History Main / PropagandaHero

* ''ComicBook/TheBoys'': The superheroes are all created by a serum that is dispensed by a MegaCorp that desperately wants to turn said superheroes into human weapons so they can get all the money and power that comes from being a part of US defense spending. Having failed to do that so far, they settle for peddling lame, Silver Age style stories that people eat up and make them imagine the heroes are saving the world on a daily basis. Of particular note is the CaptainAmerica CaptainErsatz, who is a DirtyCoward whose WWII heroism was faked and pure propaganda (which is incredibly meta, considering CaptainAmerica also appears in this list).

** An example of this is the conversion of the Ste. Genevieve into the Pantheon, a hall of fame mausoleum where the Great Thinkers, Philosophers, and Politicians could be interred. Both Creator/{{Voltaire}} and Creator/JeanJacquesRousseau were interred there.

* ''Literature/CiaphasCain'': Cain's reputation is at least in part built on this (as well as on his extremely impressive -- if accidental -- actual heroism).
* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'': [[BigBrotherIsEmployingYou Winston Smith]] invents the heroic "Comrade Ogilvy" out of whole cloth as part of his job at the [[PropagandaMachine Ministry of Truth]].

* ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'": Winston Smith invents the heroic "Comrade Ogilvy" out of whole cloth as part of his job at the [[PropagandaMachine Ministry of Truth]].

* The comic book miniseries ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Way The American Way]]'' is about a government-sponsored superhero team; the government also sponsors the supervillain team which the superhero team fights. It's all propaganda.

Propaganda Hero often arises deliberately but sometimes it can come up spontaneously with no real grand plan or scheme. It is rooted in both folklore and cultural tradition as well as the engine of political machines, or simply the logic of commercialization and sales. Everybody wants something to believe in, and usually they turn to leaders in Church and State, but when those leaders cannot, for various reasons suffice as sufficiently inspirational, they or their court scribes have to create something out of nothing, or the people have to resort to their own mythmaking prowess to seek guidance when Church and State authorities are mum.

Related to FamedInStory, ShroudedInMyth, HistoricalHeroUpgrade, PropagandaMachine, CaptainPatriotic and EngineeredHeroics. See also, CultOfPersonality, where the leaders of state are made into heroes, or gods, either by themselves, or their party after the leader's death and FakeUltimateHero, where ''everything'' about the character turns out to be a lie.

** In Fishman Island arc, Jinbe points to Luffy that, due to the FantasticRacism between fishmen and humans, if Luffy wants to beat the BigBad Hody, he has to come out of it as a "hero" for Fishman Island (as Hody is pretty much terrorizing the populace) or it'll be seen as just cruelty of humans towards fishmen.

* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' was created by Creator/JackKirby and Joe Simon to be an actual propaganda superhero. In a more nuanced example of this trope, this did not originate as state propaganda since America had not yet entered the war against UsefulNotes/NaziGermany at the time that the comic first came up, and Kirby and Simon intended their creation to be a "premature anti-fascist". Of course when war was declared, Captain America was poised for success as a readymade propaganda creation right out of the gate.
* ''ComicBook/MarshalLaw'' is another {{Deconstruction}} where superpowered beings like "The Public Spirit" are not only total frauds but absolutely indifferent to the fact that many individuals lost their life and limb fighting in the wars they inspired them to fight.

* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' has government sanctioned heroes like Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian. The former is a PhysicalGod with BlueAndOrangeMorality who is essentially a living nuclear weapon living off government funds, while the latter is a SociopathicHero and rapist war criminal whose actions are enabled by the government so long as he delivers results and projects American strength.

* Creator/SergeiEisenstein's Film/AlexanderNevsky's was intended him to be an anti-fascist propaganda with the Prince of Novgorod's resistance to the Teutonic Knights being likened to a Soviet v Nazi encounter.[[note]]In real-life, the film played for a short while and was shelved with the announcement of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Then revived again in 1941 to global success when Hitler launched Captain Barbarossa[[/note]].

