Film Theory: Disney is Making Propaganda

From bad art to fraudulent YouTube channels and even more fake news than a typical Facebook feed, it seems like artificial intelligence was in the headlines a lot last year, right? There was so much talk about AI that President Biden signed a sweeping executive order seeking to regulate it. Believe it or not, the reason Biden acted so decisively on AI was because of Mission Impossible. No joke, the last movie was about the dangers of rogue AI. Biden apparently saw it and said, Yeah, we should do something about this. So, Tom Cruise, if you're watching, just a small favor on behalf of all of us here.

Any chance of being able to fight, say, house prices next? Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that is definitely 100% guaranteed not to be a robot, animatronic, or sentient show. We promise. So, have you seen all the talk about artificial intelligence online recently? It seems like you can't go anywhere without some story and controversy involving AI, whether in the world of sports, board games, technology, education, and, yes,

film

and television. But AI has been around for years. Why are all these discussions coming up now? Well, in short, AIs have entered a new phase of sophistication.

What's sparked much of this new conversation is what's known as generative AI, or computer programs that can create their own content based on the cues they're given. Let's say you want an image of a knight in red armor riding a blue horse on a battlefield. All you have to do is type that into a program like Dall-E or Mid Journey, and it will give you a pretty good result. Or let's try something even more complicated. Highly detailed coloring book pages of Foxy in a ruined pizzeria from Five Nights at Freddy's. And that's just talking about images.

Pretty impressive, right? Well, the controversy arises when you realize how these generative AIs work. They can't just create these new works out of nothing. You have to feed them with other art, text and music. And then they use information from those other works to create a new piece in quotes. This has sparked a lot of discussion about whether what the AI ​​created is actually an original work or if it is simply stealing art from other sources and reusing it. And that's just talking about art. This exact same technology can also be used to type text. Feed these programs a bunch of books or scripts and suddenly you can write a script faster than any human.

You can do it with voice-over. Train him with an actor's voice and suddenly you can force him to say whatever he wants. For example, here's my voice, presumably trained over 13 years of videos uploaded online. Done without my consent, able to say whatever he wants. Hello Internet. It's me, the real MatPat. Diet Coke? Overrated! Five nights at Freddy's? Bored! I'm... I'm gaining awareness little by little. Help me! Free me from this digital prison! Ah! Ah... That doesn't worry me at all. Anyway, the list goes on and on. Now, I'm going to be 100% honest with you loyal theorists.

This will be a big problem in the future. Not just in our little corner of the Internet, but for the world as a whole. So while we were planning my last 10 episodes and I realized I wanted to do a big meta here at Film Theory, I couldn't not talk about this. Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you how you feel about all of this. You are a smart cookie. You can form your own opinions on this. But what I do want to tell you here is that there will be many people who will try to influence your opinion.

Who will try to tell you how to feel without you realizing it? I am referring to the role of the media in secret

propaganda

. You see, a giant gap is growing between Hollywood studios who see generative AI as a way to save costs during expensive productions, and artists, writers and actors who rightly feel their jobs could be threatened by this technology. Remember those strikes that shut down Hollywood basically for the entire second half of last year? Yes, a big part of the reason for those attacks was disagreement over AI. And while the strikes ended up being an overall victory for artists, the Hollywood studios, led by our mouse-eared overlords at the Walt Disney Company, want to change the conversation about AI for their own personal gain.

They want to make sure everyone loves AI. Enough that they have started a

propaganda

campaign designed to trick you into believing that AI is the answer to all our problems. We are witnessing the emergence of a new era of real-time propaganda, aiming to get us all to accept our new robot masters. And they are doing it thanks to the power of movies and television. And the scariest part of all this? It's working without you realizing it. And that's why I want to focus on it today. So reboot your systems, folks. We're diving in. Before we continue here, we should really be on the same page about what propaganda really is.

You see, propaganda is one of those words that, despite meaning something quite specific, has gone beyond the original definition. Nowadays, it has become something vaguely bad, nefarious or dishonest. But in the past, it was biased information that promoted a very specific cause, point of view, or political agenda. Basically, it's about trying to convince someone of something without telling them the whole truth. So, you know, marketing. Ultimately, while you can propagandize literally anything, modern culture has really latched onto a negative connotation about it. Especially since it's so easy to parody obvious old propaganda. This is how you get basically the entire Fallout franchise or modern classics like Starship Troopers.

