Propaganda as Entertainment
Television has always been a good propaganda tool. From its early days, with Popeye and Bugs Bunny advocating war and decrying the Nazis, through to today. However, those instances were blatant and overt in their stances. Today’s television, however, uses more subtle ways to push the agenda from Washington and big business, ultimately creating ad campaigns that appear as if the viewer had made their own decisions.
Recently, the American television landscape has become cluttered with various types of propaganda. While most of the propaganda protests about television have come from FOX’s TV show, 24, other shows, such as CSI: Miami and Smallville, have also been including political stances into their shows. This is no surprise to anyone who grew up in the 1980s and was subjected to movies such as Red Dawn, Rambo, and Rocky IV. There was also the shift in the latter half of the 20th century towards Arab jihadists (True Lies) and North Korea (Die Another Day). However, this type of propaganda has not been seen often on television until recently.
There are shows that glorify the military (JAG, NCIS) and tell us that personal gun ownership is bad (7th Heaven) Then, there is the unadvertised product placement.
One episode of “Desperate Housewives” saw a character accept a job at a mall as a spokesmodel for the Buick LaCrosse car. An episode of the WB’s “What I Like About You” had two characters compete to become the new Clairol Herbal Essences Girl. An episode of CBS’ “Survivor: Palau” had tribes using Home Depot tools to construct bathrooms. Get proper quote.
The use of on-air personalities to plug products without disclosing that they have been paid is a familiar, but illegal, practice that is now spreading. Fox Sports announcer Joe Buck once joked that he would happily pitch products during his baseball announcing; in fact, during the 2003 World Series, he interviewed comedian Robin Williams in the stands and told viewers that Williams was using a Sprint cellphone. The company just happened to be a sponsor of the telecast.
All of this commercialization comes on top of “product placement,” in which Coke cans, Pringles and other name-brand products are placed on-screen during sitcoms, dramas and sports programming. Product placement is expected to be a $4.2 billion market this year.
While watching Smallville recently, I was smacked over the head with overt product placement when Cloe announced that she and Clark had better take her Yaris to get anywhere because Clark’s superspeed was gone. After laughing heartily, I swore to never buy a Yaris.
Another incident in Smallville was a recent episode in which the show advocated illegal immigration. After Clark finds out that illegal immigrants are being kept as virtual slaves he says, “just because there’s a market for it, doesn’t make it right.” While he is right, the rest of the show was a pure propaganda piece claiming that, not only is illegal immigration okay, especially if it’s to come see your mother who is also in the country illegally, we should be helping illegals as well. Yay! Smallville is for amnesty for illegals.
The CW network described the episode as
“Clark (Tom Welling) is shocked to discover his neighbor Jed McNally (guest star John Novak) is holding migrant laborers captive and forcing them to work on his farm. Feeling guilty since he sees himself as the ultimate illegal immigrant, Clark seeks help from Martha (Annette O’Toole) to allow a young boy (guest star Tyler Posey) and his mother (Maria Dimou) to stay in the country.”
When the hell was the last time that Superman felt guilty? In this episode the bad guy is a greedy American farmer. The viewer is told that amnesty is the way to fix the illegal immigration problem and that your mom, as a state senator, can use her position to making this happen, even though it’s highly illegal for her to do so. Clark feels guilty, then lays a guilt trip on his own mother, after which, he gets his friends to hide his illegal friend until they can locate the illegal friend’s mother.
We are told that Clark, after all, is the biggest illegal of them all. Except he isn’t. He’s a refugee from a planet that blew up. Clark has spent his entire life in the USA, learned English, and assimilated into the American landscape. He is not like the illegal immigrants that the USA is dealing with right now.
CSI: Miami is currently one of the highest rated shows in the world. Each week we are exposed to more brutal crimes that are often depicted on camera. Most of the business owners and rich people on the show are guilty of something and Horatio Cane always catches them. They are usually caught with some high-tech devices that the viewing audience can only look at with awe. That’s because the technology either doesn’t exist, doesn’t work the way depicted, or takes much longer than the few hours that the episode is set in.
In a recent episode, Callie proclaims that people who fly often to the same country get tracked by the FBI, just because, you know, you’re probably a criminal. If it’s okay to be tracked in CSI-land, then it must be okay for the real government to do it. CSI: Miami tells you, week in and week out, that the State knows best for you and they will catch you, even if your crime is a minor one. It teaches you to fear the State.
Each season of 24 seems to progress the agenda in Washington as to who is supposed to be our real life enemy. The new season of 24
is to prepare the American people for the idea of concentration camps, detention centers and the rounding up of people in times of crisis.
Much of the underreported news in the past few years have shown that there are indeed concentration camps and detention centers being built but we are also being reassured by the government that this is strictly for illegal immigrants.
Though we are under no more a threat now than we were before 9/11, 24 is feeding viewers a steady, paranoid diet of massive, terror attacks across the USA. The show continues to spout the “report anything and anyone suspicious” mantra that the US government is so fond of. 24 continues to espouse that it’s a good thing to suspend Habeas Corpus in a time of war, something the White House has been trying to convince people of since President Bush wiped it out last year.
The show’s stance of “getting used to having innocent people being caught in the detention camp trap” is a great companion to The Military Commissions Act.
Defenders of the show claim that it is not propaganda because the show is too farcical and that Muslims are not always the bad guys. Regardless, many Americans do not watch the entire season continuously and, therefore, single episodes are open to interpretation. If you are channel surfing, watch only a few minutes of the show, or a single episode, you are led to believe that terrorists are around every corner and the USA is in constant danger to people who want to hurt us.
Despite governmental objections that 24 is being used as a propaganda tool, Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, and Rush Limbaugh spent time on a panel with 24 cast members and crew. Justice Clarence Thomas and many security experts were also part of this panel. The point of the panel was to determine if television shows like 24 are anything like real life. We know it’s not, but that’s not the point. Chertoff praised the show to the point of saying that the Department of Homeland Security should be more like 24 in its dedication to getting the bad guys. Chertoff also gave the opening speech to the panel, giving strong indications that Washington endorses such behavior.
Still, although we cannot be entirely sure if 24 is doing this on purpose or by accident, it is doing a superb job of indoctrinating Americans into fear and paranoia, with the government being the only thing that can save them. Television itself is teaching Americans that torture and hate, in particular, ethnic hatred, such as racial profiling, are acceptable, and that most Muslims living in America are part of a vast sleeper cell conspiracy in the country only to destroy it.
