When watching an adaptation of a classic comic into a major Hollywood motion picture, the notion that the Pentagon is influencing the direction of the film is not one that immediately springs to mind. For Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard, their cultural phenomenon, 'The Hollywood War Machine', is an exploration on the Pentagon's expansion into mainstream cinema, just as corporations had done in the early 90s.
While films such as 'All Quiet on the Western Front' and the recent Academy Award winning Iraq War drama 'The Hurt Locker' indicate both the history and success of using war as a topic for a Hollywood film, it is the recent swing of Pentagon involvement that has Boggs and Pollard applying their critical investigations.
The recent Iron Man series of films go beyond the typical mega budget blockbuster film. The good vs bad element remains, but the film's protagonist, inventor Tony Stark, is used as a shop window for emerging military technologies. Stark's weapons are brutal, but only to bad guys. War is sold as a clean and precise endeavour, where Tony Stark's genius has all but removed collateral damage. This a way of circumventing the journalistic portrayal of war, and instead perpetuates the idea that war is safe for citizens and soldiers of the attacking side.
Hollywood rocket launcher
Reality
Boggs and Pollard conclude their piece pointing out that there is little to no moderation into their Hollywood War Machine. The effects of which are currently unmeasured. While it is not unusual for a film to seek expert consultancy on their topic, it is another thing all together to have this twisted and instead portray a different ideology. As the video below points out, The Pentagon will assist in certain pro-military films, but if you are not pandering to their point of view, then you are on your own.
Before 60 minutes and nightly news broadcasts brought fame to journalists, one man in an underground garage was helping conceive the idea of a celebrity-reporter (not celebratory reporter, blame E! news for that). Bob Woodward's late night (or early morning) meetings with Deep Throat would not only bring down a United States President, but change the face and future of investigative journalism.
Following their investigations, Woodward and associate, Cal Bernstein, retreated to Florida where they wrote their best seller, All The President's Men. The book elucidated the techniques and intricacies of their investigations and they evidence presented to them. It garnered significant attention for both bringing down a President, and the lengths an investigative reporter is willing to go to in order to get to their story.
A film adaptation of the book was released quickly after the book. The film starred Robert Redford as Bob Woodward, and in his book on Mark Felt, The Secret Man, Woodward reveals Redford's approach and support during the original series of articles. The film proved a success, with Hal Holbrook, Dustin Hoffman and Redford leading the cast through the moral dilemma and daily grind that is a print newsroom.
As well as its critical and commercial success, what the film did do is further the careers of Bernstein and Woodward and turn investigative journalism into a popular and distinguished career. Woodward was a late starter to journalism and despite starting his career at The Washington Post, was moved into a smaller newspaper shortly after his initiation into the 4th estate. He was then reinstated at The Washington Post and his enthusiasm and ability to be in the right place at the right time (he was covering the court case of the burglars when he learned of their C.I.A. past) led him to the Watergate investigation.
Woodward was also fortunate in his secretive Hollywood-esque meetings with Mark Felt/Deep Throat. He had previously met Felt (a high level F.B.I. career man) when he was at a White House event during his career as a serviceman.
Now Woodward has been criticised for his writing style - a fundamental skill for journalists - but what the film did was announce to the public that there is more to that in good journalism. Primarily, Woodward is a reporter, who writes what he sees and hears from people. However, thanks to the success of his articles and film (not to mention bringing down a president), it is clear that grafting, digging deep and speaking to the right people are key qualities in modern journalism. His articles may not read like an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, but Woodward's approach and fame inspired future generations to take up investigative journalism.There is no limit to the effect it can have, be it taking down a president or winning an academy award.
American Journalism is in a crisis. There's no debate for that, as Bob McChesney and John Nichols point out. Yet, the purpose of their book is not to strike fear into us. Nor is it to make us mourn for a dying institution. Instead, they offer a number of solutions for kick-starting the heart of the stuttering 4th estate.
McChesney and Nichols point out that when newspapers were run to turn a high profit, the quality of the words diminished at the same rate as the quantity of the pages. They pronounce that a newspaper can run at a profit-though not the kind that impresses shareholders- while maintaining their current standard of reporting. It is only when newspapers answer to shareholders and Wall St. that newspapers began to make cuts, both in the news room and at the printing facility. From here, they point out that while the profits may rise, the standard drops, and journalism's role in a democracy is threatened.
