Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

The Stories Hollywood Won’t Tell

Darwin Bond-Graham

As far as film genres go it’s hard to find another that exceeds the racism, chauvinism and brutality displayed in westerns. The very material upon which westerns are based is an historical era characterized by one of the world’s most massive genocides, the colonization of a half continent, and the theft of even more lands from a “mongrelized” nation, Mexico. Virtually every western flick produced before the 1970s is seething with anti-Mexican and anti-Indian racism, reflecting the reality of the day, and by the day I mean both the 19th Century frontier, and 20th Century US mediascape. Plots are built around the irrational “depravities” of the sub-races as they rampage across the “wilderness” attacking peaceful and industrious settlers. Virtually every early western is about the white man’s attempts to defend his women and community against the “savage” red-skinned humanoids who heed no laws or honor.

Later westerns turned the mirror on the white man to some extent, showing that evil also lurked in the master race of colonizers. He was the black-hat villain, and as if to certify his criminal insanity he often consorted with dark Indians and especially mixed-race Mexicans. The heroes remained the same, the tall white-hat gunslinger. Sure there’s a lot of variations and even quite a few exceptions to the rule. More than a few westerns were built around the anti-hero persona of men like Clint Eastwood. But the genre’s overall narrative from its earliest days, with films like The Big Trail, has been about white civilization’s survival in a savage wilderness, and the justness of manifest destiny in American history.

Fake Disarmament, War Propaganda: Countdown to Zero (2010)

Disarmament for Some
Co-opting the Anti-Nuclear Movement

By DARWIN BOND-GRAHAM

No medium of propaganda is as powerful and effective as film. Think of the classics, the most notorious efforts to to sway the public with the electrifying and collective passion of cinema: racial apartheid was justified in the US with Birth of a Nation. The Soviets glorified their revolution with the Battleship Potemkin. Then there was Triumph of the Will.

A typical propaganda film tugs at emotions and invokes fears. It invokes dark threats to “the people,” and it offers up solutions extolling state and corporate power. Unlike a political documentary it will not criticize the state or corporation. Instead it will celebrate great men as our leaders and saviors. Distinct from a run-of-the-mill political documentary, a propaganda film butchers the complexity and contradictions that permeate politics and real life, presenting things in simplistic moral terms. Functionally, propaganda is mobilized to secure popular support for a primary, often hidden agenda that is not apparent in the film’s narrative. Propaganda is a tool used by elites to secure the consent of the masses, and channel their anxieties.

Now hitting theaters is one of the most dangerous propaganda films produced in decades. Countdown to Zero “traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs.” A promotional blurb on the film’s web site claims that it “makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament, an issue more topical than ever with the Obama administration working to revive this goal today.”

Before I go any further in explaining Countdown as a propaganda film I should note that note all propaganda need not be the product of a secretive and manipulative council of elites behind some curtain. Instead, the many contributors to Countdown and its promotional efforts have different motivations and intentions. What makes this film a coherent piece of propaganda is its medium, style, and likely effects on the US political climate. There are powerful actors who will use it for nefarious ends.