Brainwash me, please!
Written by Jess Sweetman
Cinema and propaganda have been intrinsically linked as long as both have existed. From Leni Riefenstahl to North Korean kaiju movies by kidnapped South Korean directors, to Hollywood - film has been making people change their behaviour, for good or ill, since day one.
Propaganda is, according to the Organisation for Propaganda Studies: “linguistic and visual communication” with the specific intention to make “emotional and/or rational appeals in order to manipulate beliefs and behaviour.” Propaganda began in war time, with those ads to “keep mum” and “join up,” but in peacetime it evolved into public relations and advertising - and - to risk sounding paranoid - it is everywhere.
Adam Curtis’ documentary “The Century of the Self” is a good primer on the history of propaganda in the western world, exploring the evolving propaganda techniques created by Sigmund Freud’s American nephew Edward Bernays, based on his uncle’s findings about subconscious desire. It was from this background that advertising and consumer culture itself was born.
Generations on, and as Naomi Klein puts it: “Late capitalism teaches us to create ourselves through our consumer choices,” and the movies we watch help to cement those choices, ideologically, within ourselves.
But as we make our way through the post-truth society, where a culture war rages, media is fractured, and we exist within bubbles, how do we recognise when we’re being manipulated by the films we watch?
I decided to put myself through an experiment, and I have spent the last four weeks guzzling up different propaganda films from our times as an experiment in brainwashing - all in the name of objective truth, in order to share my findings here.
So come with me, dear reader, on a journey into mind control.
Will I join the US military, go on a Mormon mission, a juice cleanse, or just give a load of money to Jim Caviezel’s mysterious QR code? I have declared my brain open for washing, I’m here to buy whatever they are trying to sell me, as long as they manage to get their message across.
This wall dislikes propaganda.
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
1. will “iron man” convince me to join the us military?
Propaganda was first introduced to the wider public as a concept thanks to its use in wartime. It was during WWII that Hollywood studios worked with the Pentagon. Studios and the Office of War Information would produce films “urging everyday Americans to cooperate with the government’s wartime programs and restrictions.”
But once peace time arrived in 1945, surely these two mighty industries stopped collaborating? Yeah - no. In fact, according to the documentary “Theatres of War” more than 2,500 films and TV shows have been supervised by the military, as well as the security services, and the US Military also has script sign off in return for the military toys that can be lent to productions. The best example of this is “Top Gun”, which boosted military sign-ups by 500 per cent, but I make it a rule not to watch Tom Cruise films - so instead I’m watching “Iron Man”. The 2008 action-spectacular was Marvel Studios’ first foray into the MCU, which made use of a nearly $1bn worth of military equipment, lent to the production in exchange for script approval.
“Iron Man” is, in its essence, a hero’s journey film about a man and his toys. It’s the “Top Gear” of Marvel movies. Military hardware is shown dashing through sun lit blue skies in montage sequences set to bangers from Black Sabbath. Our hero Tony Stark is both a nepo-baby arms dealer and a born engineering genius - this balance of inherited wealth and magical genius that soothes you into knowing that you’ll never have what it takes to be a superhero.
When Stark is kidnapped by some evil brown guys (ethnic bad guys plucked straight from “Team America World Police” bleugh) while working with the US military to - I’m assuming - spread freedom to a part of the world, he is forced to build his one-man war suit so he can escape.
Did it brainwash me? No. When it comes to ridiculous military films I’m more of a “Starship Troopers” gal. But in its setting up of foreign bad guys and the fact that the plot doesn’t dare suggest that an alternative to warfare exists - I can see how this could push the narrative that the military has cool toys and wars are waged by good white guys from the USA against bad brown guys from the Middle East somewhere.
Really I should have watched “Captain Marvel”, the release of which included a targeted campaign for military recruitment at cinemas, with the star Brie Larson expressing her hope that the film would encourage more women to join the airforce, which it apparently did.
2. will “fat, sick, and nearly dead” convince me to go on a juice cleanse?
“Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead” is a 2010 feature-length documentary by the Australian businessman Joe Cross, which spurred a sequel in 2014. The film, which the Hollywood Reporter once described as an: "infomercial passing itself off a documentary," follows Cross as he embarks upon a juice cleanse to lose weight, followed by an American road trip where he recruits others with the promise that juicing helped him to manage a rare autoimmune disorder.
While the film uses the American “obesity epidemic” as a background, featuring a few choice soundbites from a doctor and a nutritionist, the focus is really on individual impact. The documentary does a great job of putting individual weightloss stories to the forefront, looking at the short-term impact of the diet, and stopping short of looking at the pesky structural issues that can get between humans and a good diet, or health care.