** Most of Film/FortApache shows Colonel Owen Thursday as an unsympathetic martinet and deeply unpopular with his regiment [[spoiler:who he leads into a futile cavalry charge that gets himself and his men killed. In the film's epilogue, he's glorified into a hero under whose memory the regiment will continue to fight Native Americans]].
** ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'': Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) was a pacifist InternalReformist politician who wanted to being progress to a small town in the west, but he gets elected out of the notoriety of having shot the outlaw Liberty Valance [[spoiler:who was killed by John Wayne's Tom Doniphon. In the end, when he tries to tell the truth to the local newspaper, they insist on destroying it, because a great deal of progress came out of that myth, and nobody wants to deal with pesky things like facts]].
* ''Film/TheRedBaron'': shows both von Richthofen's [[AcePilot ground-breaking tactics]]...and the calculated manner in which his reputation was built by the German propaganda.

** Commander Cash. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=OddnvlQgH9w Bringing the credit crisis to a super-fight near you]]!

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': Katniss' formidable fighting skill is entirely overshadowed by the sympathy she draws from the populace. Both sides try to exaggerate and embellish her reputation--inventing star-crossed romances and so forth--and both meet with mixed results due to her bitter, taciturn, rebellious, survivalist-but-self-sacrificing nature...[[{{Deconstruction}} which is why the people truly love her]].
* ''Literature/CiaphasCain'': Cain's reputation is at least in part built on this (as well as on his extremely impressive--if accidental--actual heroism).
* Literature/NineteenEightyFour: Winston Smith invents the heroic "Comrade Ogilvy" out of whole cloth as part of his job at the [[PropagandaMachine Ministry of Truth]].
* Cassius Mass, [[RedBaron The Fire Count]], is an AcePilot who has racked up an astonishing 400 kills during the war against the Commonwealth in SpaceOpera series ''Literature/LucifersStar''. Only later does he find out that much of this is due to High Command sending his group against soft targets with the best equipment to raise morale. Even so, his ''Archangel'' squadron quits itself astonishingly well in the last battle of the war. [[spoiler: It still leaves Cassius as the SoleSurvivor.]]

* ''Literature/TheAeneid'' by Creator/{{Virgil}} was state propaganda promoted by UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} to link the emerging UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire with the antiquity of Homer, and likewise displace Remus and Romulus with Aeneas as [[OurFounder the new founder]] of Rome.[[note]]The Julio-Claudian family of which Augustus was a descendant claimed descent from the Trojans and even claimed to descend from the Goddess Venus, both origins linked Augustus and Caesar to Aeneas, thereby creating a continuity of the ruling family with their ancestors, and insisting that the foundations of Rome were imperial rather than republican[[/note]] Aeneas likewise embodies virtues more amenable to Roman piety and values, being stoic, determined, obedient to family and gods, differing from the Homeric attitude to Greek heroes (capricious/violent/inconsistent).
* On the flip side, ''Pharsalia'' by Lucan made Cato into a propaganda hero with Caesar being made into a villain. Lucan was a critic of Emperor Nero (who claimed descent from Caesar and Augustus) and eventually fell victim to his policies. It's glorification of Cato as an embodiment of Roman virtue and defiance against encroaching reforms by ambitious usurpers is no less generous to Cato than Virgil was to Augustus.

* Creator/WilliamShakespeare's history plays were propaganda for the Tudor regime. His Theatre/HenryV is often considered his most patriotic work, and it ensured that Henry the Fifth and his victory at Agincourt remained a highly popular image for British soldiers well into the 20th Century.

* The word Propaganda originates from a Catholic Church group called Committee for Propagating the Faith (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) whose main function was to spread the faith in non-Catholic nations. Later historians argue that PatronSaint, pious Kings, Popes and devout nuns have at various times become heroes for propaganda use by the Church, and one of the techniques used by the Church in modern times includes distributing comics showing famous saints and likewise using many saint iconography interchangeably with Jesus.

