Are there any records of dictators reactions to movie depictions of themselves?

[thelurkinghorror]

@Elendil_s_Heir

An FBI agent later wrote that just about every mobster home on which he executed search warrants had VHS tapes or, later, DVDs of The Godfather and other Mafia movies. He wondered if, perhaps on some level, it was a way for mobsters to learn how to act like mobsters.

Are the mobsters the chickens or the egg?

@cmkeller

Although Kim Jong-Il did not publicly personally react to his depiction in Team America: World Police, the North Korean government asked the Czech government to ban the movie. (The Czechs refused to do so.)

Nobody flipped out more about it than Sean Penn.

[cmkeller]

Perhaps, but he’s not a dictator.

[md2000]

@Elendil_s_Heir

An FBI agent later wrote that just about every mobster home on which he executed search warrants had VHS tapes or, later, DVDs of The Godfather and other Mafia movies. He wondered if, perhaps on some level, it was a way for mobsters to learn how to act like mobsters.

One point I recall - Godfather depicts the Mafia chiefs as people living the high life with class despite the seamy side of what their business was. I recall an interview with someone involved in law enforcement against organized crime who made the point - these were not guys who knew their fine wines and appreciated classical music. they worked their way up the ladder by being vicious and ruthless, not urbane and cultured. They were crude, nasty and sadistic, not appreciative of fine things. Perhaps “Godfather” showed them in a way they wanted to be perceived.

Another point - when the Sony hack happened, there were a large number of people in the computer community who pointed out the Sony hack had the hallmark of a revenge hack by former insider(s) laid off during cutbacks, and the North Korea angle was just a cover that Sony liked because it deflected any criticism of the employee relations, and the federal government were happy to adopt to help vilify North Korea. North Korea simply does not have the level of creative technology community to do this sort of stuff without being detected. Very few people had computers, almost nobody had access to the web to learn new tricks, where were they going to produce an elite hacker force?

[madsircool]

@md2000

One point I recall - Godfather depicts the Mafia chiefs as people living the high life with class despite the seamy side of what their business was. I recall an interview with someone involved in law enforcement against organized crime who made the point - these were not guys who knew their fine wines and appreciated classical music. they worked their way up the ladder by being vicious and ruthless, not urbane and cultured. They were crude, nasty and sadistic, not appreciative of fine things. Perhaps “Godfather” showed them in a way they wanted to be perceived.

Another point - when the Sony hack happened, there were a large number of people in the computer community who pointed out the Sony hack had the hallmark of a revenge hack by former insider(s) laid off during cutbacks, and the North Korea angle was just a cover that Sony liked because it deflected any criticism of the employee relations, and the federal government were happy to adopt to help vilify North Korea. North Korea simply does not have the level of creative technology community to do this sort of stuff without being detected. Very few people had computers, almost nobody had access to the web to learn new tricks, where were they going to produce an elite hacker force?

They can build nuclear weapons but they cant hack?? :dubious:

[md2000]

@madsircool

They can build nuclear weapons but they cant hack?? :dubious:

A lot of hack involves understanding assorted social constructs and industry standards - how are servers arranged, what are typical failings that permit social engineering exploits; programming skills (and the skills to exploit those) are learned complex processes. Then, the best are self-selected; a society lacking ubiquitous home computers and the world-wide access to learn all these skills will be far behind any other country. At best, they could be script-kiddies with laughable social engineering skills like that Nigerian prince who keeps emailing me.

Neutrons and protons are easy by comparison, and access to the literature about them doesn’t expose the scientists to subversive dialog.

I’m not saying the don’t have some good programmers, I’m saying they would by default be sorely outclassed by any other national or underground organization.

I guess another question would be - how good are the typical NK student’s English skills, given that English is pretty much the de facto language of the internet?

[skdo23]

@Elendil_s_Heir

An FBI agent later wrote that just about every mobster home on which he executed search warrants had VHS tapes or, later, DVDs of The Godfather and other Mafia movies. He wondered if, perhaps on some level, it was a way for mobsters to learn how to act like mobsters.

I remember reading Sammy “the bull” Gravano’s autobiography and he mentions that it was a huge deal for him and his friends when the movie came out, basically because it seemed to them that for the first time other people understood their way of life.

[mbh]

When Edward G. Robinson played gangsters in the 1930s and 1940s, he often wore double-breasted suits with shoulder pads, wide lapels, and garishly-contrasting pinstripes. Real-life gangsters started dressing in the same style. The black-shirt-and-white-necktie combination was another fashion that Hollywood invented, and real gangsters imitated.

[mbh]

In the 1970s and early 1980s, there were a lot of low-budget action movies made in the Philippines. The Philippine Army would rent out jeeps, tanks, and helicopters. Filipino soldiers would play prison guards in “women’s prison” movies, or enemy troops in “soldier of fortune” movies, often wearing their regular uniforms.

One director marveled at the situation: “We were making a movie about overthrowing a Ferdinand Marcos-style dictator, and Ferdinand Marcos was helping us make it!”

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Marcos also lent Coppola many of his military’s Huey helicopters, repainted in U.S. Army Vietnam-era livery, for use in filming Apocalypse Now. From time to time they would be called away from filming to fight an ongoing Communist insurgency nearby. See the documentary Hearts of Darkness for this and other zany location-shooting hijinks.