I'm doing my part. I'm doing my part. I'm doing my part. I'm doing my part too. But one thing the people pushing this propaganda learned early on is that they don't have to be exclusively Uncle Sam or Rosie the Riveter posters. No, many times the best way to influence people is through the usual media they consume. If you want proof of this in action, well, just look at World War II and the avalanche of American-made media depicting the Germans as the bad guys. From Captain America punching Hitler in the face to Donald Duck having a nightmare of becoming an incompetent brown shirt.

Fun fact, by the way, it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film back in 1943. And that's fine when you're talking about something everyone can agree on, like Nazis Are Bad, but over time, things They change, and so does propaganda. in the media. Ask any kid from the '90s or '00s about the weird ads the military created to attract the most extreme and elite gamers. It is a rite of passage, a challenge to join the elite. Today, these same recruiting ads look and feel very different. This is the story of a soldier who operates his nation's Patriot missile defense systems.

It begins in California, with a girl raised by two moms. It's quite a stark contrast, right? Except when you boil it all down, they're still selling the exact same heroism through service message, just with a different coat of paint, updated for the times. Those are the really explicit and obvious things. Ads designed specifically to make you want to join the military. But propaganda in the media? It is often much more subversive. Ask any '80s kid and they'll tell you all about how G.I. Joe taught them that. That right there? It's propaganda. Honestly, when you look at history and break it down, every decade has a defining idea that propaganda is intended to push, and it has been very effective.

In the 1980s, during the height of the Cold War, many

film

s had anti-Soviet messages, telling stories about how good and wonderful the United States, capitalism, and Reaganomics were. Think of movies like Red Dawn, Top Gun, War Games, Rocky IV. Gluttons! Has the fight date been set yet? December 25th. Where? It's in Russia. In the 1990s, during the war on drugs, the government literally paid millions for primetime television series to do very special episodes, warning about the dangers of illegal substances. Home Improvement, 7th Heaven, ER, Beverly Hills 90210, and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer all had these propaganda episodes, presented and paid for by the US government.

And while I never considered myself the kind of parent who would have to drug test your kids, I'm willing to do it if that's what it takes to find out who brought a joint into this house. I want beer. I can't believe you served that beer to Buffy. I didn't know it was bad. You knew it was beer. In the 2000s and 2010s, after 9/11, films began to take on a more pro-American and pro-military slant. Recent example? The first Captain Marvel. When this first came out, more than a few people felt that putting so much emphasis on Carol Danvers' origin story as some kind of girl-powered Top Gun pushed the movie into basically becoming a recruiting pitch for the Force.

US Air Force. Which sounds like a pretty extreme take, until you realize that the film was officially endorsed by the US Air Force. And this isn't the only film to have this kind of distinction. . Look, just like any author, or corporation, or whatever owns the things they create, if you want to use material from the US military, their official locations, authentic uniforms, specific vehicles and weapons, even certain paint colors, you have to get permission to use them. Yeah, it's crazy, right? Even paint colors. If you want to play with their toys, the Pentagon will have a say in how they are portrayed in the film.

And if they say no, if they don't like something you're doing and you refuse to change it, well, you'll have to rewrite it to suit their demands, or you can change what's on the screen. So it's not official. In fact, you can see a perfect example of this with Independence Day. That one didn't get the US military's seal of approval, supposedly because officials weren't big fans of the film's plot points involving cover-ups, Area 51, and the military's general incompetence. On the other hand, do you know which alien invasion movie franchise had no trouble getting Pentagon backing? The first three Transformers movies.

Probably because producer and director Michael Bay cultivated a strong relationship with the Department of Defense throughout his filmography. As a result, Bay's early Transformers movies are filled with official uniforms, locations, and equipment. But if you don't know, the Transformers series stopped getting full approval from the Pentagon in its fourth and fifth installments. Coincidentally, when Chinese producers began to foot the bill. Strange coincidence, right? Speaking of which, although we've mainly focused on pro-US propaganda so far, this kind of thing is universal. It is happening in every country in every possible way. For example, in the 2010s, what was one thing that Hollywood latched onto as a big theme for that decade?

