No longer do I need to ponder why I don't take in more movies, or for
that matter, read comic books. Once I was beyond Bugs Bunny, Donald
Duck and Mickey Mouse, I never felt a need to turn to Superman or
Wonder Woman. I did read some of the Classic Comics, but the stories
were so condensed that they came in dead last when compared to the
original stories.
Anyway, such reviews as this one do remind me that despite protests to
the contrary, we do live under a Pentagon controlled Oligarchy.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/8/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mondoweiss
Wonder Woman is a hero only the military-industrial complex could create
Jonathan Cookon July 7, 20177 Comments
Wonder Woman with her allies--"the humane members of the world community,
represented by the U.S.-Chris Pine is the male lead and Gadot's love
interest-and a ragtag support group that includes a Scot, a native
American,
and a generic Arab, presumably symbolizing 'moderate' Arab states like
Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and Jordan," writes Jonathan Cook (Photo: Clay Enos/Warner
Bros)
For a while I have been pondering whether to write a review of the newly
released "Wonder Woman," to peel back the layer of comic book fun to reveal
below the film's disturbing and not-so-covert political and militaristic
messages.
There is usually a noisy crowd who deride any such review with shouts of
"Lighten up! It's only a movie!"-as though popular culture is neither
popular nor culture, the soundtrack to our lives that slowly shapes our
assumptions and our values, and does so at a level we rarely examine
critically.
My argument is that this much-praised Gal Gadot vehicle-seemingly about a
peace-loving superhero, Wonder Woman, from the DC Comics stable-is actually
carefully purposed propaganda designed to force-feed aggressive western
military intervention, dressed up as humanitarianism, to unsuspecting
audiences.
In short, this is straight-up propaganda for the military-industrial
complex. It would have looked and sounded identical had it been scripted by
a joint team from the Pentagon and the Israel Defense Forces.
My reticence to review the film has lifted after reading the latest
investigations of Tom Secker and Matthew Alfordinto the manifold ways the
U.S. military and security services interfere in Hollywood, based on a
release of 4,000 pages of documents under Freedom of Information requests.
In their new book "National Security Cinema,"the pair arguethat the
Pentagon, CIA and National Security Agency have meddled in the production
of
at least 800 major Hollywood movies and 1,000 TV titles. That is likely to
be only the tip of the iceberg, as they concede:
"It is impossible to know exactly how widespread this military censorship
of
entertainment is because many files are still being withheld."
They write that their book "details how U.S. government involvement also
includes script rewrites on some of the biggest and most popular films,
including James Bond, the Transformers franchise, and movies from the
Marvel
and DC cinematic universes."
The need for Pentagon toys
This isn't just about minor adjustments, but wholesale collusion between
film-makers and the military: "If there are characters, action or dialogue
that the DoD [Department of Defense] don't approve of then the film-maker
has to make changes to accommodate the military's demands. If they refuse
then the Pentagon packs up its toys and goes home. To obtain full
cooperation the producers have to sign contracts-Production Assistance
Agreements-which lock them into using a military-approved version of the
script."
The fact that script-writers, producers and directors on these mega-budget
pictures know their film may never make it into production if it does not
get a thumbs-up from the Pentagon inevitably influences the choice of
subjects, the political and military premises of selected films, and the
story lines.
One movie, "Countermeasures," was ditched after the military objected to a
script that " included references to the Iran-Contra scandal . Similarly
"Fields of Fire" and "Top Gun 2" were never made because they couldn't
obtain military support, again due to politically controversial aspects of
the scripts."
One can imagine just how stringent the conditions imposed by the Pentagon
must be, if it felt compelled to reject a movie like "Top Gun 2," the
sequel
to the "flyboys with toys" killing fest that starred a young Tom Cruise.
The two authors add: "The documents also record the pro-active nature of
the
military's operations in Hollywood and that they are finding ways to get
involved during the earliest stages of development, 'when characters and
storylines are most easily shaped to the Army's benefit'."
Bad apples, not bad institutions
In addition, film-makers are pressured into changing scripts that suggest
institutional or systemic problems in the U.S. security agencies.
The two authors observe that producer Jerry Bruckheimer has admitted that
the script of the film Enemy of the State was changed under pressure from
the NSA so that the wrongdoings at the heart of the film would be the
responsibility of a single individual, not the agency itself.
"This idea of using cinema to pin the blame for problems on isolated rogue
agents or bad apples, thus avoiding any notion of systemic, institutional
or
criminal responsibility, is right out of the CIA/DOD's playbook," they
observe.