Meanwhile, in passing, we hear that the juice cleanse itself costs between 500 and 800 dollars per month to maintain. Oh and it turns out that Joe’s company sells the juicers online.
Did it brainwash me?
It actually did at the time, but have you ever tried cleaning a juicer? It was a short phase, but in 2011 I utterly bought into the message of individual responsibility and an all-veg diet.
This documentary, like diet culture itself, focuses on the fulfilling, opening phase of weight loss, without a deeper look how subjects fare once they reintroduce food, how they stay healthy without fibre in their diet, or how the hell anyone can afford this lifestyle.
And while it may seem like a good cause, Joe’s still juicing to this day and he seems like a nice enough fella, the tactics that make this documentary so watchable - the inspiring stories, the “expert” talking heads, have grown with the alternative health and wellness space to embrace anti-science perspectives including and anti vaccine rhetoric, driven by experts with something to sell.
3. will “left behind” scare me into being an evangelical christian?
Other titles available to stream on Cloud Ten’s website.
There are so many production companies making movies for a Christian audience, but Cloud Ten Entertainment, creators of the popular film series adaptation of “Left Behind”, have perfected their business model of distributing their end of the world-themed films via churches, in order to reach their audience. They’re also apparently deeply into the culture wars - since their latest film features Kevin Sorbo and features a distopian lockdown that the brave Christian characters are raging against.
It is a cool poster though.
To get a view of how the messaging / techniques have evolved, I started with the OG evangelical horror film “A Thief in the Night” (1972), which arguably taught Cloud Ten and its contemporaries all they needed to know. The film was mostly distributed through churches and revival events, enabling it to “earn $4 million within the first 10 years of its release and started a new form of distribution through evangelical church organizations. Most of the earnings came from donations.”
I followed up with Cloud Ten’s year-2000 adaptation of “Left Behind” starring - get your apocalyptic Christian film bingo card ready - Kirk Cameron.
(After a decade-long legal battle with one of the original writers of the “Left Behind” books, Cloud ten released a 2016 remake starring Nicholas Cage. But I couldn’t bring myself to watch a third film about the rapture in a row so I’m missing it in this write up. I’m only human, damnit!)
Both movies are about people who are left behind when the rapture happens, who are left being Christian enough to be picked on by the power-hungry new world order types who grew out of NATO, but not Christian enough to have made the final cut of the Rapture, where the really good ones get to go up to Heaven. Meanwhile, while both were box office flops, they grew to enormous popularity through church hosted screenings or by shared VHS and later streaming versions.
Did it brainwash me?
No, but I did enjoy the bleakness of the future portrayed in 1972, and - I’m not gonna lie - I really want the poster. But “A Thief in the Night” had too many non-horror parts where young “hip” Christians sat around talking about the gospel - BORING! And while “Left Behind” had some truly ridiculous parts, it couldn’t quite decide if it was a bad Stephen King adaptation or M. Night Shyamalan filler thriller. I’m tempted to watch all sequels from both films, because I love bad acting and cheap production design.
What both did very well was convey a sense of general unease about the world outside the church. Both movies are essentially about how bad the non-Christian world is, and how you’ll suffer if you aren’t devout enough. The concept of “Mean World Syndrome” was developed by American sociologist George Gerbner, who led studies on TV violence that pointed to the idea that prolonged exposure to the American media landscape - with its normalisation of violence - skewed viewers’ belief about how violent society is. And where can that fear take you?
The repetition of these kind of stories, with a captured audience, intrigues me. If you see a message enough, eventually it starts to stick in your brain, I mean, that’s why people still have pop-up ads. And it’s a little eery that there’s a large portion of American Christians who are being nudged into thinking that NATO is the enemy, while the brave US of A is trying to stop in the name of Jesus.
4. can ‘sound of freedom’ convince me that there’s a cabal of evil pedophiles stealing children across the world?
Of course I’d heard of “Sound of Freedom”, it was all over the media when the film was released to fanfares from the filmmakers claiming a hiatus between completion and release was because powerful forces wanted to silence them.
“Sound of Freedom” blasted itself into being one the most successful independent films of all time, using all of the distribution methods learned from the films above, plus a classic horror movie marketing technique of telling your audience that the powers that be don’t want you to see this film! The release, which had been delayed for several years already, was surrounded by rumours that cinema staff switched off the heating at screenings in the middle of winter. At a peak in the culture wars, any criticisms levelled against the film and anyone involved with it including the links to Q-Anon, fed the marketing beast - until seeing the movie became a rebellious act unto itself.
