From 1939 to 1945, the world was engaged in a conflict the likes of which may never be
seen again.
Fascist dictators had taken control of countries
with the promise of returning them to their former glory. Though an alliance had been
formed between them, each, in turn, set out to conquer the world. The rest of the world
pushed back, and for those six years, there was seemingly no future without war, no hope
without sacrifice. There was the question of tomorrow, would there be one, and if so,
what would it be?
Hello and welcome to Animation/Propaganda. So far, we’ve looked at the history of propaganda
as well as early animation, and how they came together to oppose drugs and celebrate the
virtues of communism and capitalism. In this final video, we will visit the Golden Age
of Propaganda and the theatres of the Second World War. We are going to be looking at how
the film industry was mobilized during this time, bringing cartoons to the frontline,
as well the importance of propaganda to the development of anime. Now we have a whole
video on this, but I’d like to start by going a little further back to the origins
of the medium.
Animation was discovered independently by several nations in the early 20th century
through experiments in trick photography.
The earliest surviving example of Japanese animation, or anime, is Katsudō Shashin, possibly
dating back to 1907. I say possibly because it’s origin and creator are unknown.
The film, which lasts only 3 seconds, consists of a boy writing the words “moving pictures”
in kanji before bowing to the audience.
It was discovered in 2005 and historians believe believe it to be made between 1905 and 1912,
likely as an experiment.
Japan is not a friendly climate for celluloid and many early anime perished due to natural
disasters, like the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, or simply deteriorated in the humid
climate.
The earliest surviving anime produced for public screening is Jun'ichi Kōuchi’s Namakura
Gatana. This follows an inept samurai whose dull blade repeatedly causes him to embarrass
himself.
Another prominent anime pioneer was Seitarō Kitayama, whose work included an adaptation
of the time travel folktale, Urashima Tarō.
Unlike in America, where cell Animation had become the standard, many early anime were
produced using cut out techniques or drawing directly onto celluloid. Still the medium
grew, with new artists, like Noburō Ōfuji and Yasuji Murata, emerging throughout the
1920s and 30s.
1939 saw the passing the Film Law, bringing all film production under control of the Japanese
government. This was part of nation’s move towards a militaristic totalitarian state,
resembling the fascist regimes that at the same time were spreading across Europe.
In 1940, Japan, along with Germany and Italy, signed the Tripartite Pact, officially forming
the Axis Powers.
On December 7, 1941, the imperial Japanese army attacked a United States naval base at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This would be immortalized in Mitsuyo Seo’s Momotarō's Sea Eagles.
Momotaro, or Peach Boy, is a Japanese folk-hero said to have traveled to a far off island
to rid it of the oni, or demons, along with his animal friends. Momotarō's Sea Eagles casts
the legend into the attack on Pearl Habor, with an appearance, of course, unauthorized
by Popeye’s Bluto.
The cute depictions of animals made the film and war approachable, especially to children.
Indoctrination through the exploitation of kids’ relationship with animation is a cornerstone
of propaganda and Seo followed the success of this up with 1945’s Momotaro: Sacred
Sailors, the first feature-length anime.
Similar to Sea Eagles, Sacred Sailors featured Momotaro and friends engaged in combat against
the British, winning rule of the island of Celebes. While slightly more disturbing than
its predecessor, it features considerably more cuteness as well as the addition of musical
numbers. Despite creating propaganda for a far-right,
military dictatorship, Seo was a leftist and had previously been jailed and tortured for
his beliefs. After the war he produced a pro-democracy anime for Toho, but they refused to release
it on political grounds. Given the lack of resources and difficulty associated with animation,
Seo would abandon the industry in favour of illustrating children’s books.
Imagine you’re 18, American, male, fresh out of school, maybe working your first job;
perhaps you’ve even kissed a girl. Suddenly, you are drafted and sent overseas to a country
you’ve never heard of into a war you don’t understand. For many US soldiers, this was
the reality.
The military, aware of this, set out to inform the troops the reasons behind the war and
to justify them risking, or in some cases, giving their lives for it. They enlisted the
help of director Frank Capra to produce a series of films that would show viewers the
evil they were dealing with.
Why We Fight would span three years and seven films, covering topics from the causes of
the war to individual conflicts within it. Capra had seen the enemy’s propaganda, notably
Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, and decided to make use of it mockingly, subverting
its original message.
It portrays fascists and their followers as weak-willed and mindless conformists.
In addition to stock footage and enemy propaganda, Why We Fight contained several animated scenes
produced by Walt Disney.
Capra saw great potential in using animation for propaganda and set out to create an original
character to star in educational shorts. The result was Private Snafu.
Named after the acronym for situation normal: all fucked up, meaning things are bad, as
usual, Private Snafu follows the misadventures of your average serviceman. It walked viewers
through basic concepts, like the use camouflage and gas masks, as well as the importance of
protecting military secrets. This was a more accessible way for illiterate soldiers to
learn rather than reading service manuals. It was also, extremely entertaining.
