Quotes / Slave to PR

Anime & Manga

"It's no use, Smoker-kun. The Government wants to cover up the events which transpired here. Do you honestly think the Government can announce to the world that the collapse of Arabasta was averted thanks to pirates?"

— Marine Captain Hina, One Piece

Brannew: The World Government has requested... that the Level 6 case... be covered up. They say that any more blunders would affect the people's faith in the Government...
(Beat)
Sengoku: THAT'S ABSURD!!!

— One Piece

Film — Live-Action

This could look very bad for OCP Jacques. Scramble the best spin team we have.

— Old Man in RoboCop 2, after Robocop 2 destroys an ambulance

"We cut 'em in half with a machine gun and give 'em a Band-Aid."

— Willard, Apocalypse Now

Toots: [to Rocco] I say smack her, and let it go at that.
Frank: That'd be alright for you, not for him. The Roccos don't, or they wouldn't be Roccos. No, smacking her isn't enough; it's too great an insult. He'd have to kill her. Then he'd have to kill us who witnessed it. Not just Mr. Temple and me, but all the witnesses. It's all or nothing. He needs you, and Curly, and Angel. So it'll be nothing.
Rocco: Wise guy.

— Key Largo

"I make car parts for the American working man, because that's what I am and that's who I care about." The truth is I make car parts for the American working man because I'm a hell of a salesman, and he doesn't know any better.

— Ray Zalinsky, Tommy Boy

"There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion."

—Jeffrey Goines, 12 Monkeys

Literature

Widely recognized as a tyrannical megalomaniac who prided himself on cruelty and ruled through fear, Caligula was nearly undone by an underground smear campaign to depict him as a 'pretty nice guy.' Other sculptures and frescoes of the time libelously show him flying a kite and helping an old lady cross the Appian Way. An incensed Caligula immediately went into 'damage control' by publicly sodomizing a puppy.

— America (The Book)

And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.

— Shooting an Elephant

Live-Action TV

Niska has his own code, twisted though it may be. Very excited about reputation.

— Zoe Washburne, Firefly

Claire Underwood: There's a lot more to Francis and me than what you wrote.
Tom Yates: Maybe so, but I never got a chance to ask.
Claire: Then ask! Whatever you want.
Tom: Why aren't you with him in Iowa?
Claire: [thinks] I'm headed there tomorrow.
Tom: You see? I ask a question, and neither of you answer. It's tiresome constantly swinging a sledgehammer at the facade, just to get a glimpse beneath the cracks.

— House of Cards (US)

"But remember, me not Veggie Monster. Me still Cookie Monster. Just for record. Me got reputation to think of."

— Cookie Monster, Sesame Street

Marlo Stanfield: He used my name? In the street? TALK, motherfucker!
"Monk" Metcalf: He just, you know, uh, say that you need to step to, and that... I dunno. He just running his mouth some.
Marlo: He call me a punk?
Chris Partlow: (terrified) It was bullshit, man. You ain't need that on your mind—
Marlo: What the fuck you know about what I need on my mind, motherfucker? My name was on the street?! When we bounce from this shit here, y'all going to go down on them corners and let the people know: Word did not get back to me. Let them know Marlo step to any motherfucker — Omar, Barksdale, whoever. My NAME is MY NAME!

— The Wire, "Late Editions"

Video Games

President Ronald Sung: Without proof, I'm afraid there's little I can do, Agent Thorton. What evidence do you have?
Mike Thorton: I can prove that a cell of Chinese operatives plan to cause a pro-nationalist riot at your rally.
Sung: Then the attempt on my life is merely your conjecture?
Thorton: No sir, Mister President, both threats are genuine. Please, for your safety, cancel your appearance at the rally.
Sung: Cancelling the rally at this juncture would do considerable harm to my cause. I'm afraid it is out of the question.
Thorton: Then at least take extra precautions. Wear body armor during your speech, post extra security - something!
Sung: Give me your evidence, Agent Thorton. If my security chief concurs that the threat is credible, I will have extra personnel standing by to quell any agitators.
Thorton: But the assassination-
Sung: If I go out onto that stage wearing a bulletproof vest, I announce my weakness to the world! I am sorry, but without hard evidence, I will not send that message to my people!

