Looking for a good beach book? How about Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies, a new book by a former Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter scribe that details the pernicious level of cooperation between the Pentagon and Hollywood. That's right. Your tax dollars at work.
Oh, don't look so surprised. Equipment and extras cost money, baby, but if your script doubles as a recruitment film [cough]Top Gun[/cough], the armed forces could maybe swing you a discount. I imagine the negotiations sounding something like this:
You want actual Black Hawk helicopters for your movie, Mr. Scott? OK, we'll lend 'em to you. There's just one thing: Can you change the name of the one soldier who was busted for child rape after his tour in Somalia ended? Yes, we know the whole film is based on a book that names him. And that the book is not fiction. Still, you know, helicopters aren't cheap... Great, thanks. We knew you'd understand!
According to this article by A.S. Hamrah, which ran in the Boston Globe on July 4
In the Pentagon, Hollywood has found a partner that understands the art of the deal. In Hollywood, Robb charges, the Pentagon has found something more valuable: a propaganda factory willing to foot the bill for making military recruitment ads in the service of blockbuster entertainment. Though movies that have received help from the Pentagon carry a line in the credits thanking the Department of Defense, few in the audience are aware of the influence the military wields over these productions.
In the same review, Village Voice critic J. Hoberman calls films made with Pentagon assistance "the closest things we have to an official art." Forrest Gump didn't score a Pentagon assist [something about the Army recruiting morons during Vietnam]. But Stripes did. Something to think about, eh?
When I tell you move, you'll move fast. When I tell you to jump, you're gonna say, "How high?" And make no mistake. I don't care where you come from, I don't care what color you are, I don't care how smart you are, I don't care how dumb you are, 'cause I'm gonna teach every last one of you how to eat, sleep, walk, talk, shoot, shit like a United States soldier. Understand?
Sir! Yes, sir!
