Thousands of active-duty military personnel may have been “pressured” into seeing the Melania documentary at cinemas around the country, a watchdog has warned.
The $75 million Amazon film opened last week to $7 million at the box office—despite universally terrible reviews.
According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, those numbers have been artificially inflated by pressure from MAGA-aligned officers leaning on their troops to buy tickets.
“People are scared,” Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the MRFF, said. Weinstein said he has received letters from members of the U.S. military at eight facilities worldwide, complaining that their superiors encouraged or pressured them to see the film.
“Nobody that I know wanted to go except for those that did not want to get jacked up by our unit commander for not attending,” one of those members told Weinstein in a letter seen by journalist Jonathan Larsen.
61 Comments
ugandan_airways@lemmy.zip · 93 pts · 218d
Why didn’t they save this for the political prisoners they need to torture?
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 36 pts · 218d
They did and are. Why do you think they are making the military watch it.
thorhop@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 218d
Like a cross between "A Clockwork Orange" and "Full Metal Jacket".
"ARE YOU ENJOYING THIS BIOPIC OF THE FIRST LADY, PYLE!?"
ameancow@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 217d
it_depends_man@lemmy.world · 64 pts · 218d
The mandatory cinema consumption featuring great leader's family will continue until morale improves.
AbidanYre@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 218d
Some of her other works might be better suited for improving morale
gnate@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 218d
Meh.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 217d
Agree, hard pass.
danc4498@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 218d
“Against their will” sounds funny in context. I was forced to do plenty of things in the military against my will. Most dealing with PowerPoint presentations.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 218d
Isn't the point of joining the military is to surrender free will? That's one of the many reasons I didn't want to.
RunJun@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 20 pts · 218d
In war, mostly yes. But the majority of the time, they only control your work hours. There’s a ton of caveats to that but day to day, it’s like any other job. But they cannot make you spend money on something like this. I don’t know if I could have not laughed in their face for trying to pressure that.
*This varies more or less depending on the branch.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 218d
But could they buy the tickets themselves and order you to go to the cinema during work hours?
RunJun@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 218d
They could and you’d have to go.
bradinutah@thelemmy.club · 7 pts · 218d
More taxpayer money wasted by this Republican administration and Republican Congress that can't do their jobs to do appropriate oversight.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 217d
They're all asleep at the Melania movie! Now is our chance to invade!" -- The Entire Massed Russian/Chinese/North Korean Army
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 217d
Maybe they play this on ships and force the crew to watch?
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 217d
Nah, too many sailors would jump over the rails.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 218d
Seems like we are at war.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 217d
Sounds like any other corporate job, except you don't have the fun of literally murdering your competition.
Whostosay@sh.itjust.works · 32 pts · 218d
Lol thats not a $75M film. That's an $82M film because that 7 million in sales was also spent by the same people who made it.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 217d
Its actually a 50M film with a 25M advertising budget... They haven't even made their advertising expenses back. I wouldn't be surprised to find out 75% of ticket sales were bought with the ad budget. I never saw an ad for it.
takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 28 pts · 218d
The ironic thing is that if it was a real documentary, talking for example how they met, how she got citizenship, her involvement in his businesses etc then a lot of people would watch it. Heck, I don't care about movies about first lady, but I would watch it.
It's just for some reason they want to keep so far away from those topics they n made it about the 20 days before second inauguration.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 25 pts · 217d
Kelly told them they don't have to follow illegal orders, and forcing them to watch this movie sounds like a war crime.
hector@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 217d
Good god, this sounds like some shit they would do to those torturees at guantanamo, force them to watch this shit on repeat until they confess.
I shouldn't make light of it we did some horrific torture at guantanamo, probably still do, popular music and movies is actually part of it, playing the same music on repeat, hot and cold temperature changes, stress positions, all sorts of disgusting shit, along with sexual abuse.
We stopped pretending to be a civilized country in 2001.
nomy@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 217d
In the future, people will look back and think "OBL correctly assessed his target and struck a decisive victory."
hector@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 217d
OBL?
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 217d
Osama Bin Laden
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works · 25 pts · 218d
If they’re gonna do propaganda, why is it in the most pathetic way?
Shouldn’t it be a film about national pride or something like that?
