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n1 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Tom Secker at SpyCulture.com [spyculture.com] continues his reporting on the involvement of the security state in film and television:

Completing what has been a record-breaking year for FOIA releases from the Entertainment Liaison Offices of the US Department of Defense, the US Marine Corps recently sent me 1669 pages of reports covering the last 7 years of their activities in the entertainment industry. The documents reveal a number of major films that are not acknowledged in the already-released files, along with indications that the USMC are operating on a scale approaching that of the Army i.e. they are involved in dozens of productions at any given time. Unlike the Army and Air Force documents they contain details of productions that were denied assistance, adding significantly to the picture we have of the Pentagon’s propaganda operations in the entertainment industry.

The USMC reports came in two batches. The 2008 to 2012 reports are relatively extensive if mundane diary-like entries very similar the those used by the US Army during the same period. The 2013 to 2015 are much shorter, are inconsistently formatted and evidently have had a lot of information removed including most of the dates, often leaving headings that tell us nothing.

[...] It is in the TV realm that the true scale of the DOD’s influence becomes apparent. The ELOs of both the US Army and the Marines have the capacity to work with dozens of TV productions at any given time. The US Army’s reports show that they work on an average of 40-50 TV productions at once. What the USMC reports show is that their TV work is on a similar scale, with very little crossover between the two.

[...] There is a lot that is absent from the USMC reports. For no obvious reason there is no mention of Homeland, a show which definitely and overtly had assistance from the USMC and which they included in a list of folders in their ELO’s archive [spyculture.com]. There is also no explanation for why some productions are rejected for having no distribution sorted out, yet they were willing to work on others which likewise did not have a deal in place. [...]

And finally, what’s with all the fucking cookery shows?

This is something that vexes me, because I am unable to establish a compelling reason why the DOD would be so fond of working on food-based TV. Their taste (pun intended) for this sort of programming – mostly reality shows and competitions – was made clear by the Army documents released earlier this year, but the USMC reports reiterate that, and strongly. Masterchef, Cake Boss, Cookie Commandos, Cupcake Wars, Nashville Cupcakes, Big Kitchens, Top Chef Masters, Private Chefs, Flip my Food, Food Court Wars, Food Truck Faceoff, Chopped, Extreme Chef, 101 Foods that Changed the World – all these shows and more have been supported by the Pentagon.

The article goes into more detail and as usual with Tom Secker's reporting, provides all source documents for download [spyculture.com] [pdf].

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