—Alpha Protocol

Web Original

"So, my question to you guys is; is what kind of new sandwich can we release... that will make people forget that our spokesperson is a pedophile?"

— Subway Executive, Subway Crisis Meeting re. Jared Fogle by Aunty Donna

Western Animation

Tombstone: Sorry, Doctor. Too many witnesses. L. Thompson Lincoln can't be seen collaborating with supervillains and gangsters.
Doctor Octopus: Then L. Thompson Lincoln... IS WEAK!

— The Spectacular Spider-Man

Burns: I don't know what's happening. It seems our profits have dropped 37%.

Smithers: I'm afraid we have a bad image, sir. Market research shows people see you as something of an ogre.

Burns: I ought to club them and eat their bones.

Smithers: (chuckles) Heh-heh. Well, maybe this film festival could help us. A film biography might let them get to know the real you: virtuous, heroic, nubile...

Burns: You left out "pleasant"! (Burns whacks Smithers with a newspaper) But I like that film biography idea: a slick Hollywood picture to gloss over my evil rise to power like Bugsy or Working Girl. Get me Steven Spielberg!

Smithers: He's unavailable, sir.

Burns: Then get me his non-union Mexican equivalent!

— The Simpsons, "A Star Is Burns"

Real Life

"Dukat is not a nice man. He is not a sensitive man. He likes to act like a sensitive man, but he's a man of appetites to whom public image is very important, much more important than the truth."

— Ira Behr on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

The followers [of Fascist ideology] must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

— Umberto Eco, "Ur-Fascism"

No matter how well-intentioned they may be privately, they are limited by those they govern. Paradoxically, this is truest of dictators.

— Gore Vidal, "Nasser's Egypt"

Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.

— Marshall McLuhan

I stand by this man. I stand by this man, because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world.

— Stephen Colbert, 2006 White House Press Correspondents' Dinner

I think we drum good people out of politics who are defined by the single worst thing they've ever done, as opposed to the context of their public lives, and I think we make it much, much easier for people who have no business holding office to enter the process. Because when you're not talking about ideas and world views and agendas, when you are talking about character and personality, it makes it very easy for for someone to float through the process, without ever having to explain themselves or demonstrate what they know.".

— Matt Bai, deconstructing this trope in politics on The Daily Show

He seems content-free to me. Never had a job, except in PR, and it shows.

— Christopher Hitchens on David Cameron

Justin says he was just nervous because he was afraid people would be at home judging him and he didn’t want to come off "arrogant or conceited." Yeah, too fucking late. He also got all ~deep~ by talking about how he’s done "pretending" to be someone he's not, and that he's not actually an awful come-to-life canker sore.

— Michael K., "Justin Bieber Wants You To Know He Was Just Pretending To Be A Little Asshole Last Year"

He’s like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous madman reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he’s not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he’s so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all.

—Megan Fox on Michael Bay

Presidents abstain from making key policy decisions because of how they might look. News organizations bury corrections quickly because of how those errors will look... Everything gets clouded in a fog of optics, while reality lurks out of view.

— Drew Macgary, "Everything Is Public Relations Now"

If there's a hurricane or a flood or some sort of disaster, you can bet cartel trucks loaded with aid supplies will start flooding into the region, and that cartel men with cameras will be there to videotape it for YouTube. Because a few trucks loaded with food and water totally make up for all those murders.

— Cracked, "6 Ways Life in Cartel-Run Mexico Is Nothing Like You Think"

I'm not Walt Disney. I do a lot of things that Walt Disney wouldn't do. Walt Disney doesn't smoke. I smoke. Walt Disney doesn't drink. I drink.

— Walt Disney, on his public persona

The problem here isn't that Bernie Sanders is a crazy-pants cuckoo bird. It's that we've all become so accustomed to stage-managed, focus group-driven candidates that authenticity comes across as lunacy.

— Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

You're not Stalin and I'm not Stalin. [points to a portrait of himself] That is Stalin. Stalin is Soviet power. Stalin is what he is in the newspapers and in the portraits, not you, no not even me!

— Josef Stalin, to his son Vasily

My grandfather's opinion was this: If pupils peep into their teacher's private life frequently, they lose their awe of him; the teacher must give his pupils the firm belief that their teacher neither eats nor urinates; only then can he maintain his authority at school; so a teacher should set up a screen and live behind it.

— Kim Il-Sung

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