> Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, All the President’s Men, or The Post

Those movies are also propaganda, but in a more subtle and effective way; The message of these movies being that while america sometimes makes mistakes, in the end the american has a good heart and conscience and should be forgiven.

You don’t see in these movies american soldiers raping civilans, laughing about it, and suffering no ill consequences

> in the end the american has a good heart and conscience and should be forgiven.

Nothing about Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket says that at all. Have you even watched them? They’re both about how war and the military machine are devastating and dehumanizing to the soldier, and to the enemy. All words seem like egregious understatements for them so I recommend seeing them (or seeing them again).

To my horror I did find out that the first half of Full Metal Jacket was attractive to enough teenage boys in the late 80s to eventually cause Jarhead to be produced [1]. I guess they stopped watching after the first half, or the idea of murdering teenage girls was attractive to them? Either way it is anything but propaganda.

As for the other movies that do involve righting a wrong or at least exposing them, that’s not state propaganda. Primarily because the state is the villain in them and they encourage suspicion of the state, neither of which promotes state power. A movie which gives the feels about being an American doesn’t make something propaganda it makes it a movie that wants to sell to Americans.

1: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/magazine/full-metal-jacke...

> You don’t see in these movies american soldiers raping civilans, laughing about it, and suffering no ill consequences

Have you watched Apocalypse Now Redux? Because I can remember a scene that is very similar to that description. In this movie, the American military or government has no good heart, no conscience and breeds madness and senseless death.

When I joined the (Canadian) military in the mid 90s, many of the guys there cited anti-war films such as 'Apocalypse Now', 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Platoon' as inspirations for signing up.

Nobody cited 'Rambo' or 'Top Gun'

Those three films are very attractive to teenage boys and young men.

This is true, but the way these movies were propaganda is actually a lot more interesting: One big thing they do is cover up the fact that the Vietnam war ended up in basically a huge mutiny in the US forces, and a de facto truce with the Vietnamese.

Here is a twitter thread about it: https://twitter.com/mmabeuf/status/1433597396613832706

This is something the US really doesn't want to admit happened.

Those movies are between 35 years and half a century old.

and could not have been made since 9/11