The cinema screen is the largest possible platform for any media to be watched en masse. It is particularly designed to immerse and overwhelm the senses. People from all walks of life come to the theater to sit still in rapt attention, spending money to not close their eyes for two hours. That’s why some might say the movies are the best place for propaganda. It is a place where one willingly receives sensory information—pays for it even.

The silver screen has always had an on-and-off relationship with propaganda. Pre-show ads, which are short videos that play before a movie properly begins, have been a mainstay in cinema for as long as anyone can remember. They are one of the reasons that keep the hobby affordable and the industry alive.

These advertisements are usually relegated to private companies promoting their products. Not too dissimilar from the ads you’d see on YouTube or other social media. However, recently in Indonesia, there has been a controversy around the government getting a piece of the pie by airing a “public service announcement” in movie theaters. The short video (which has since been taken down) showed Indonesia’s president mingling with various citizens as statistics of his cabinet’s projects appear. What was once reserved for digital billboards on government buildings is now forced upon audiences’ eyes. What does this mean for Indonesian movie-goers in the future? Is the video a failed test run or rather the beginning of a new wave of multimedia propaganda? Let’s dive in.

Propaganda has been most synonymous with authoritarian regimes, such as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, China, and North Korea. But videos of whichever president hugging the people while patriotic music runs in the background are just one of many forms that propaganda can take. There are other guises of video propaganda that are less visible to the naked eye.

Battleship Potemkin is widely regarded as the blueprint of filmic propaganda. A silent movie released in 1925, it is loosely based on the true story of a Russian crew’s mutiny after being fed maggot-infested meat. The director, Sergei Eisenstein, admitted that the Soviet government commissioned him to make the movie for the Russian Revolution’s 20th anniversary. Seen through that lens, the movie succeeded with flying colors, using innovative cinematic language to tug at audiences’ heartstrings and make them partial to the revolution’s sentiments. Its success even became a proof of concept for Nazi Germany to produce propaganda movies.

Without looking too far, Indonesia has a more gratuitous example of screened propaganda, one from the opposite side of the ideological spectrum. Treachery of G30S/PKI (1984) is a docudrama that reenacts the kidnapping and subsequent murder of six Indonesian generals, allegedly orchestrated by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). It claims to be an accurate account of the time. Or so it keeps saying.

During President Soeharto’s regime, G30S/PKI became the most-watched movie for Indonesians. Why? It was not only state-sponsored but also sanctioned to be regularly broadcast. Kids watched it in school. Adults watched it on TV. Even now, when you see the movie on YouTube, a cursory glance at the comment section reveals just how effective this propaganda is. Over 40 years later, some people still believe the fiction it peddles as fact, despite reliable reports proving otherwise.

Whether framing communism as the enemy or the underdog, using movies as propaganda is a tried-and-true tool utilized to wrest control. The ideology behind it doesn’t really matter as much as who benefits. Usually, they are the people who are anxious about gaining or losing their positions of power. Something that Soeharto understood to a great extent, demonizing the PKI as a justification for his past genocide. Starting from the 20th century, history is written and filmed by the victors. The emergence of audiovisual media paved the way for propaganda to be all the more effective than text, using striking imagery of human tragedy to evoke fear and sympathy.

In the book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), writer Neil Postman posed that every time a new medium is introduced, how we measure truth and what we believe to be authentic change with it. He made the point that TV’s growing prevalence as the main source of news changed the way elections were won in the 80s. Ronald Reagan, an ex-actor, knew how to look good on camera, and that skill worked wonders for his US presidency.

In 2025, short-form videos are the new TV. People get their news from clickbait headlines and 30-second clips. Information moves at thought-speed, relative to people’s wavering attention. It’s fair to say that Indonesia’s current president, Prabowo Subianto, got ahead of the race partly because he knew the format’s perks. In a medium where truth matters less than catchphrases and making faces, it’s no surprise that the victor is someone who speaks the wildest.

Now, what influences voting decisions isn’t as much policies as quick comebacks, catchy soundbites, and funny edits remembered in the polling booth. Not unlike best actor Oscar winners, it’s about who has the most screen presence and chews the biggest scenery.

Like a soap opera star breaking into Hollywood, Prabowo’s pre-show propaganda may be just his attempt at a demo reel, auditioning for his big break on a more respectable and prestigious medium. He’s trying to transition from everybody’s private smartphones to the largest screen of all. But why does he bother? What is it that makes propaganda in a theater setting so effective?

Before the lights dim, we, in our seats waiting for the movie to begin, are not merely an audience. We are the target audience. We are gender and age groups, marketed to and sold on other movies we should pay tickets for, sponsored products to purchase, and political propaganda to buy into.

Pre-show ads are used because in the dark auditorium, reality is whatever the projector says it is. What is lit on screen supersedes our own visual experience. For a moment, we entertain the idea that PKI is not just a political party, but a violent cult that cuts private parts. For two hours, what we hear from Dolby Atmos speakers is gospel. Like waking up in the morning with a concussive carried-over dream, sometimes we even confuse what we remember from the movie with what we know to be true.

After less than a week, President Prabowo’s video was pulled from theaters nationwide. As of the time of writing, we don’t know if the public backlash played a part in it. Or even the original reason for its broadcast. What we know is that though new media are introduced every couple of years, the people who communicate with it also develop a particular skill of sifting through it, learning from previous iterations, and having a private shorthand. Sure, the government gets better at special effects, but we get smarter at differentiating good from bad acting. And no AI-generated filters can hide that. 

In an ideal world, the government would use “public service announcements” to promote awareness of genuine issues. Every day, someone falls victim to online gambling. Indonesia holds the highest number of unemployed citizens in ASEAN. Rampant digital loans have been one of the growing reasons for suicide. But none of these causes garners even a sliver of the exposure that the government’s self-pats-on-the-back gets. 

Imagine what would happen if such serious issues got a comparatively sized screen for public education. Unfortunately, the only public that the government seems to deem worthwhile to serve is its own public image. But then, isn’t that what celebrities always do? Maybe movie stars and elected officials have always shared more similarities than they’d like to admit. It’s just more obvious now when screens are everywhere and showcase everything. All the performers blend together.

In the late 50s, when movie studios became increasingly formulaic and machine-like, a revolutionary movement emerged to right the ship, dubbed the French New Wave. The brainchild of a group of critics, their modest techniques brought movies away from corporate standards and back to individual artistic visions. Because of them, movies were in touch with relevant issues again, whether it be political or existential.

There is a reassurance in the fact that when authority figures are reticent in spotlighting the topics that truly matter, everyday people will rise to the occasion. When the screens are state-controlled, maybe it is time we go back to using our voices and words to pierce through the veil of ignorance. When they use movie theater screens, we’ll use social media and magazines. When they shut down livestreams, we’ll use camcorders and megaphones. Either way, when truth is left on the cutting room floor, cherrypicked to bits, it is our responsibility to recover its body and restore it whole.