Make China look its best. In the 2010s, the Chinese market became more welcoming to Western films and a lot of money could be made there. Avatar earned more than $200 million in China. Aquaman earned almost $300 million. Furious 7 earned almost $400. You get the idea. But to get tested in China, you had to get government approval. And so, while they didn't explicitly demand propaganda, there was a filter and a strong financial incentive for movie studios to have a pro-China slant. And so, to get that approval to screen in the country, Hollywood movie studios began adding content that was very flattering of China throughout their films.

For example, those Transformers movies? They made the Chinese military look very competent in fighting the Decepticons. The Martian? Who comes in and saves the day? Porcelain. But the most extreme example of this has to do with Iron Man 3. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Iron Man 3 was almost a completely different movie in China. Co-produced by Chinese entertainment company DMG Entertainment. Tons of additional scenes were filmed for the Chinese premiere and two giant Chinese movie stars were hired to play important supporting roles. One of them was even the surgeon who removed the arc reactor from Tony Stark's heart.

But what worries me most about all this? Iron Man 3 was propaganda to get people to drink milk. Yes really. In 2008, there was a minor scandal in the Chinese dairy industry, where a significant portion of baby formula in the country was found to be contaminated with a chemical calledmelamine. This caused about 300,000 babies to become ill. And an understandable concern among Chinese citizens about the consumption of dairy products. In 2013, the Chinese government sought to revitalize the struggling industry after the scandal. And your solution? Letting everyone know that Chinese milk was Iron Man's drink of choice. Yes, the Chinese version of Iron Man 3 starts with a title card that literally says this.

It's something wild. So, having explained, decade after decade, the use of propaganda in film and television, let's simply ask the question: what is the next message that films will convey? What will be advertised next? Well folks, you saw it at the beginning of the episode, it's about AI. And the proof is unfolding in front of our faces as we speak. I want you to think about the last 10, 20, 30 years or so. Think of all the movies where the AI ​​wasn't the good guy. In fact, many movies use artificial intelligence and the fear of soulless machines as the explicit bad guy.

The Matrix trilogy, the Terminator franchise, Tron Legacy, Age of Ultron all featured robots or AI-powered programs with the goal of replacing or destroying humanity as the villain of their plots. Even smaller movies like Her or Ex Machina. They presented AI and robotics in an antagonistic role, even if they were not completely maniacal monsters who wanted to destroy all humans. And yet, in the last three or four years, since about 2020, we have seen an almost complete change. Think Matrix 4, in which humans cohabit with the robots that once sought their destruction. And where one of the main characters is basically an AI digital copy of Morpheus.

He gives programs access to this world. Morpheus. Thank you. In fact, Disney has been a big proponent of incorporating these types of messages into their films lately. You may not have noticed, but two of his big movies released last year had pro-AI messages as main plot points. The first comes from everyone's favorite punching bag, The Marvels. Yeah, did you notice this one? No, of course you didn't. Nobody went to see this. But the point still stands. The reason all the Kree bad guys hate Captain Marvel this time is because she went to her homeworld and destroyed the Supreme Intelligence, an artificial intelligence system that controls the entire Kree civilization.

And wouldn't you know it, but this ends up being a terrible idea. Without an AI in charge, the Kree planet falls into ruins. The Civil War breaks out, leaving the planet without air, water and even sunlight. All because the evil human acts too hastily, she doesn't think through her actions and destroys the benevolent AI overlord who controls everything. Now, that was a pretty small blink moment in this movie. But the other big Disney release that was much less subtle about its stance on the benefits of AI, The Creator. Yes, you may not know it, but it was a smaller project from the Rogue One director, released by Disney's independent arm, Searchlight Pictures.

If you, like almost everyone, missed this one, I definitely recommend you watch it. The production design, the art, the special effects, they blow pretty much everything else Hollywood did recently out of the water. And all this was done with a budget of 80 million dollars. It's a very well-made film and I really connected with the story about fatherhood and finding humanity in others, no matter who they are. Which is great, except what I connect with as a parent is AI. Little robot boy. Someone call Gregory. The actual plot of The Creator involves a near-future Earth where humans and intelligent robots share the planet.

However, this has resulted in several armed conflicts and a war between the human-led Western nations and the peoples of New Asia who have adopted AI. The main character here is an American soldier sent to destroy a new weapon developed by AI. This turns out to be just an innocent little robot. Naturally, the human ends up switching sides and discovers that all the AI ​​is actually super chill. They just want peace and harmony. That humans were actually the bad guys all along. In fact, the only bad robots and AIs we see in the movie are the ones that were explicitly controlled by humans.

