Strategic Influence in Film

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Documents from the Pentagon revealed the intentional influence on the portrayal of the 'bad guys' in the movie Top Gun to avoid affecting real-world relationships. Initially, the suggestion was to replace North Koreans with Gaddafi in Libya, but it was advised against and recommended to use a random unnamed country to prevent implications on diplomatic ties with adversarial nations through the film.

What we see on screen has this way of influencing our perception of the world, which makes sense because the average American spends 2 hours and 51 minutes watching movies and TV each day. That’s a whopping 19 percent of our waking hours. Walt Hickey is a data journalist and author of a new book called You Are What You Watch. In it, Walt makes a case for how much film and television shapes us as individuals and as a society, far beyond what we give it credit for.

You Are What You Watch