So not only are movies critical of U.S. and western politics and militarism
almost certain to be off-limits for a big-budget production, but that void
is certain to be filled by film proposals the studio is confident will win
approval from the Pentagon, CIA and NSA.
And this is, of course, on top of the fact that the Hollywood money-men are
themselves part of a larger globalized financial elite that depends on the
proceeds of the homeland security industry, arms manufacturers and war
profiteers. These financiers themselves are certain to prefer funding films
that support a neoliberal worldview at home and a neoconservative policy of
warmongering abroad.
As Secker and Alford conclude: "In societies already eager to use our hard
power overseas, the shaping of our popular culture to promote a pro-war
mindset must be taken seriously."
Gal Gadot and the IDF
All of this is the context for deciphering the egregious propaganda in
favor
of western military violence, and the portrayal of peace-seeking as
"appeasement", that is Wonder Woman.
There has been plenty of guffawing at Middle East countries,including
Lebanon,for seeking to ban Wonder Woman because it stars Gal Gadot, an
Israeli beauty queen turned actress who plays the title role.
In fact, it is understandable that the Lebanese might object to a film
heavily promoting Gadot as the world's savior, given that she served in the
Israeli army, one that brutally occupied parts of their country for two
decades until 2000 and continues to maintain a belligerent occupation of
the
Palestinians.
But there is also an undeniable irony to Gadot playing an Amazonian goddess
who opposes the militarism of men, and cannot bear to see the suffering of
children in war, when in real life she publicly cheered on the Israeli
army's massive bombardment in 2014 of the imprisoned population of Gaza,
which led to the killing of some 500 Palestinian children there.
But more importantly, it is not just that Gadot, a former IDF soldier, is
now the face of Wonder Woman; it is that the film's superhero character too
almost perfectly embodies the shared militaristic values of the IDF and the
Pentagon. If there is one film whose script suggests it was jointly
engineered by the Pentagon and Israeli army, it is Wonder Woman.
Hillary Clinton as Wonder Woman?
The film is set near the end of the First World War, a cataclysmic
confrontation between two colonial powers, Britain and Germany, each trying
to assert its dominance in Europe. The film-makers blur their focus
sufficiently to gloss over the problem that there were no good guys in that
"war to end all wars". Instead in true Hollywood fashion, the First World
War is presented simply as a prelude (or prequel) to the Second World War
and the rise of the Nazis.
The Germans are murderous villains, while the British are the flawed-until
Gadot shows them the error of their ways - defenders of humanity. In fact,
the film prefers to cast the anti-German side as "Allies", the humane
members of the world community, represented by the U.S.-Chris Pine is the
male lead and Gadot's love interest-and a ragtag support group that
includes
a Scot, a native American, and a generic Arab, presumably symbolizing
"moderate" Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.
The British leadership is trying to find ways to make peace and end the
war,
but is stymied by an evil presence. A German super-general, Erich
Ludendorff
(Danny Huston), believes he can win the war decisively by developing a
horrifying gas that will wipe out men, women and children, forcing the
British to surrender on his terms. To demonstrate his power, he tests the
gas on innocent villagers on the front lines in Belgium.
All of this might sound disconcertingly familiar to anyone who has been
following the western media-scripted coverage that has for several years
been trying to promote more aggressive "humanitarian intervention" in
Syria-and before that, and more successfully, in Libya and Iraq.
Is Ludendorff supposed to be Bashar Assad, the evil Syrian president who -
as long as we discount the dissenting voices of some experts - has twice
used the chemical weapon sarin against innocent civilians?
Are the British leaders, seeking a peace deal with the Germans, supposed to
be those "appeasers" in the West who have stood in the way of
"intervention"
in Syria, blocking no-fly zones and bombing runs that could bring down the
Syrian government?
And, in an even more disturbing, if now outdated parallel, given the film's
aggressive identity politics, is Wonder Woman-the Amazonian who brings
peace
through overpowering military violence-a stand-in for Hillary Clinton? When
the movie was in production, the filmmakers must have assumed it would be
released as Clinton was enjoying her early months in office as the first
female U.S. president.
The use of Wonder Woman to justify Clinton's well-documented blood lust-the
woman who laughed as "our rebels" murderously sodomized Libya's Col
Gaddafi,
saying: "We came, we saw, he died" - would have proved timely had the U.S.
election turned out differently.
War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength
Those who have not seen the film, and take it seriously as entertainment,
may wish to skip this section, which includes a significant spoiler.
The source of man's evil in Wonder Woman is the only surviving Greek god,
Ares, who is hiding somewhere in the human world. Wonder Woman believes she
can end all war and human suffering only if she can locate Ares and kill
him-before he kills her.
