Grey Propaganda

Creator: Ken Boe
Age rating: 17 and older
A caravan of Beatnik characters Parade through this helter skelter surreality of the 1950's while The Cold War reveals itself to be a charade: A cover for the superpowers response to the arrival of Extraterrestrials.
Project collaboration: Open
Full synopsis
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Synopsis:
The term "Grey Propaganda" is from cold war espionage usage, and refers to mixing a little of the truth with lies, so as to confuse the populace it is aimed at. "Grey" is also a term for the little aliens that supposedly popped up during the Cold War

In my youth in the 1980's I was full of interest in the UFO phenomenon and developed a number of theories around that which, though more skeptical of in later years, I still appreciated for their creativity. I was the only one I knew of back then who predicted the end of the Cold War, and I did so through my theory that the Cold War would be no longer necessary when the Superpowers achieved the necessary technology to either counteract, or acknowledge a detente, in their relationship with the extraterrestrials who had been making themselves very apparent since World War 2. The program for the Cold War was what I termed "the technology dialectic", a pseudo-conflict with all the technology and propaganda development advantages of actual war, like World War 2 saw, but without all-out war(though some small wars could be fed into it to convince the masses to keep funding this thing.)

So Grey Propaganda synthesizes the idea of the Technology Dialectic with my also youthful exuberance for the Beatnik Movement of the same time period, as well as an appreciation for other art movements of the period(which to me speak the real nature of an era more so than more pedestrian versions of "current events" such as 'the news".)

Grey Propaganda is a kind of Party Movie, or cousin to the Road Movie concept. Its eccentric characters are fun and mysterious, and likewise, the narrative is punctuated by a personality of events as much as by any conventional storyline. Izzy, for instance, is a transvestite who may be so on two levels: Extraterrestrial cross-dressing as Man cross-dressing as Woman. A major thesis is that the joke is on us. We may think we are creating technology to defend planet earth from evil aliens, but the aliens themselves have tricked us into doing this. The script makes a surrealistic mockery of this, as well as other human mythologizing from race and gender, to the culture of technology.

In the end there is a time jump to the present and we are left to wonder what the program is for us in the present age. Of course, I do hint at what that could be.

(Note: This is what I call an "analytical synopsis", which deconstructs the context of this film's ideas and historicity, somewhat autobiographically. As American culture advances, superficial "Hollywood" conventions of "log line" and "synopsis" will, in my opinion, become passe and trite to the intellectually educated people who actually make things.)

Latest Work

  • Script 1 - Ken's Original Draft
    11/17/10
    Main1290022381._sx304_sy171_
    Creative Notes:
    “GREY PROPAGANDA” won Honorary Mention in the Holman Screenplay Writing Contest at WSU, in 2002. Other than that, it has not been distributed to the public. The late Tim Gruver, founder of the Tallgrass Film Festival, was fond of the script; and the writing was praised by Mike Wood of the Media Resources Lab. But special effects technology would have been too expensive then, so I shelved it.
    RTF