It's not like there is any serious political debate on the legitimacy of Mexican Drug Cartels. You are being dishonest to say this film vilifies Mexicans and Mexico in general rather than extremely violent drug dealers who right now are responsible for MASS GRAVES of people they have murdered in cold blooded executions. Same for the other groups depicted, it is NOT racial or nationalistic, it's following the bad guys that both sides of the political spectrum oppose.Simonism451 said:Well, you could argue that by portraying the SEALs as totally cool heroes that are making sure you don't have to live in fear from evil Russians/Mexicans/Arabs, the film does promote a political cause, especially since Navy officials openly describe it as a way to get new recruits for the SEALsTreblaine said:Alandoril said:Propaganda, nothing more and nothing less. The fact that it doesn't look like it is what makes it so effective.
Propaganda: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/propaganda
This movie is distinctly apolitical as movie-bob and others point out. It presents an as-authentic-as-possible depiction of the method of war. No idealisation to trick people into joining up, it even uses live ammunition as much as possible and doesn't hide or sanitize the human cost.
To call this film propaganda is really being illiterate on the use of that word.
Just because it DOESN'T have a political commentary that War-X should be abandoned or FAILS to vilify a military organisation doesn't make it propaganda, as if there is some responsibility to make negative political commentary. A lot of people seem to object to this film more because it is NOT propaganda... not propaganda in the sense that Oliver Stone's Platoon propaganda of isolationist political message.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/movies/act-of-valor-film-with-active-duty-members-of-navy-seals.html?_r=1NYTimes said:Rear Adm. Denny Moynihan, of the Navy Office of Information in Washington, explained that every four years the Defense Department "looks at itself and says, 'What is it that you need to be moving forward, and where do you think you are?' " He added, "For the Navy and the SEAL community it was, 'Hey, you need 500 more SEALs' and that launched a series of initiatives to try to attract more people. This film was one of those initiatives."
As for the biased and misleading part: Biased, certainly, since everything is. I'm not gonna comment on misleading because the ensuing discussion won't help anyone.
Recruitment =/= propaganda
Recruitment is not automatically propaganda. I have given you the definition and it doesn't fit. It would be propaganda to recruite, but only by casting some dashing actors to sugar coat war as some fun harmless adventure, or to somehow depict it as something it is not, to deceive people into recruiting AS THEY DID in previous wars. This film does NOT do that.
"Biased, certainly, since everything is."
If everything is, then everything is propaganda. What hollow logic.
"I'm not gonna comment on misleading because the ensuing discussion won't help anyone."
Oh, I'm happy to comment: it isn't misleading
Bottom line
How can a military function if it is socially or morally unacceptable to EVER show any aspect of the military in a positive light in the public sphere? It is gross and slanderous use of the term "propaganda" to label this film such. Label it a bad film, label it a Recruitment Film even, but it's wrong to label it propaganda as that would be either dishonest or ignorantly illiterate.