketch an agency with an enormous power in the real world of every day -- thus they have a responsibility. Can you imagine so much Chinese movies being made about Mao Tze Tung without showing his true face? Wouldn't everyone suspect them to be coloured?

Your so-called critical movies are clearly blocking the public from asking the right questions about the CIA, as people are kept under the cinematically induced impression that this agency is indeed exclusively occupied with espionage -- but that's not the case.

The CIA's real activities[/u]

The War on Terrorism has spawned pop movies involving the CIA or some secret government organization -- it's a marketing technique to sell movie tickets. I'm no fan of the CIA and the Tom Clancy novels and subsequent films although entertaining don't really explore the downside of the organization. The theme of Clancy's novels usually uncovers some political machinations involving the organization and Richard Nixon certainly abused his power in utilizing the FBI and CIA in covert political intrigue. It's not covert any longer. You're now bending you own thread into a political discussion, not a film discussion. My final word is I did not find the scene in "25th Hour" to be anything like what you found in it. Why Spike Lee inserted that scene was reflective and had to do with the circumstances of the main character.

In case you haven't noticed, the CIA and FBI have been taking it in the shorts from the press and many politicos. Perhaps they haven't gone far enough but the secretiveness is unfortunatley a necessary evil.

Two questions: 1) what do you mean by that?
2) are you one of those who think the intelligence community had NO foreknowledge of, nor involvement in 9/11?

No, it's been documented that the CIA had foreknowledge of what might happen -- why they discounted it an faltered in taking action is something that will be explored for the next ten to twenty years. It's the secret service, secret by nature. We have been secretly infiltrated and have to retaliate in defense although the methods can often be repugnant. Is the world spinning too fast for you, wolf? Mars is now as close to the Earth as it has been in 60,000 years. I say it again, they're just movies.