Originally posted by midnight Target
Well said.
OTOH, I don't believe Moore's agenda is such a new thing. Before movies, books were definitely written by very influencial authors with political agendas. Upton Sinclair comes to mind, and maybe John Steinbeck.
Ironically, Sinclair's 1934 defeat in the California governor's election was partially due to advertisements shown in movie houses:
Quick google:
Perhaps the most effective anti-Sinclair campaign was that of movie mogul Louis B. Mayer who, wrote Weaver, "turned his Culver City studio into the unofficial headquarters of the film industry’s organized campaign of vilification and misrepresentation." The effort included "fake newsreel interviews with bewhiskered actors voicing their enthusiasm for EPIC in Russian accents. The most effective footage focussed on Central Casting hobos huddled on the borders of California, waiting to live off the bounty of its taxpayers once Sinclair got elected."
Also....
To scuttle Upton Sinclair, they first of all threatened to move at least four studios to Florida. Next Mayer distributed blank checks to his employees. All the cheques were made out to himself. Employees were effectively being intimidated to donate money to a slush fund to defeat Sinclair. Columbia's Harry Cohn used other tactics but also threatened his staff using their job security. Warner Brothers studio simply assessed each staff member a $3 contribution. The half million dollars generated that way was increased to nearly 10 million, an unprecedented amount with which to launch a political campaign for Governor. The money was used to pay for newspaper ads, radio ads, billboard advertising, phony anti-Sinclair smear groups, and a massive leaflet campaign.
All this direct participation by Hollywood was nothing when compared to their most devastating piece of underhanded trickery and deceit that ended up setting the standards for all future election campaigns, ...national or otherwise.
MGM studio, under Irving Thalberg's direction produced a contrived campaign propaganda film that was edited down to 6 minutes and added to Randolph Hearst's Newsreels which normally ran twice per week in all theaters. Louis B. Mayer went so far as to threaten to withhold the feature films if the political trailers were not shown as well.
