Just as I predicted, the left is out of the closet with their "propaganda" trope regarding Act of Valor. As a refresher here is what I said in October: It has already been alleged on movie buff blogs (that I started monitoring after watching this last February) that this is a straight up propaganda film made to glorify war, Jesus, and Halliburton (not necessarily in that order). This meme is going to be more mainstream now that the trailer is out, and people can see just how awesome this film is going to be. The case will be bolstered (falsely) by the fact that reviewers are going to quickly note that there is no second guessing by the operators about what they are doing and who they are doing it to. There is no renegade douchebag (Charlie Sheen) character fighting his demons and endangering his comrades. So here's a taste of Huff Po: ...there are a few things it doesn't have: There are no corrupt officers, no damaged heroes, no queasy doubts about the value of the mission or the virtue of the cause. That's because "Act of Valor" was born not in Hollywood, but in the Pentagon...This may be the U.S. armed forces' first feature-length recruiting film, but it's far from the first time unsuspecting audiences have been treated to Pentagon propaganda at the movies... Which is, as you would expect, patently false and essentially propaganda in its own right. Famously (not famous enough as it turns out), NSW completely blew off the official process at the DOD level where military assets and members are used to support a film project. They basically thought it up and did it, and presented what was essentially a fait accompli to the Pentagon. Fortunately, the end product was so outstanding that the Pentagon quickly realized the absurdity of fighting it and went along. There's another issue as well. When the NSW leadership "voluntold" these guys to do the film for zero compensation, the reciprocation was that they were not going to be asked to tell a story or perform an operational act that they didn't believe was true to the Teams. Rather than a top down imposition of Pentagon propaganda, this film is precisely the opposite. This is a grass roots effort by the SEAL operators themselves who were very mindful of their roles as the direct representatives of the SEAL community past and present. The only currency that has any value in the SEAL Teams is your reputation. These operators well understood that not only their reputations, but the eternal legacy of the SEAL Teams was at risk here. To allow a bean counting Public Affairs Officer from the Pentagon control over their image and that of the Teams was unthinkable. These guys knew that they would be the de facto representatives of the Teams for a generation, and especially since they are not going to see a dime out of this, their only motivation was to represent us all in the best possible way. I'd call that taking pride in your work, not propaganda.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/aM03gXintSc/huffpo-right-on-time.html
Posted
Feb 17 2012, 05:05 AM
by
BLACKFIVE