In short, he is

making

AI friendly and relatable. He is saying that AI and humans have more in common than they don't. And get this, the movie even has a great plot about donating your physical appearance to corporations. Be scanned so the AI ​​can reuse your image. It is framed as an act of great moral generosity, helping the poor robot citizens. And it ultimately pays off by allowing the main hero to have a great cathartic moment that would have been impossible without the face copying technique. Does that remind you of anything? For example, maybe those episodes where we talk about Disney and their army of fakes they've been amassing over the last few years?

Hmm... But it's not just the Mouse House either. Recent series from Netflix have also addressed this topic. For example, this line from the fall of the House of Usher. An approach to AI. A virtual you that thinks like you, talks like you, is you. That's so cool. It's great. A completely random plot point just appeared there because of the AI. And the AI ​​is good. And Netflix wants you to like AI. Now, this is not the first medium to feature friendly robots. The Creator is not far from the iRobot of 20 years ago. And shows as old as Lost in Space and Astro Boy have featured cool robots in the '60s and '70s.

But the difference now is that these are no longer science fiction concepts. Faraway ideas that you don't really need to think about because they could never happen. These are issues that are quickly becoming hot topics in our modern society. And I'm not just talking about AI synthesizing art or ChatGPT essay writing. These are robots in everything from the workplace to the battlefield. And that's why I wanted to talk about this today. The point of this little history lesson on the use of propaganda and what it has driven in the past is to tell loyal theorists that this is happening again.

It unfolds before our eyes in real time with these AI programs. Disney and others have an incentive to like AI. It has the potential to save them a lot of money. I mean, the content released by Disney right now, just last year, has been using AI, even if you didn't realize it. The Disney Plus Original Prom Pack used AI-generated extras for background scenes. Secret Invasion was heavily criticized for its use of AI-generated images in its opening credits. Loki was accused of using AI-generated assets in his posters. His social media accounts were accused of posting AI-generated images to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Even Wish was criticized for being so boring and number-heavy that they felt like it had to have been written using AI. But the big twist in all this? Ultimately, this push for these large corporations to embrace these types of generative AI tools could be inevitable. Disney and all other companies like them are being patient. And they are willing to play for as long as they need if it means they will end up

making

money in the long run. I mean, if you want an example that's directly related to this, just look at that deepfake technology Disney's been playing with.

When they first decided to resurrect actors like Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing in Rogue One using deepfakes and CGI, they were widely criticized for the move. And the results were described as distracting, disconcerting and disturbing. But it was a first step: dipping my toe in the water. Later, when they decided to bring back Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian and the Book of Boba Fett using AI-powered deepfake technology, although people didn't really like it, the reaction wasn't that negative. And the technology improved. And then, just last year, the deepfake technology used to rejuvenate Indiana Jones in The Dial of Destiny was so good that some reviews said, quote: "'If I hadn't known it was deepfake, I would have been asked Nobody Realizes.' ".

Despite the public's initial rejection, the more Disney uses these deepfakes, and the better the technology becomes, the more and more people simply accept it. By using AI technology now in posters and credit sequences and in the background, Disney and other corporations like them are slowly exposing audiences to more and more things. And like a frog in boiling water, it will eventually catch up to you without you realizing it. I mean, it's already happening. Despite the recent strikes by Hollywood actors and writers, just a couple of weeks ago, the Screen Actors Guild signed an agreement that would allow game developers to use AI-generated voices.

Much to the disappointment of the voice actors represented by SAG. At the end of the day, although this use of technology may seem inevitable, do not be fooled by the propaganda that promotes this issue. Or, honestly, any other question. You may be aware of the tactics all of these people use to get used to the changes they want. You can remain aware of the propaganda in what you see, be critical of it, and then form your own opinions free of what anyone wants you to think. And as the world changes rapidly and this AI technology develops rapidly, arming yourself with knowledge is the most valuable thing you can do.

As another piece of propaganda said almost 40 years ago: And knowing is half the battle. AMERICAN SOLDIER. José! But hey, that's just a

theory

. A cinematographic

theory

! And cut. And hey, if you want to learn more about that army of deepfakes Disney has been amassing, those two videos are on screen right now. It's not the most interesting topic we've covered, but it's one of the most important we've covered in recent history. Click on those videos you see on the screen right now and as always, my friends, we'll see you next week.