Propaganda 2012: Critical close-up

Propaganda is a North Korean Propaganda film translated and posted to Youtube by an individual named Sabine Program. The description posted is that, while on a family trip to Seoul, Sabine was approached by two defectors, who gave him the film to translate and disseminate. They wished for Sabine to post the film in its entirety so it could reach a worldwide audience. The film makes use of archive footage and a North Korean expert to show exactly what is wrong with Western culture. During translation, Sabine began to have some doubts about the political affiliations of the defectors, coming to the conclusion that they were in fact agents for the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea). Although doubtful of their true intentions, Sabine continued posting and translating, believing that they posed an interesting question, one vital to discourse. The film is separated into different chapters;

0:00 Introduction

6:54 Creating Ideas & Illusions

16:48 Fear

19:35 Religion

25:00 Beware the 1%

28:10 Emulating Psychosis

31:21 Rewriting History

41:15 The Birth of Propaganda

45:49 Cover Ups and Omissions

54:10 Complicity

58:05 Censorship

1:01:50 International Diplomacy

1:06:14 Television

1:08:11 Advertising

1:14:36 The Cult of Celebrity

1:22:34 Distraction

1:28:01 Terrorism

1:35:00 The Revolution Starts Now

Except none of this is true. Sabine was never in Seoul, because Sabine doesn’t exist. Propaganda is a film by New Zealand born director Slavko Martinov. Sabine is a part of the film, although an external part. He’s part of the marketing of the film, an extended narrative vehicle to immerse the viewer. And Sabine is a vital cog in the message of this film. Propaganda is not North Korean, although in the title, the DPRK actually has very little to do with the film. It provides shock, but North Korea in this instance is an abstract isolated prism from which to see our own existence. It, and the rest of the film, is a meta-fiction to deconstruct the meta-narratives that structure our lives. And it has to be ‘meta’. The term meta has grown increasingly popular over the years through use on the internet, ironic or otherwise. It also needs to use propaganda to explain propaganda that surrounds our lives. But it doesn’t resort to what many other anti-propaganda films that abound the net do. It doesn’t show the cold imagery used by the Soviet Union, it creates a fiction to satirise reality, specifically our reality. It’s very much a post-modern work, a self-critique of the times that have created it. Containing a heavy dose of Noam Chomsky, and Pierre Bourdieu, the critique extends to the loss of idealism since the end of the Cold War and an increase in apathy. Pushing the lack of choice in the ‘democratic’ partisan system of the US. Since that era, and loss of bipolarism in the world there has been an uncertainty towards a physical ‘enemy’. This has all lead to the creation of the film. The satirical mockumentary (or propumentary) is a deconstruction, created by propaganda (Sabine) to believe that a message of propaganda (the film) created by a propaganda institution (North Korea) to denounce another form of propaganda (Western Media).  However this propaganda in reality is a denunciation of media suffocation, and what that hides. A notable explanation of this is one of Bush’s speeches from 2000. Bush states “either you’re with us… you love freedom, or your against us, and with the enemy”. The narrator of the film at this point states: “Propagandist can provide simple answers to complex questions and ask for approval without question”.

There is a message against hyper-capitalism, specifically the profits over the well being of consumers. The film looks at the use of globalization and democratization of social media, to make the individual a content creator of propaganda. Specifically it dissects celebrity culture to get this across. The image used is man being photographed, the narrator asking, “What has this man done, won a Nobel Prize? Found a cure for cancer? No, he bought the first Iphone”. Through the accessibility of the web, and globalization every individual can gain some form of stardom, increasing and idealization of celebrities. This is how the use of Sabine makes a point, these methods, and the creation of a lie made the film popular. It created a brand to push its message. Overall the film makes good points, without making jumps in logic. It displays how the viewer needs to understand the context of what they are seeing to be affected by the message.

The film, although well made and makes honorable attempts to base its entire claim on historical fact, it does descend slightly into conspiracy theory and conjecture at times. It sociological theories are largely true to their inspiration, the polls used are not so accurate, showing the west as more outraged by their leaders than may be the case. Propaganda, although highly judgmental, is key to free discourse attempting to graphically portray the complex world we live in. Most importantly to this discourse is to remember that we are able to view this reaction freely without censorship. The most interesting thing about it isn’t what it has to say, but the way it says it.

Gone Home Overview

Gone home is much more than the themes is shows you. You may come to find some surprises along the way. The game was developed by the studio who made the Minerva’s Den DLC for Bioshock 2. It was not only better than Bioshock 2, but pushed what could be done by 1st person environmental storytelling. The game has you directly advance the plot, and you can know as much or as little about this family their dynamics through interacting with the home in question. At first you may mistake this for a horror story, as it tricks the player with tropes from the genre. But it is much more than that. It creates a feeling of home. The game makes a point for the mechanics as a storytelling device; it’s an effective interpretation of the show rather than tell iceberg rule. It allows the player to interpret the message for themselves, as that’s all this game is, messages. The interweaving stories develop and display a fractured family, and allows you to decide the meaning. Its just that non judgmental, making it a breath of fresh air, as it doesn’t hold your hand guiding you. There’s no explicit objective, no combat mechanics, just your own curiosity. While this may sound ‘artsy’ on paper, the immersion and interaction is enough to avoid the ‘anti-game’ debate that surrounds titles like Dear Esther. It rewards exploration, and sleuthing, rather than holding the W key while you receive a barrage of audio-visual cues. You have to work for your story, and as alluded to earlier, you can learn as much or as little as your interest wants. On the point of the story the writing is brilliant, the attention to detail, and even its choice of setting adds to its depth. The game takes place in 1995 for a few reasons. It justifies the use of letters, voice mail messages and notes without making the mediums feel culturally irrelevant. It means that the game feels nostalgic, the kids use notes to communicate in class rather than text each other. It also about the raw emotion that can be transferred through objects, rather than a character showing up with a healthy exposition dump, to show sappy memories of coming of age self discovery. It connects on a purely human level, and that’s very interesting considering it is such a mundane context. That’s not to say there aren’t any twists. There are and they will surprise you. Even the fact and way that they surprise you will surprise you. Things start to click together from references that you thought were irrelevant earlier in the game. The only downside is its price, especially in context of its length. It’s currently at retail for £14.99, which seems steep for a 2 hour game. But there’s is plenty of replayability to the game. The second time you play, there are plenty of ‘oooh’ moments at thing you did not understand before. It tells a story unlike any other in gaming in recent memory, doing so in a non judgmental and natural way that it separates it from anything else on the market right now.