Hollywood and the right wing

[123everton]

I've become mildly concerned at the ideas, influences, expresions and conclusions of some of the films eminating from Hollywood lately, much to the amusement of some of my friends, lol.
I saw "The Book Of Ely" the other week, which to me was a bit like "Mad Max" with a Bible, I was a little perturbed by the conclusion that after the world had been tipped into the abyss only the Bible could save it, and that after it's deliverance by a man guided by God.
Weeks before I'd watched "Unthinkable", in this the film ascribes the value of torture, that Muslims cannot be trusted and that in order to defeat the threat posed by Muslims extreme measures need to be imposed up to and including the torture of their children and the killing of their wives etc.
In another film "I Am Legend" the conclusion of the film suggested (at least to me) that the future would be overtly white and very Christian.
A film was recently released about The Second Abkharzian war, which made Russia the aggressor (it wasn't, Georgia was), in the early 60s Hollywood released a film about a Chinese submarine out to start WW3, this after MaCarthur got sacked for wanting to invade China.
There was another film were an American embassy (in Yemen?) was being demonstrated against, the building was all ramshackle and run down (in reality it looked more like a prison compound) a child had been shot and the soldier who ordered the shooting was on trial, numerous admonitions were offered as to the child's innocence right up to the end were you see that the child was holding a gun.
Would I be right in suggesting that America seeks to justify it's domestic and foreign policy initiatives through film?

[sherminator]

'the 1943 film "The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen" springs to mind.'
not seen it so cannot comment.

But films and media are always drawn to what is current in the news

several films about 9/11 have happened and then i can name 5 films that are about or related to iraq/afghanistan wars.

But I dont think many are used as a propaganda tool? I might be very naieve but would absolutely hate for that to be true!

[jno]

it depends - lots of big budget US movies try to get help from the Pentagon - technical advice, permission to film hardware and so on - and I believe it's common for this to involve official vetting of scripts.

See this report, for instance

http://www.alternet.org/movies/86093/

[jomifl]

actually jno most americans are white which is why there are more white american actors than black. That doesn't explain why most rappers are black I know but i'm working on that one....