The US and Hollywood have worked together for over a century collaborating on hundreds of projects. The origin of the relationship came about once the United States joined World War 2, and the two began producing military propaganda to boost morale. It was vital for the public to get behind the war effort, and propagandized films such as Wings (929) and Prelude to War (942) did exceptionally well, even winning Oscars, and proving to be very effective when promoting the idea of a war to the public. This would have been because it is estimated that over 90 million Americans were going to the cinema each week, which meant it was easy for big film companies along with the military to create a sense of unity and togetherness, via these propaganda films all at the same time. During this period, the propaganda was much more obvious, as several statements and documents were released declarin
g the propagandistic intentions of any collaborations between the military and film companies. When the Manual for Motion Pictures was created in 942 by the Bureau of Motion Pictures, it was announced that a key question asked when deciding whether or not to collaborate on a film, was Will this film help us win the war?. This is a clear demonstration of the militarys intentions when working with the film industry; their number one priority at this time was how the projects would benefit them, something that is less spoken about publicly nowadays but is still obvious in the media we consume. Similarly, President Harry S. Truman famously used Hollywood films when asking Congress to provide him more military funding, to scare the hell out of them, showing the extent to which the media we consume can impact our perception of certain ideas, something the military was all too aware of.