** An example of this is the conversion of the Ste. Genevieve into the Pantheon, a hall of fame mausoleum where the Great Thinkers, Philosophers and Politicians could be interred. Both Creator/{{Voltaire}} and Creator/JeanJacquesRousseau were interred there.
** The painter Creator/JacquesLouisDavid played a major role creating paintings on classical themes such as Lucius Brutus and the Horatii, that linked contemporary Republican sentiment with their classical predecessors. His most famous work, "The Death of Marat" made a martyr of [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolutionMajorFigures Jean-Paul Marat]] and made Marat into a Christ-like figure of veneration. Indeed, after Marat's death, the First French Republic promoted a cult of Marat, where busts of Marat replaced that of Jesus Christ in many parts of France and he became a secular saint.[[note]]This was a deliberate co-opting by the state of Marat's genuine popularity among the public. Marat was the most controversial and extreme RabbleRouser who was outside the mainstream of the Jacobin Club, and someone even Robespierre would not touch with a ten foot pole. Upon his death, and after David's painting, they went full in promoting him into a Hero[[/note]].
** UsefulNotes/MaximilienRobespierre was rather fixated with finding the IdealHero for the French Revolution. His reputation of humility precluded him from actively promoting a CultOfPersonality, but he settled on Viola and Bara. Two ChildSoldiers who illegally joined the armies by lying about their ages and ended up KIA. David, Robespierre's friend, worked on paintings showing Bara's death and Robespierre intended to inter the bodies of both children into the Pantheon, noting that the French Republic alone could boast having "12 year old heroes".[[note]]Robespierre's downfall happened ironically in the week before the ceremony was completed and after being politically discredited, the propaganda attempt was blocked[[/note]].
** UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte, former Jacobin that he was, engaged Creator/JacquesLouisDavid and other painters to propagate for a new cause and hero...[[ItsAllAboutMe myself]], creating an authentic pre-20th Century CultOfPersonality in the process.

** The Soviets later elevated cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin as a hero for the Soviet Union, and in his case he remains someone who really did something to merit his elevation and was genuinely popular among the people. Other attempts to elevate Soviet heroes include athletes, war heroes such as Vassily mentioned above but he was merely one of many.
* John Henry, the famous "steel drivin' man" of song and story. From what little is known he really did win his famous duel against the steam drill, a truly herculean feat that required him to [[DualWielding swing a 12 pound sledgehammer in each hand]]. While it's probably not true he then "laid down his hammer and died" afterwards the steam drill was able to repeat the feet the next day and John Henry was not. Over the years various people have re-purposed an event that was probably staged to settle a bet into everything from the story of a generically American folk hero to a specifically African American folk hero to a heroic labor action. As for the real John Henry his name appears in the pension records of the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad and and the Norfolk and Western Railroad later named a powerful experimental locomotive after him.

-> ''"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact...print the legend."''
-->-- '''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance''

* John Henry, the famous "steel drivin' man" of song and story. From what little is known he really did win his famous duel against the steam drill, a truly herculean feat that required him to [[DuelWielding swing a 12 pound sledgehammer in each hand]]. While it's probably not true he then "laid down his hammer and died" afterwards the steam drill was able to repeat the feet the next day and John Henry was not. Over the years various people have re-purposed an event that was probably staged to settle a bet into everything from the story of a generically American folk hero to a specifically African American folk hero to a heroic labor action. As for the real John Henry his name appears in the pension records of the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad and and the Norfolk and Western Railroad later named a powerful experimental locomotive after him.

* Rosie the Riveter, the fictional embodiment of America's homefront war effort in WorldWarTwo

Related to FamedInStory, ShroudedInMyth, HistoricalHeroUpgrade, PropagandaMachine, CaptainPatriotic and EngineeredHeroics. See also, CultOfPersonality, where the leaders of state are made into heroes, or gods, either by themselves, or their party after the leader's death.

Related to FamedInStory, ShroudedInMyth, HistoricalHeroUpgrade, PropagandaMachine, CaptainPatriotic. See also, CultOfPersonality, where the leaders of state are made into heroes, or gods, either by themselves, or their party after the leader's death.

The people need a hero. The war is not going well, and the troops are running out of food, ammo and steam. The propaganda department is about to fall on its collective sword when in walks a vision: a square-jawed, broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, clean-limbed HERO...to deliver the mail. A hero who is the personification of everything good, true and pure of the nation, who you can follow into battle and inspire you to fight and die for a cause. Immediately, he is snatched up, given a shave, a haircut, a heroic backstory and put on display. His story might even be true, but that's less important to the Powers That Be than his effect on morale. And even if it is true, it will exaggerate out of proportion, misinterpret small-scale motives for grand ideology.