They were never meant for civilian eyes and as such, were not subject to same regulation
and censorship as commercially released shorts. Because of this, these cartoons could get
away with more risqué and adult-oriented gags. In short, they are very crass and very
horny.
Capra and the army had initially wanted Disney to produce Snafu, but Disney wanted ownership
and merchandising rights to the character, and Warner considerably underbid them. This
meant that many responsible for the Golden Age of Animation worked on these shorts, including
Frank Tashlin, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones, with Bugs Bunny himself, Mel Blanc, providing
Snafu’s voice. Some were even written in rhyme by Theodor Geisel, also known as Dr.
Seuss.
The entertainment available to troops stationed overseas was limited to radio broadcasts
and older film releases, many of which troops probably saw before they were even deployed.
Private Snafu would be screened ahead of these alongside newsreels and poked fun at the absurdity
and mundanities of military life. It spoke to troops on their level and in their language,
and no doubt provided comfort in letting them know they were not in this alone.
Back home, every industry had been co-opted to support the war effort, including entertainment.
Movie stars enlisted and studios produced patriotic films, portraying the War as winnable,
but maybe more importantly, finite.
Cartoons jumped in on the action.
It should shock no one that Popeye was quick to the fight with 1941’s The Mighty Navy.
He would star in several shorts, in which he would single handedly destroy enemy forces,
both in Europe and the Pacific.
While the troops got Snafu, Warner Brothers treated civilians to The Ducktators. This
short lampoons the leaders of the Axis, portraying them as barnyard animals who are eventually
killed and mounted by a nameless white dove.
Warner would also send their stars to war. Daffy was drafted, cast as a commando and
eventually became a messenger bird in 1944’s Plane Daffy. This found him at odds with a
Nazi spy bird, who attempts to solicit military secrets from him. She succeeds, sending Hitler
the message that he is a stinker, which Goebbels and Göring admit is hardly a secret, before
killing themselves.
While many propaganda cartoons are obviously of their time, few have aged worse than Bugs
Bunny’s Any Bonds Today? This is your standard plea for war bonds and features Bugs performing
a rendition of Irving Berlin’s Any Bonds Today? At one point, he breaks into a blackface
number before being joined by Porky and Elmer Fudd.
Though all studios and characters contributed to the war, none did so quite as much as Disney.
At the outbreak of war, Walt Disney and his studio had established themselves as the Gold
Standard in animation. However, due to the war, and the fact Disney could not distribute
his films throughout much of Europe, profits suffered. To keep the studio going, he offered
it to the government.
As we saw earlier, Disney had collaborated with the US military, producing short animations
in their instructional videos. In 1942, Disney would co-produce the similar Stop That Tank!
an instructional film showcasing the use of the Boys Anti-Tank Rifle, with the National
Film Board of Canada.
Disney characters would also appear in PSAs, also produced in association with the NFB,
encouraging Canadians to purchase, you guessed it, war bonds. IP from the features Snow White
and Pinocchio, as well as the 3 Little Pigs urged sacrifice at home, as taxation and saving
were presented as benefiting the Allies while spending would only help the Axis.
The Disney-NFB collaboration would also give us Donald’s Decision, wherein Donald Duck
joins seemingly every other cartoon in promoting the purchase of war bonds. He would repeat
this call in America, as well as illustrated the importance of filing your income tax,
in The New Spirit and its sequel, The Spirit of ’43.
Donald Duck had rose to prominence throughout the 1930s, starring alongside Mickey Mouse
in several shorts before breaking off on his own. In many ways, he was the face of Disney
during the war. Donald, like Daffy, would get drafted into the military, literally;
he was the mascot for both the Air Corps and the Coast Guard- and was assigned to sergeant
Pete in a series of a shorts, which found him stumbling through army life similar to
Snafu.
Donald also starred in what is quite possibly the most famous of all propaganda cartoons,
Der Fuehrer’s Face. Taking its title from the novelty song by Spike Jones, this followed
Donald through a nightmare in which he is a Nazi. He reluctantly works in an ammunition
factory and is subjected to constant indoctrination before he finally snaps. What follows is a
hallucinatory trip through fascist imagery, ending with Donald waking up, relieved to
find himself still in America.
If Der Fuehrer’s Face is the most famous, the most infamous piece of propaganda Disney
produced was Education for Death. With the subtitle, The Making of a Nazi, Education
For Death walks viewers through how German children were indoctrinated and radicalized
from birth. It features a cameo by Hitler as the saviour of Germany, itself portrayed
by an obese woman. Like in Why We Fight, fascists are seen are mindless, killing machines hellbent
on destroying everything you love.
The fascists had cartoons of their own.
Italy’s IIl Dottor Churkill, casts Winston Churchill in the role of Jekyll and Hyde,
mocking British imperialism and showing him pilfering other nations before being chased
away by Nazis. In the end, he is seen hiding while London burns.
