CIA Doesn't Like the Movies That Gets Made About Them

[Totenkindly]

The CIA’s Official Movie Reviews Are Super Salty - Motherboard

The Central Intelligence Agency isn’t happy about its place in pop culture. We know this because America’s clandestine spy organization takes the time to publish film and book reviews in its internal newsletter Studies in Intelligence. “CIA has always been an easy target for filmmakers looking to exploit themes of corruption and conspiracy in high places,” a CIA review of 2015’s Sicario said.

The CIA has published Studies in Intelligence for decades, and the public can go through its archives. Studies covershistory, tradecraft, semantics, and—like any good general interest magazine—movies and books. Unlike other outlets, however, the CIA reviews movies and TV shows with an eye towards explaining historical inaccuracies and whining about always being the bad guys.

Its review of Sicario is a treasure. The 2015 thriller depicts an idealistic FBI agent getting caught up in a CIA plot in Mexico. It’s a great movie with a sequel on the way. The CIA didn’t like it. “It is a ‘CIA is evil’ conspiracy story, without moral ambiguity or nuance,” authors James Burridge and John Kavanagh said. Which is funny because the morally ambiguity is part of what make Sicario so good....

I mean, the CIA has always been a shining pillar of virtue in clandestine spycraft, I am sure, lol.

 

[á´…eparted]

I can't blame them, but if they want to blame anyone, blame the GOP for being shitheads and causing it.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, yeah, that whole "waterboarding"/torture schtick, the contra affair, drug trafficking, and whatever else over the years....

They're been so dirty in the past and now complain that there are stories about them getting dirty. Sure, toss in some variety, but you're gonna have to cut the movie industry a little slack...

 

[Beorn]

LOL fuck those guys.

FBI and Law enforcement across the country can still be happy that every damn crime show on TV does it's best to brainwash the public into believing that the best thing for innocent people to do is to talk to police without a lawyer. Only guilty people wait for a lawyer.

Of course, nobody should talk to police, ever, without a lawyer... especially if you're innocent.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I’m for the abolishment of the CIA and NSA. I think the FBI and Secret Service are necessary evils.

Anyway it’s strange how the CIA is almost universally portrayed as shady and perpetually up to no good in fictional media yet the FBI is seen in a much more positive light in stuff like Criminal Minds, Conspiracy Theory, etc. I’m scared of both. Both have their dark pasts.

 

[rav3n]

Not sure why the CIA would have a bad rep.