How Hollywood influenced the perception of Communism

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word COMMUNISM? Soviet Russia? Vietnam? Cuba? Maybe the Cold War? You may not even know what Communism is or what communism aims to achieve but one thing you’re sure of is that it’s a bad thing, right?

Notice how the things you associate Communism with, are all negative and in one way or the other can be traced back to the United States. Hollywood is the reason for that. Western Media, specifically American media, has more influence over all of us than we care to admit. Of course, Hollywood is not the only reason for communism being negatively perceived, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong had a hand in that, but American media has in fact influenced how we view communism.

 “Does the American media have that strong of a chokehold on all of us?” 

Yes, as a matter of fact it does. Let me give you an example. What do rabbits eat? If you thought carrots, then you’re wrong. Rabbits naturally eat grass and hay. Then how is it that it is widely acceptable that rabbits eat carrots? Believe it or not, we have Bugs Bunny to thank for this misconception. Even if you’ve never seen an episode of The Looney Tunes, you could have sworn that rabbits eat carrots! This is just but one of the numerous examples of the influence of American media on the world. 

Another example of Hollywood’s influence would be how ‘witches’ were executed in the 1600s. Most people believe that those convicted of ‘witchcraft’ were burnt at the stake, especially those in the ‘Salem Witch Trials’. However, this never happened. They were all executed by hanging, which was the most common method of execution back then. Many movies have perpetuated this notion that ‘witches’ were burnt at the stake which is why it is commonly accepted that they were.

The purpose of this piece is to open your eyes to both the blatant and subliminal “programming” we undergo, courtesy of Hollywood. I am in no way advocating for Communism. This article simply seeks to bring out the fact that it is unfairly villainized in people's minds when they have little to no knowledge of the ideology itself.

I initially wanted to look at Communism strictly as an economic system and distance it from the political ideology. Mainly because politically, Communism has already been tainted mainly by Eastern European Communism. Karl Marx said in ‘The Communist Manifesto’ “Every class struggle is a political struggle” Communism was mainly about the struggle between The bourgeois (Middle class) and the proletariat (working class) so it would be almost impossible to disregard the political aspect of communism.

So, What is Communism? 

Communism is an economic ideology that advocates for a classless society, in which all property and wealth are communally owned, instead of being owned by individuals. Plato described “an ideal state in which a ruling class of guardians, mainly philosophers and soldiers, serve the needs of the whole community, because private ownership of property would make them self-seeking, indulgent, greedy and corrupt the ruling guardians.” Even though this was in the 4th century, way before communism was even formally conceptualised, it has Communist undertones. Karl Marx, who is known as the “Father of Communism” had a popular slogan that summed up Communism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

Communism has taken various forms throughout its history depending on the regime but it has always had 6 key principles ; 

i) Collective ownership of means of production

 ii) Democratic Centralism 

iii) Centrally Planned Economy

 iv) Elimination of income inequality

 v) Repression 

vi) Abolition of private property.

These principles are what sum up communist ideology in a nutshell.

How does Hollywood push the anti-communist agenda?

It is important to note that the US government funds Anti-Communist movies, in the same way the US Army funds military movies. The main way American Media has brainwashed people and turned them against communism is through propaganda. Propaganda is “one-sided communication designed to influence people’s thinking and actions'' In anti-communist movies they only show the negative aspects of communism and never the positive one. This gives the viewer tainted half-truths and turns them against the very idea of Communism. They also appeal to your morality by portraying the capitalist protagonist as a morally right character and the communist antagonist as a morally wrong one. Propaganda and the appeal to our morality are the more subliminal ways a movie can be anti-communist. You may not realise it at the time but you make a mental note and by the time the movie is over, you already begin conceiving Communism negatively. 

A good example of this is “Rocky IV” 

“How is a Sylvester Stallone movie about boxing, an Anti-Communist movie”? It's one of the subliminally Anti-Communist movies. Let me explain. The antagonist in the movie is Ivan Drago, a boxer with ties to the Soviet Union. Drago kills Apollo Creed in a boxing match and as a viewer, you may not realise that this causes you to hate Drago and your hate extends to the institution he allies himself with, the Communist Soviet Union. In the third act of the movie, you find yourself rooting for Rocky to beat Drago in their boxing match. It may seem like I’m reaching but I’m not. There’s a reason the movie makes you very aware of Drago’s affiliation to the Soviet Union and Communism. A lot of work goes into movies pre-production, during production and post-production so anything in a movie is intentional and serves a purpose. 

 During World War II the US Government pushed for and funded movies that were anti-Nazi but pro-Soviet Union because at the time the US and the Soviet Union were allied against Nazi Germany.”  After WWII all these movies were banned, movies that the government itself funded, all because the politics after WWII, shifted from pro-Soviet Union to anti-Soviet Union. “Between 1947 and 1954 over 50 explicitly anti-communism movies were produced in Hollywood”

Why is the US pushing the anti-communist agenda?

The main reason (in my opinion) is the fact that Communism aims to do away with private property and social classes in society, and what will the capitalistic West be without their private property? According to Karl Marx “Communism doesn’t aim to abolish private property for everybody but private property for the bourgeois.” All they were pushing for is for property to lose its class character and not for people to give up their property. 

Communism also pushed for the abolition of free trade. Karl Marx posited that “Free Trade is just but a word for exploitation veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked shameless, direct brutal exploitation.” Later in ‘The Communist Manifesto’, he says while referring to Free Trade “Just as it has made the country dependent on towns, it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones.” Marx is of the opinion that the free market is a tool used, not just by the West, but by developed countries in general to exploit underdeveloped or third-world countries. With the introduction of Communism, at least Marx’s version of communism, every country would (in theory) be self-sufficient and would not rely on another, subsequently causing developed countries to lose their leverage on third-world countries. Abolishing the free market would also mean that countries would not trade in raw or finished materials. This would hurt the West because a good number of their industries rely on raw materials from third-world countries, raw materials that they do not have and cannot produce locally. 

Capitalism is essentially 90% of the wealth being controlled by the elite few, some of whom are responsible for the negative view of Communism. Communism would distribute all this wealth to everyone equally which would benefit the working class more than it would benefit the bourgeois. 

Communism is one of the many ideas and ideologies whose perception has been influenced by Hollywood. The West takes advantage of the fact that American Media is the most widely consumed media and uses it to push certain agendas. I hope that after reading this article you find it easier to see through this or at least ask questions about the content you consume as opposed to blindly accepting it.