The entertainment industry’s propaganda

Here I am, 30 years later, living in what’s supposed to be the free world, trying to watch some new Hollywood movie. But instead of entertainment, I get hit by a wave of propaganda and mindless nonsense.

I’m part of the first generation that grew up in the city. Our parents were pesants brought into cities by communists. It wasn’t just me; all my childhood friends were in the same situation. We lived in areas with names from that communist era, like “Partisans Street,” in the “Red Flag” neighborhood. I had friends from “Proletarians” and “Sheet Metal” streets. 

One of our friends was nicknamed Mikey. No one remembers who first called him that or why, but everyone in the neighborhood knew him as Mikey. He could be really annoying, but at that age, we weren’t very selective about our friends. Just talking once to someone meant you were already friends. Mikey had family in the West and regularly got packages from them. This made him full of himself and he always wanted to lead every game we played. We let him lead until we consumed the content of his package that he shared with us, then he’d lose his ‘boss’ status.

Mikey’s family possessed a video player, an uncommon luxury, though he seldom enjoyed it due to his father’s strictness. However, whenever his father was away, we would eagerly gather at Mikey’s, where his authoritarian demeanor was forgotten.

We watched all sorts of movies, mainly Westerns, on mute so we could hear his dad’s soviet car if  he was coming back unexpectedly. It wasn’t hard to hear him, his car was loud as hell, but we didn’t wanted to risk losing our video privileges forever.

Mikey also had an extensive collection of comic books, which he generously shared with us. Complimenting him on his coolness was enough to win his favor and gain access to his collection. Thus, we were all diplomats in our way, each possessing comic books courtesy of Mikey.

The allure of American culture was strong among us. The United States seemed to dominate the entertainment industry, and we fantasized about living in a place where we could freely enjoy movies and comics to our hearts’ content.

We were acutely aware of the propagandistic nature of Soviet films, viewing them as nothing more than government-sponsored nonsense. Attendance was sometimes compulsory, but given a choice, not many would willingly watch such films. In our eyes, the only films worth our time were those produced in the free world, where creativity and expression were not bound by ideological constraints.

And here I am, 30 years later, living in what’s supposed to be the free world, trying to watch some new Hollywood movie. But instead of entertainment, I get hit by a wave of propaganda and mindless nonsense. It’s frustrating that the free world, which so many fought hard for and some even died for, is being twisted by ideologues. They seem more focused on pushing their simple, flawed ideas than creating something meaningful. It’s crazy how a few misguided activists have gained so much power that they’ve started to change the entertainment industry into something that barely resembles its great past. And don’t get me started on the celebrities! The hypocrisy of these rich, spoiled, out-of-touch people lecturing us about open borders while they live behind the walls of their mansions is just too much.

Ricky Gervais nailed it with his speech at the Golden Globes ceremony: : “If you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.

So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God and fuck off, OK? “