Ban this foreign filth! Can cinema really threaten national security?
The US president’s plan for Hollywood is full of plot holes. But when it comes to the hidden propaganda baked into movies, he may have a point
As always with pronouncements by President Trump, once you had peeled away the xenophobia, removed the stew of resentment, ignored the sheer idiocy and asterisked the possible illegality, there was a small kernel of truth to his posting on Truth Social last Sunday. “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, pointing to the nefarious tax breaks other countries gave film-makers as “a National Security threat” and proposing an 100% tariff on films made oversees. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA AGAIN!”