Ready to ensure that the crowd put their money where their mouths were, the screening would end with lead actor and Q-Anon fan Jim Caviezel directly asking viewers to pay it forward, with a QR code so they could buy tickets for others - be they friends or strangers, which boosted the box office numbers for the film into space.
Did it brainwash me?
Personally, no, because Jim Caviezel’s face in close up looking sad about child trafficking began to annoy me really earl on. But it’s worked for many, many others.
In her 2015 documentary “The Brainwashing of My Dad”, filmmaker Jen Senko explored the ways in which American talk radio, and later Fox News was very successfully able to hook regular people into buying its anti-immigration / pro prison / pro military / anti union / culture war stories with angry proclamations that no one else was covering them because everyone else was too afraid to tell the truth.
Just like “Sound of Freedom’s” brave protagonist, Tim Ballard, raging against organised gangs and even having to leave the police in order to save the kids - Fox News, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck et al were able to centre themselves as purveyors of “truth”, hooking isolated Boomers into their screams of danger outside.
It’s no surprise “Sound of Freedom” originally included Glenn Beck as a character, having funded IRL Tim Ballard's child rescue operations. And while the “true story” claims have been debunked widely, the film’s setting up of a climate of fear whereby if any other outlets deliberately don’t talk about the film because they have something to hide, has proved to be insanely successful.
As a piece of marketing - it’s a blueprint for what is likely to be a newly-invigorated film empire.
5. will a mormon musical convert me?
Without the online influence of the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) - formerly known as Mormons, then we wouldn’t have “Tradwives” and dresses with puffy sleeves, french plait hairdos, and people pretending that making their own butter is easy for Instagram cred.
With a cultural focus on perfection, combined with a patriarchal view on women in the workplace, there seems to be Mormon stay-at-home moms galore who are bigging up their old -fashioned choices. The big ones have already courted controversy, such as Ballerina Farm or #Momtok, which can launch them even further into the public eye, spilling into reality TV. (For more info, I recommend you check out the 2-parter of Jamie Loftus’ glorious podcast “Sixteenth Minute” a great deep-dive into how the LDS Church supports content creators from the religion.)
But what about movies? As an insular religion, Mormons have their own films, which are made to appeal directly to followers. But will they hit up an unbeliever?
It’s all fun and games before someone gets in with the bad crowd
Not unlike the aforementioned LDS-influencers, the 2016 version of the musical “Saturday’s Warrior” has a cast made up of fresh-faced, all singing and dancing young Mormon kids whose schtick is wholesomeness. Dark influences from the outside world creep in and threaten to turn the family against each other in the form of a band of hippy kids who believe in (checks notes) “zero population theory” - so people who are so pro-choice that they want to stop anyone from having kids.
The film is an update of the 1974 musical that was written and performed at Brigham Young University, and, like the Mormon influencers of today, the musical was created to tap into elements of the zeitgeist when religious musicals such as “Godspell” or “Jesus Christ Superstar” were all the rage, only offering a Joseph Smith-ian twist.
“Saturday’s Child” is an anti abortion musical, which calls upon Mormon doctrine and family to give you that sense of belonging, while warning its young audience that it’s scary out there away from your family and church.
Did it brainwash me? No. And although there is a strange thrill in watching the slightly-rubbish films of insular religions, the morning after I watched it, I woke up TERRIFIED of Mormons.
What’s more - I don’t see a lot of difference between the messages behind this and the rise of Mormon tradwife influencers, except that the content created by the latter, while it hasn’t moved on from the anti-abortion stances held by the musical, have become better at couching their beliefs in beige lifestyle schtick, gaining a significant following outside of their own religion.
In conclusion:
So perhaps I’m being a teensy bit facetious in asking for a brainwashing, but I do think it’s of the highest importance that we all keep thinking about media literacy as a necessary skill for survival in the post-truth age.
I hope this has given you a little context through which to view the media that lands in your lap every single day, because although you might not be the audience for a Christian horror film or a juice cleanse, your thing is out there and there’s probably a movie designed to nudge you into a belief you might not have considered before.
Learning to look for who is behind the media you take in, asking yourself why the piece of media has been created, and to what end - are good starter questions for facing propaganda head on, and to feel it when you are being manipulated to think that the world is more terrifying than it is, or that an enemy exists where you didn’t see one before.
It’s also worth thinking about the preconditions for being manipulated by messages emerging from media. Isolation, fear or anger are really strong enablers in this realm. If you don’t speak to your neighbours, it’s easier to view them with fear - so go outside between movies, and chat to people in your local cinema (before or after the film starts, of course!)