** The pagequote has ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance''. Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) was a pacifist InternalReformist politician who wanted to being progress to a small town in the west, but he gets elected out of the notoriety of having shot the outlaw Liberty Valance [[spoiler:who was killed by John Wayne's Tom Doniphon. In the end, when he tries to tell the truth to the local newspaper, they insist on destroying it, because a great deal of progress came out of that myth, and nobody wants to deal with pesky things like facts]].

* This is what happened to Aleksei Stakhanov in Stalin's USSR. After winning a coal extracting competition, he was presented as an insanely productive miner, to serve as an example to other workers, with the purpose of making them work beyond their production quotas and show the world how performant the "New Man" was. He made a comfortable career for the regime thanks to that. Of course, decades later, his alleged exploits were proven greatly exaggerated, but a city is still named after him. In some countries like France, someone who works beyond reason is called a "stakhanovist".

** UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte, former Jacobin that he was, engaged Creator/JacquesLouisDavid and other painters to propagate for a new cause and hero...[[IdealHero himself]], creating an authentic pre-20th Century CultOfPersonality in the process.
* This is what happened to Aleksei Stakhanov in Stalin's USSR. After winning a coal extracting competition, he was presented as an insanely productive miner, to serve as an example to other workers, with the purpose of making them work beyond their production quotas and show the world how performant the "New Man" was. He made a comfortable career for the regime thanks to that. Of course, decades later, his alleged exploits were proven greatly exagerated, but a city is still named after him. In some countries like France, someone who works beyond reason is called a "stakhanovist".

Related to FamedInStory, ShroudedInMyth, HistoricalHeroUpgrade, PropagandaMachine, CaptainPatriotic.

* Creator/SergeiEisenstein's Film/AlexanderNevsky's was intended him to be an anti-fascist propaganda with the Prince of Novgorod's resistance to the Teutonic Knights being likened to a Soviet v Nazi encounter.[[note]]In real-life, the film played for a short while and was shelved with the announcement of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Then revived again in 1941 to global success when Hitler announced Captain Barbarossa[[/note]].

* ''Literature/TheBrothersKaramazov'' by Creator/FyodorDostoevsky has Ivan Karamazov narrate the StoryWithinTheStory of the Grand Inquisitor where an Inquisitor in Spain remarks to a Jesus returned to earth that he has become the Propaganda Hero for the Church and that they will use his image to propagate whatever actions they deem correct or necessary for their organization, even if they have to recrucify Jesus to do it.

* ''ComicBook/MarshallLaw'' is another {{Deconstruction}} where superpowered beings like "The Public Spirit" are not only total frauds but absolutely indifferent to the fact that many individuals lost their life and limb fighting in the wars they inspired them to fight.

The people need a hero. The war is not going well, and the troops are running out of food, ammo and steam. The propaganda department is about to fall on its collective sword when in walks a vision: a square-jawed, broad-shouldered, clear-eyed, clean-limbed HERO...to deliver the mail.

Immediately, he is snatched up, given a shave, a haircut, a heroic backstory and put on display. His story might even be true, but that's less important to the Powers That Be than his effect on morale.

Inevitably, our Made Hero will grow into his legend, and eventually even exceed it.

Related to FamedInStory.

[[folder: Film ]]

* ''Film/TheRedBaron'': shows both von Richthofen's [[AcePilot ground-breaking tactics]]...and the calculated manner in which his reputation was built by the German propaganda.

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** The Shichibukai/Seven Warlords of the Sea are pirates sanctioned by the (generally opposed to piracy) World Government. This is to maintain the appearance of a balance of power with the strongest pirates, to show that pirates still fall under the control of the government, and emergency allies in case of war. The Warlords get something in return for their compliance, as well as fame.
** in Fishman Island arc, Jinbe points to Luffy that, due to the FantasticRacism between fishmen and humans, if Luffy wanna beat the BigBad Hody, he has to come out of it as a "hero" for Fishman Island (as Hody is pretty much terrorizing the populace) or it'll be seen as just cruelty of humans towards fishmen.

* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'': Cap's set up as the poster boy for the American troops, mostly to sell war bonds. [[SubvertedTrope Ironically]], the men actually on the front line have no respect for a leotard-wearing shill who has never seen combat. [[LetsGetDangerous That changes]].

Immediately, he is snatched up, given a shave, a haircut, a heroic backstory and put on display. His story might even be true, but that's less important to the Powers That Be than his affect on morale.