Hollywood Propaganda

Writing in his 1992 book, Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment, Michael Parenti notes:


 * "Today, very little of our make-believe is drawn from children's games, storytelling, folktales, and fables, very little from dramas and dreams of our own making. Instead we have the multibillion-dollar industries of Hollywood and television to fill our minds with prefabricated images and themes." (p.1)

Hollywood Actors/Activists
Dan Brockington writes in 2008 that:


 * "Support for environmental causes is prominent, too, among some of the world’s better-known entertainment celebrities, often closely linked to particular NGOs. ... There are also Hollywood actors, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, who support groups including the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), International Fund for Animal Welfare and the Diane Fossey Foundation, and Robert Redford, who also supports the work of the NRDC as does Pierce Brosnan (also on the advisory board of the Sea Shepherds). Harrison Ford is Vice-President of Conservation International and has received numerous awards for his conservation work. Actress Stefanie Powers supports the William Holden Foundation. Angelina Jolie sponsors her own wildlife project in Cambodia and initiatives in Namibia. The musician Sting set up the Rainforest Foundation for which musicians including James Taylor, Sheryl Crow and Billy Joel perform in annual concerts. Other charities, including TNC, Wild Aid, the Murry Foundation and many more, devote special space on their website to list the celebrities who support them or to display special messages from them."


 * Alec Baldwin, Angelina Jolie, Antonio Banderas
 * Barbara Streisand, Ben Affleck, Bette Midler, Bill Travers, Bo Derek, Brad Pitt, Brigitte Bardot
 * Charlize Theron, Christopher Reeve
 * Daniel Day-Lewis, Daryl Hannah, Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle
 * Edward Asner, Edward Norton, Ed Begley, Jr., Elaine Hendrix, Ethan Hawke
 * George Clooney, Glenn Close, Goldie Hawn, Gwyneth Paltrow
 * Harrison Ford, Harry Belafonte, Hugh Jackman
 * Jackie Chan, Jane Fonda, Jennifer Siebel, Jenny McCarthy, Jeremy Irons, Joanne Woodward, Jody Williams, Joaquin Phoenix, Julia Ormond
 * Kate Hudson, Kate Winslet, Kathleen Turner, Kevin Bacon
 * Leonardo DiCaprio, Lew Wasserman, Lindsay Wagner
 * Madonna, Mariana Tosca, Martin Sheen, Mel Gibson, Meryl Streep, Mia Farrow, Michael Douglas, Mike Farrell, Mira Nair
 * Nick Cage, Nicole Kidman
 * Paul Newman, Sir Peter Ustinov, Pierce Brosnan
 * Richard Dreyfuss, Richard Gere, Richard Masur, Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Ronald Silver, Rosario Dawson
 * Sean Penn, Sharon Stone, Sigourney Weaver, Stefanie Powers, Stephen Collins, Susan Sarandon, Sylvester Stallone
 * Tom Hanks, Tim Robbins
 * Uma Thurman
 * Valerie Harper
 * Warren Beatty, Whoopi Goldberg, Will Smith, Woody Harrelson

Directors/Producers

 * Ben Affleck‎
 * Francis Ford Coppola
 * George Lucas
 * Jeff Skoll
 * Jerry Weintraub
 * Martin Scorsese
 * Michael Moore
 * Oliver Stone
 * Steven Soderbergh
 * Steven Spielberg

Hollywood and the Military/CIA

 * Paula Bernstein, "Hardest-working Actor of the Season: the C.I.A.", New York Times, September 2, 2001.
 * Joanne Laurier, "US cable channel whitewashes the CIA", World Socialist Web, December 12, 2001.
 * Lawrence H. Suid, Guts and Glory: The Making of the American Military Image in Film (Kentucky UP, 2002).
 * Mile Klindo and Richard Phillips, "Military interference in American film production", World Socialist Web, March 14, 2005.
 * David L. Robb, Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon shapes and censors the movies (Prometheus Books, 2004).
 * Seiji Yamada, "Transformers, Militarism in Disguise", Znet, August 1, 2007.
 * Nick Turse, "The Golden Age of the Military-Entertainment Complex: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Pentagon-Style", Tom's Dispatch, March 21, 2008.
 * Daniel J. Leab, Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007). Review
 * "Tomgram: Nick Turse, Irony Man". TomsDispatch, May 20, 2008.
 * Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, "An offer they couldn't refuse", Guardian (UK), November 14, 2008.
 * Matthew Alford, A Propaganda Model for Hollywood, Westminster Papers for Communication and Culture, Vol 6(2), 2009.

Other Critical Resources

 * Herminio Martins, "The Celebrity Syndrome," New Left Review, I/26, July-August 1964.
 * Ernst Giglio, Here’s Looking at You: Hollywood, Film, and Politics (Peter Lang, 2005).
 * J. Hoberman, The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties (The New Press, 2005).
 * Ben Dickenson, Hollywood’s New Radicalism: War, Globalisation and the Movies from Reagan to George W. Bush (I. B. Tauris, 2006).
 * Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard, The Hollywood War Machine: U.S. Militarism and Popular Culture (Paradigm, 2007).
 * Philip Hammond, "Celebrity Culture and the Rise of Narcissistic Interventionism", in Robert Clarke (ed.) Celebrity Colonialism (2009).
 * Mikita Brottman, "The Beauties and the Beasts: Hollywood, Blondes and the Slaughter Industry", Counterpunch, July 19, 2010.
 * Matthew Alford, Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy (Pluto Press, August 2010).
 * Tom Pollard, Sex and Violence: The Hollywood Censorship Wars (Paradigm, 2010).
 * Michael Barker, "Bob Geldof and the Aid Industry: “Do They Know it’s Imperialism?”," Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2013.

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 * Humanitas Award
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 * Voices That Care
 * Lawrence Bender
 * Ari Emanuel - agent
 * Gary Sinise
 * Ryan Gosling