No one in the human world, of course, believes Wonder Woman, and they
foolishly dismiss her ideas as lunacy. And for a while Wonder Woman makes a
terrible mistake in thinking the German Ludendorff (Saddam / Gaddafi /
Assad) is Ares. It is late in the film that she discovers she has been on
the wrong scent.
Humankind's ultimate enemy is not Ludendorff, but the kindly Sir Patrick
Morgan (David Thewlis), who has spent the entire film counseling for
negotiations and peace with the Germans.
The ultimate evil, Wonder Woman finds, is the wolf in sheep's clothing
among
us: those who preach fraternity, compassion and turning the other cheek are
the ones who make possible the killing of the innocents.
Those who appear to care, those who seem to offer a route out of bloodshed
and war-those who defeat the aims and threaten the profits of the
military-industrial complex-are in truth nothing more than appeasers. Their
efforts are certain, even intended, to lead to greater suffering.
Militarism, superior firepower, and an absolute belief in the justness of
one's cause, as Wonder Woman is reminded by her Amazonian tutors during her
childhood Krav Maga combat training (Gadot was herself an Israeli army
combat trainer) are the way to save mankind from the evildoers.
There is no time to delay, to stand back, to question or to negotiate.
Wonder Woman is outraged by the dithering of the men around her. She wants
to be at the front line as soon as possible, to kick ass.
"War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength"-and all of it is
good for business, the film Wonder Woman concludes in truly Orwellian
fashion.
A veneer of identity politics
Of course, this story-like all effective propaganda-is supposed to work its
magic at a subconscious level, where it cannot be interrogated by our
reason
and our critical faculties. But even so, a few critics-themselves
enthusiastic liberal interventionists-seem to have intuited the movie's
message.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a reviewer with the clearest sense of how the
film
panders to the pro-war sentiments and identity politics of many liberals is
the film critic of the conservative Washington Free Beacon.
Sonny Bunch applauds the way the film"highlights the need for the strong to
intervene on behalf of the weak and the oppressed, and treats as villains
quislings who sue for a peace that will bring only more destruction."
But he also understands how the film has been crafted to make its
war-mongering more palatable to liberals. Wonder Woman, he writes, proves
"you could slap an identity politics veneer on just about any
neoconservative policy and progressives would lap it up. [.] Liberal
interventionism is back, baby!"
Drooling from liberals
And sure enough, the community of largely liberal film reviewers has mostly
drooled over Wonder Woman. Despite dire acting from Gadot, preposterous
dialogue and a risible screenplay, the film has racked up an astounding 92
percent approval rating from critics on the review aggregator website
Rotten
Tomatoes.
Here is a brief selection of their assessments:
Dana Stevens, of Slate:"This is a movie about battling evil that pauses to
ask what evil is and whether it's necessary to understand its nature in
order to defeat it."
Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle:"What lingers [.] is the
feeling of hope that the movie brings, that it someday might be possible
for
female rationality to defeat male brutality."
Richard Brody, of the New Yorker: Wonder Woman is "an entry in the genre of
wisdom literature that shares hard-won insights and long-pondered paradoxes
of the past with a sincere intimacy."
A. O.Scott, of the New York Times:"Her sacred duty is to bring peace to the
world. Accomplishing it requires a lot of killing, but that's always the
superhero paradox. [.] Unlike most of her male counterparts, its heroine is
not trying to exorcise inner demons or work out messiah issues. She wants
to
function freely in the world, to help out when needed and to be respected
for her abilities. No wonder she encounters so much resistance."
The paradoxes of power
Wonder Woman grapples with the paradoxes of military power every American
interventionist and Israeli patriot understands. To save the "beautiful
children", we must sometimes hurry to intervene and kill ruthlessly, even
if
the other side's children are the ones who must be sacrificed.
Wonder Woman wants to "function freely": she must enjoy the right to go
wherever her interests take her. She cannot be shackled by borders in her
quest for justice. She is there to "help out" others in trouble, even if
she
alone gets to decide who needs help and what counts as trouble. And she
needs "respect", and is prepared to force others to accord it to her,
through her superior strength if need be.
She will face "so much resistance" because others are jealous of her power
and her freedoms. They are the evildoers, and they must and will be
defeated.
Is it any surprise that in the Hollywood-Pentagon world of Wonder Woman,
the
values of a female superhero sound exactly like those of the military men
who run the West's wars?
Now roll on "Wonder Woman 2: Time to Intervene (Humanely)".