As a business that has survived off advertising and classifieds, the proliferation of the internet as a service for both kicked journalism harder than a worked up Donkey. Interest in supplying content through a paywall holds little to no significance to readers. Not because they are afraid to reach into their pockets - they have been doing that for decades by paying for newspapers - but because there is high quality journalism available online that they have already paid for. State run services like the UK's BBC now offer an online print news service, a medium they had no service for 15 years ago. Now a British taxpayer can receive a variety of news forms from the BBC at a high standard and circumvent the traditional private media sector.
The book offers no definitive answer to the American Journalism crisis. They point out that the UK's Guardian has both the most successful business model as well as journalism standard, but do not offer this as a solution. The fact that two experts in the field have spent large portions of time trying to fix this problem, yet are unable to find one specific solution makes the book frustrating. Primarily though, it is frightening that there is no quick fix, nor is there a plausible band-aid.
I'm typing this response on my Jay-Z endorsed HP notebook. It seems like an irrelevant starting point, but it is the electronically charged evidence of Naomi Klein's chapter, The Brand Expands.
Klein elucidates how much of our everyday life has been taken over by branding. Whether it's the public spaces littered with billboards, posters and flyers or the Nike Air Jordans I wear everyday, branding is swallowing up every inch of our life. However, we are taking our own share back.
The chapter begins with Klein talking about her experiences growing up and how important wearing the right logo was. Furthermore, the logo was not necessarily the focal point of successful conformity, she details the lengths taken by her classmate to ensure the legitimacy of the article of clothing.
Not content with harnessing peer-pressure as a marketing tool, companies began to use celebrity endorsements to shift more units. Klein exemplifies this with the clothing company, the Gap. In their 1993 advertising campaign for selling Khakis, with the permission of his estate, the Gap used the below image of the deceased beat writer, Jack Kerouac.
It is fair to say that Jack Kerouac never wore a stitch of Gap clothing - he died 3 months before the first store opened - yet his presence in endorsing a particular style, not product, was enough for Gap to utilise his iconoclastic image. Now to dress like Kerouac you had to have Gap Khakis, an idea that is in direct conflict with the ideology of the beat generation that Kerouac fronted.
The power of the endorser is extremely strong. In an interview with CNN, alt-country singer, Ryan Adams, was asked why he appeared in a Gap commercial with Willie Nelson and offered the following response:
I did the Gap ad, because who says no to $30,000 an hour? I don't! I'm sorry if that's selling out, so be it. Yes, I sell out. I do Gap ads so that I don't have to work in a factory. Also, I don't mind their clothes. But maybe the No. 1 main reason is because Willie was doing it and I was supposed to do it with him, and you don't say no to Willie Nelson.
What Adams didn't allude to was the brand synergy between himself, Nelson and Gap. Associating himself with Willie Nelson would help him sell more records to Willie Nelson fans, while Nelson is able to expand his audience reach into Adam's alt-country market. Adams would later go on to work with Willie Nelson in their original professional field, but not before both were used to sell denim to two separate generations in one 30-second tv commercial. Using artists for cross-promotions is Klein's next point in the chapter, but here alcohol and concerts are replaced with tv-spots and denim.
Recently, the Gap have even fell victim to power of their own brand. The company updated its logo to a helvetica based reworking that was met with backlash from its customers. The prestige of the old logo was lost, and with it so was the status of owning Kerouac endorsed Khakis.
What Klein didn't mention is that the public now take an ownership of the branding. The logo, viewed everyday on Dad's jeans, Mum's cardigan, the kids' t-shirt and the shopping bag had become a public commodity. The saturation had successfully led customers to relate to the logo, so much so that when it changed people became unhappy. When Gap changed the logo, they changed Jack Kerouac, Willie Nelson and Ryan Adams, but more importantly for them, they changed the very reason people buy Gap clothing.
Naomi Klein does an excellent job exploring the power of branding and how embedded it has become in everyday life. She unwraps what happens when endorsers are unhappy (Courtney Love) and when they outgrow the very product they are paid to sell (Michael Jordan). Her next chapter, Alt.Everything, is one that can again be exemplified by the Gap and their marketing of cool, however, it appears they ignored her advice. They were cool, but ironically, trying to be something cooler and jumping on the helvetica bandwagon had the opposite effect.
Moving back to music, Klein states "for their part, many artists now treat companies like the Gap less as deep-pocketed pariahs trying to feed off their cachet than as just another medium they can exploit in order to promote their own brands." This raises two questions Klein could have explored further, just "exactly who is selling who/what?" and "who actually owns the brand?" These open-ended questions remain unresolved, but with the Gap's recent logo shift and artist cross-promotions, the answer is harder to find than workers rights in a sweatshop. Until then, we'll have to wait for the 20th anniversary edition due in a few years time.