Machinist@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 218d
Maybe it could be about the triumph of the will? That might be nice.
hitmyspot@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 218d
Or they could write a book about their struggle.
SheepHerder@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 218d
Because it works. Most of Trumps propaganda is pathetic, but it still works doesn't it. Still in power, escalating more and more.
RunawayFixer@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 217d
I suspect that it's a reaction to the various successful media projects by Michelle Obama. In Trump's mind, the Obamas are making him look bad by being smart/successful/..., so this is Trump's attempt at showing that his first lady too can create a successful media project. Because the Trumps are tasteless and have surrounded themselves with sycophants, there wasn't anyone around to tell them how crap the movie was, so it got released as it is.
The big tell that this was Trump's attempt at trying to one up the Obamas, is that once it became obvious that the Melania movie was bombing, Trump posted a super racist video about the Obamas. He tried to one up the Obamas creatively, failed, and then resorted to insults.
Meanwhile Melania is 28 million dollar richer, so as usual she probably doesn't care that much about how bad this makes her look.
hector@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 217d
It's not that they don't know the movie is shit, it's that they don't care. They are happy juicing it to have good numbers even when everyone hates it. Just as the president is happy having his name on something where all the people in it hate him, he's happy having a nobel peace prize on his mantle that was given to someone else.
He's just a pathetic man, and can't or won't hide it in his old age as he loses control of his faculties and the party leads him around by the hand to dismantle his America First Legacy and the like. Talk about Sad.
cosmicrookie@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 218d
It's the enemy military right? It's torture right?
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 218d
This is some real North Korea type stuff.
Rentlar@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 218d
Private, don't worry, I won't make you bomb that dinghy in the Caribbean Sea for no reason. Instead you can watch Melania and prepare me a film review report by next week.
Nagrom@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 218d
Isn’t that against the Geneva convention
orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 218d
It's definitely non-conventional.
JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 218d
... please clap...
Pathetic.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 217d
CLAP, GODDAMIT!
JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 217d
Clap! Thats an ORDAH!
psycho_driver@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 217d
Morale will improve or you get the movie again!
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 218d
Are they trying to increase the suicide rate?!
kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 218d
Or cause a resurgence of fragging?
theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 218d
Even though I disagree with torture in all instances hard to feel bad for someone who agreed to help oppress and murder billions for the bourgeois.
AquaTofana@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 218d
Thankfully this shit hasn't made it to my installation. I'm guessing these eight bases "world-wide" have to be targeting the USMC.
The Marines get the absolute bottom of the barrel treatment even as far military members go.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 218d
Its the least they deserve for continuing to be the iron fist of the christofacists.
ZombieMantis@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 218d
They really want to get couped, don't they?
anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 218d
Maybe they’ll be mad enough to disregard illegal orders next time they’re ordered to do something illegal.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 218d
Wow, that's kind of awesome. If those members didn't hate him already, they do now.
Tempus_Fugit@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 218d
I thought it was wild when my CO said Fox News was the only true news station. If he had told me I had to go watch some foreigner butcher English for an hour and a half I'd have lost my shit. I'd for sure be reporting his ass to the battalion or brigade commander. That shit is inexcusable.
ViperActual@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 218d
Hazing has changed over the years it seems
Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 217d
WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU ONLY MAKES YOU STRONGER
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 217d
Did the asswipes force the soldiers to pay an admission fee to watch the crap film? The drunk wife beater also wants the North Korean fake clapping and tears.
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 217d
It does read like that. That various "superiors" were "encouraging" people to go see it in the theater. Pretty much the only way to inflate the numbers and avoid "military uses millions of dollars to buy tickets for a movie".
BenderRodriguez@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 218d
santa@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 218d
How dare they be pressured to take a long nap.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 218d
Bring the kids!
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 218d
"I'm fine with murdering people in the name of the oligarchy but I draw the line at watching a boring movie!"
locahosr443@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 218d
Trumps latest nickname 'clockwork orange'
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 217d
Broken Clockwork Orange.
abbiistabbii@piefed.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 217d
The more I watch the more I think of the propaganda songs Romania made about Elena Ceaușescu.
MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 217d
I read this elsewhere and I thought it was satire.
Well, at least hopefully this will cause dissent in the army as they stop taking him seriously.