Hollywood’s ‘Captain Marvel’ blockbuster is blatant US military propaganda

The Pentagon was deeply involved in the production of the hit Hollywood film Captain Marvel, and is using the movie to spread recruitment propaganda.

by Ben Norton

Part 2 - Progressive cultural representation + militarist propaganda

Captain Marvel was marketed as a feminist blockbuster, a rare superhero movie featuring a female lead. As the women-centered magazine Elle trumpeted, “Captain Marvel Is Now the Highest Grossing Movie With a Female Lead Ever.”

As is so often the case in Hollywood, however, ostensibly progressive breakthroughs in cultural representation were seamlessly blended with US militarist propaganda.

Captain Marvel (played by Brie Larson) has two close allies: Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), a former CIA agent who finds himself directionless in life after successfully defeating communism in the Cold War; and Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), another fighter pilot in the US military. The three team up in a benevolent, US military-backed mission to try to save a race of misunderstood underdog refugee aliens known as the Skrulls from annihilation by the Kree, a belligerent galactic superpower.

Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Studios, who produced and distributed Captain Marvel, respectively, had a similar marketing strategy with their 2018 opus Black Panther, which was also sold as a progressive anti-racist film with a majority-Black cast — and which just so happened to feature as a sidekick a white CIA agent who helped save the hero T’challa’s reactionary absolute monarchy from a revolution led by the anti-imperialist internationalist villain Killmonger. (There is good reason Black Panther was aggressively promoted by the CIA on social media.)

Investigative journalists and academics have documented the intimate relationship between Hollywood, the military, and intelligence agencies. Relying on declassified FOIA documents, researchers Tom Secker and Matthew Alford revealed that the DoD, CIA, and NSA have influenced more than 1800 movies and TV shows, and had even prevented films deemed too critical of the Pentagon from being made.

This year’s Captain Marvel is the just the latest and most blatant example of the US military exploiting the film industry to generate support for its agenda.

Watch @BrieLarson share her experiences with the @144thFW and meet women who will influence the next generation of women in the military. The @CaptainMarvel actress met with service members and their families at @EdwardsAFB, Calif. #InternationalWomensDay #KnowYourMil pic.twitter.com/kSpW42RgCu

— U.S. Dept of Defense (@DeptofDefense) March 8, 2019

Source, links:

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/03/12/hollywood-captain-marvel-movie-us-military-propaganda/

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