[mbh]

@Elendil_s_Heir

Marcos also lent Coppola many of his military’s Huey helicopters, repainted in U.S. Army Vietnam-era livery, for use in filming Apocalypse Now. From time to time they would be called away from filming to fight an ongoing Communist insurgency nearby. See the documentary Hearts of Darkness for this and other zany location-shooting hijinks.

Watch Machete Maidens Unleashed! for hijinks from the less-highbrow end of the Filipino movie industry.

[Mk_VII]

Despite the highly positive depiction of Stalin in ‘Mission To Moscow’ the dictator was reported to be unimpressed with the film.

[cochrane]

Hitler reportedly hated Moe Howard’s parody of him in a couple of Three Stooges shorts. And when Saddam Hussein was in U. S. custody after his capture, he was reportedly forced to watch a videotape of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, which depicted him in a same-sex relationship with Satan.

[RioRico]

Not a dictator, but do we know Queen Liz’s reactions to portrayals of herself? And I seem to recall that GHW Bush was amused by Dana Carvey’s impersonation. Do we count Tito as a dictator? He seemed to like Richard Burton’s role as himself, says the following link.

Trying to stay on-topic, I found this Guardian piece:Reel dictators: why despots love directors

…there’s an element of “it takes one to know one”. Creating worlds, setting the terms of the reality within them, putting words in people’s mouths; the job descriptions for director and dictator are similar, except the latter don’t waste time on fiction.

A question might arise: How many actual and would-be dictators failed in the film world?

[skdo23]

@RioRico

And I seem to recall that GHW Bush was amused by Dana Carvey’s impersonation.

A bit off topic, but I remember GHW and Janet Reno both appeared alongside their SNL impersonators (Carvey and Will Ferrell, respectively) after their relevant terms in office had ended. Reno on the actual night of GW Bush’s inauguration when her tenure as Bill Clinton’s Attorney General ended.

[PatrickLondon]

I’ve just finished watching a documentary series on Franco, which had a segment on a movie based on a novel he himself found time to write shortly after the end of the Civil War. Not a depiction of himself directly, but a glorification of the values he wanted to promote, and a vilification of his enemies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raza_(film)

[Asuka]

While he wasn’t depicted per-se, the James Bond film Die Another Day has the North Koreans as the bad guys and an evil North Korean General is the central antagonist, Kim Jong-il is said to have enjoyed the movie but quibbled with the scene where an evil scheming North Korean soldier kills his own father, saying that in North Korean culture that just wouldn’t happen.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@cochrane

…when Saddam Hussein was in U. S. custody after his capture, he was reportedly forced to watch a videotape of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, which depicted him in a same-sex relationship with Satan.

I hope it was subtitled. My two favorite Hollywood takes on Saddam Hussein were in Hot Shots and The Big Lebowski.

At 0:47 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwC4snVYFmw
At 0:31 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7E--YrRlew

@RioRico

Not a dictator, but do we know Queen Liz’s reactions to portrayals of herself?..

I’ve read that she saw and enjoyed to varying degrees The King’s Speech (about her father, but she appears in several scenes as a little girl), The Queen (for which she praised Helen Mirren and even later invited her to Buckingham Palace) and the TV series The Crown, despite taking issue with some details.

[Jackmannii]

@mbh

When Edward G. Robinson played gangsters in the 1930s and 1940s, he often wore double-breasted suits with shoulder pads, wide lapels, and garishly-contrasting pinstripes. Real-life gangsters started dressing in the same style. The black-shirt-and-white-necktie combination was another fashion that Hollywood invented, and real gangsters imitated.

@skdo23

I remember reading Sammy “the bull” Gravano’s autobiography and he mentions that it was a huge deal for him and his friends when the movie came out, basically because it seemed to them that for the first time other people understood their way of life.

Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo reportedly modeled himself after Tommy Udo, the fictional gangster played by Richard Widmark in Kiss Of Death.

[md2000]

@skdo23

A bit off topic, but I remember GHW and Janet Reno both appeared alongside their SNL impersonators (Carvey and Will Ferrell, respectively) after their relevant terms in office had ended. Reno on the actual night of GW Bush’s inauguration when her tenure as Bill Clinton’s Attorney General ended.

Also off topic, but there was a skit in *Royal Canadian Air Farce *where a national reporter (Mike Duffy) interrupted someone playing him and interviewing someone playing the prime minister of the time (Jean Chretien, complete with broken English), and took over the part… followed by the actual prime minister also interrupting his impersonator and replacing him, then the two proceed to perform the lines of the fake interview for the rest of the skit… Thus proving some politicians and public figures do have a sense of humour about themselves.

[Moriarty]

Also not completely on-point, but the use of a speech by Bill Clinton in the movie Contact led to a complaint by Clinton’s White House. The movie had used an excerpt of an actual speech Clinton had given about some scientific discovery to make it seem, in the movie, like he was taking about alien contact. Clinton did not like being taken out of context like that.

Cite: Why the Film 'Contact' Annoyed Bill Clinton | Mental Floss