Nazi Germany furthered its anti-Semitic rhetoric with 1940’s Of The Little Tree Which Wished
For Different Leaves. This showed a tree with golden leaves being picked cleaned by a Jewish
caricature. Germany had a non-aggression pact with the
Soviet Union, a partnership that would be lampooned in Britain’s Hitler Dances to
Stalin’s Tune.
This didn’t last long, however, as Germany invaded Russia in 1941.
The Soviets responded with Fascist Boots Shall Not Trample Our Motherland. Directed by Alexander
Ivanov and Ivan Ivanov-Vano, this showed boots marching across European countries in the
order they had been conquered. Pulling out, a Nazi pig is revealed. As it approaches the
Soviet Union, it is stopped and thwarted by the Soviet’s superior fire power.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy and what followed was the bloodiest conflict in human
history. Nearly half the War’s total deaths came from the Eastern Front, estimated around
30 million, with many being civilians who either succumbed to starvation or perished
in genocide.
To keep moral up, the Soviet’s pumped out propaganda.
This is best exemplified in A Journal of Political Satire № 2, or, Fascist Pirates. Told in
four parts, this 8 minute epic was produced by many who had worked on the earlier China
In Flames.
The first part, subtitled What Hitler Wants, shows the dictator giving the factories to
the capitalists and enslaving the Soviet people, ending with what he will actually receive.
Part 2 depicts German U-Boats as sharks, that are as adorable as they are terrifying, which
are sunk by Soviet torpedoes.
Espionage and sabotage are the themes of part 3, showing enemies burning crops and attempting
to derail a train. They are promptly handled.
Part 4 illustrates the allegiance between the British and Soviet forces, much to Hitler’s
chagrin. In the end, it is this partnership that crushes him.
Now pretty much everything we’ve seen so far has been produced by “free” nations.
This next cartoon comes from occupied Czechoslovakia.
An urban legend had grown out of the occupation of man who travelled by bouncing on springs,
known as Pérák, the Spring Man of Prague. Something of a superhero, he was said to be
a chimney sweep who moonlighted as a vigilante, helping the people of Prague and opposing
the Nazis.
The Spring-man and the SS was a cartoon produced in the final days of the occupation by Jiří
Brdečka & Jiří Trnka. It shows the fear and paranoia of living under Nazi rule, as
a collaborator rats out those he believes are defying them.
The Sping-man rises and gives the Nazis a thrashing, freeing those imprisoned. It ends
with the hope of peace, now that the war has ended.
The glory of war is a lie, a powerful lie that is propagated to no end to convince the
young to give their lives for something bigger than themselves, be it freedom, an ideology
or their country.
Now I’m not discounting the threat or the evil of the Axis, nor the sacrifice that was
made in order to defeat it. I believe there is a world of difference between supporting
war and supporting the troops, and I can’t help think of the kids who graduated into
this war. For many, this was the sum of their life experience and I’m sure at one time
or another it felt as though this was life, and that the war would never end.
But it did, and when Allied victory was all but certain, the US government produced short
animations to help the soldiers acclimatize to their post-war life. Snafu would even return
in the series A Few Quick Facts. Produced at different times by UPA, MGM and even Disney,
these taught soldiers how to save and spend their money, as well as the dangers of inflation,
credit, and how take advantage of benefits their service allowed them under the GI Bill of Rights.
These people risked, and gave, their lives
to give us a tomorrow, a tomorrow, it turns out, filled with more wars, more fascists,
and more propaganda.
The period covered in this video is commonly referred to as the Golden Age of Propaganda
but it seems quaint in hindsight, giving the information nightmare we are currently living
through.
It’s inescapable. Exhausting, intentionally so. Our day to day life is designed as such,
that we are constantly being bombarded with information, manipulated into spending our
money a certain way or to vote or think a certain way. Or to just give up, and to not
think; fuck it. Ignore it. It’s not happening.
Truth. Fiction? Reality is now a subjective
concept. I have created mine, you have yours, and these realties are under continuous attack,
by the fear and hate of those in power.
Now when I began this project six months ago I said I wasn’t trying to make a grand political
statement and I’m not. I don’t believe I have that power and If you’ve watched
this long I’m probably not telling you anything you didn’t already know. However, I do want
to leave you with one thing:
Be careful what reality you chose to live in.
So that wraps up about a year’s worth of propaganda content. It’s been tough, it’s
been heavy but thanks for sticking with us. I’m very excited to move towards more fun
topics but this subject, WW2 propaganda is way too big to fit into one video so we will
be exploring it further in a process video over on Patreon, patreon.com/picsnportraits.
You can support us there. And I also wouldn’t be opposed to reviving this series in the
future. It’s something I find fascinating and there is certainly no shortage of material
to draw from.
If you’re new here, please subscribe, check out some of the other episodes or our other
videos. Some are much lighter. But if you enjoyed this video, give us a thumbs and please
share. That helps out a lot. As always thank you so much for your interest in this channel
and thank you so much for watching.