>>5776217Both can be true at the same time. Usually it does not extend beyond requests for a favourable / politically correct portrayal in exchange for cinematic shots of premises or military equipment / hardware. There is widespread documentation about the media / PR management of defence or intelligence agencies through Hollywood films, for example in the Robert de Niro comedy film Meet The Parents, where de Niro portrays a retired CIA psychologist, a scene depicting torture photographs was removed from this film at the request of the agency. It seems to be a mostly innoxious scene, not sure why this warranted censorship
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hollywood-cia-washington-dc-films-fbi-24-intervening-close-relationship-a7918191.html>Files we obtained, mainly through the US Freedom of Information Act, show that between 1911 and 2017, more than 800 feature films received support from the US Government’s Department of Defence (DoD), a significantly higher figure than previous estimates indicate. These included blockbuster franchises such as Transformers, Iron Man, and The Terminator.>On television, we found over 1,100 titles received Pentagon backing – 900 of them since 2005, from Flight 93 to Ice Road Truckers to Army Wives.>For its part, the CIA has assisted in 60 film and television shows since its formation in 1947. This is a much lower figure than the DoD’s but its role has nonetheless been significant.>When the CIA established an entertainment liaison office in 1996, it made up for lost time, most emphatically on the Al Pacino film The Recruit and the Osama bin Laden assassination movie Zero Dark Thirty. Films can imprint pretty heavily upon the collective consciousness, I can certainly understand why you might need Kathryn Bigelow to make a film about killing Osama Bin Laden to ensure everyone remembered it correctly tee hee hee
Bear in mind (you notice this particularly if you watch very old films) it was not that long ago up to 1968?? that American films were explicitly censored, via Motion Picture Production Code. It is noticeable that the lingering dredges of that self-imposed morality lasted into the 1970s and 1980s. There was always censorship, it just adapted...
In the case of this science fiction film Elysium and the oblique reference to the South African death squad Civil Cooperation Bureau, why might that be politically questionable?
Well there were always some rumours that clandestine agencies had an interest in perpetuating apartheid, until it became untenable... here is Axios. Perhaps interest in South Africa might be renewed again in the era of BRICS and the SCO, hehe
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/27/cia-capture-nelson-mandelaUsually though, I think it is really a form of self-censorship. What films and art do not get made or funded? The audiences are entirely unaware of the thoughts they are not free to think, so are content with their perceived indulgence in unrestrained abandonment.
