Significance And Effectiveness Of Disney 's Wartime Propaganda

Even after war, groups will always produce media with the intent of influencing the public. “Meet King Joe,” for example, is a post World War II film that follows Joe on an educational journey where he learns about how the American economy works to make his life better. The other post World War II film to be analyzed, “Don’t Be a Sucker,” follows Mike as a wise stranger tells him about how, as Americans, we should all be tolerant of each others differences lest we become like Nazi Germany. Both of these films utilize Plain Folks appeals and other techniques in an effort to influence public opinion; but one is black, deceptive, and unethical propaganda while the other may be closer to a rational attempt at persuasion than a piece of propaganda.

“Ads implied that if you bought a war bond your sacrifice was on par with that of the man in the front lines.” (74) The US government and industry played on Americans’ sense of patriotism in order to get them to support the war or buy their products. However, “Advertising had inherent problems as an educational tool. It is by nature emotional, rather than intellectual; it sells feelings rather than ideas.” (73) Government propaganda and business advertising were not the only factors in forming the inaccurate myth of the Second World War. Hollywood made films where “people get blown up with their clothes and fall gracefully to the ground” (100). Through the realism of motion pictures, such as 1998’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and 2001’s ‘Pearl Harbor’, Americans were falsely led to believe in a glorified war.

The World War II propaganda techniques used were to make the United States look like it was a powerhouse, and were winning the war. Other countries did this as well.

The parallels between the propaganda tactics of contemporary America and Nazi Germany are too obvious to go undocumented. For the purposes of this paper, “propaganda” will be understood as any attempt of a government to control and/or change the attitudes of its citizens. From this liberal definition, I will analyze the relationship between Nazi Germany and contemporary America with respect to various methods of propagating government interests. As suggested by Hermann Goering, Minister of Economics and Commander-in-chief of the air force of Nazi Germany, the successful propaganda techniques will be compared with respect to denunciation of the

As already mentioned, the United States readily took part in the propaganda parley of World War II. The threat of subversive Nazi propaganda on U.S. soil caused private citizens to use their contacts to pressure the government into counteracting the “attack on democracy” (Laurie 30-32). This spurred the creation of government organizations such as the U.S. Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The role of these organizations was to oversee the propaganda released on behalf of the government (Laurie 45). The military naturally became involved in the creation and implementation of propaganda films to promote anti-Nazi feelings across a nation immersed in a global war. Also, the hope was that these films would act as a morale booster necessary in a nation that had just experienced the horrors of Pearl Harbor (Fyne 12).

My third chapter I will analyse how World War II affected the Disney Studios bringing Roosevelt and Walt Disney to work together on a Good Neighbour tour through South America with the best of his team, among was Mary Blair. Blair was a brought on board to work on "Saludos Amigos and the three caballeros. The diplomatic films were created to promote a sense friendship between the North and South America during

During World II Hollywood made movies about the war. In the 40’s actors made movies about the war. Actors and actresses enlisted in the war (Film History). Which shows that a lot of people look up to actors and actresses so people did what was on TV and joined the war actors and actresses. When the actors enlisted in the war, people wanted to enlist too. Film scholar Thomas Doherty, made a video “Projections of War” about the great history of hollywood during World War II (Indiana University). This shows another example of how cool the war seemed to kids making them want to join which ends up helping us win world war II. Therefore, movies and famous people joining

“The function of propaganda is,for example,not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people,but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for.it’s task is not to make an objective study of the truth,…its task is to serve our own right,always and unflinchingly”(Hitler,1971,p182).Propaganda as defined by Welch(1983,p2),is the art of brainwashing,so as to alter attitudes and ideas.Though the art of persuasion is nothing new,it became more innovative in the first half of the twentieth century,such as through the “popular press,then the film and the radio”(Tegel,2007,p.12).This was headed by the Ministry of Propaganda under Joseph

Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda during Nazi Germany undoubtedly had a profound effect on the workings of the Nazi German state through his direct involvement in its use of propaganda to attempt to influence the German public. He was particularly interested in film as a media for transmitting ideas to the people since he believed that “visual images – no matter how he himself manipulated them before they were released – possessed greater credibility that spoken or written words” (Doob 427). Goebbels had strict guidelines for the use of film as propagandistic materials and most importantly, over anything, he claimed that film should be entertainment first and propaganda second – “The ideal film would spirit people away from the real world and grant viewers access to a pleasant, compelling and convincing alternative space” (Rentschler 319). Throughout his tenure as Minister of Propaganda,

Propaganda is a method of correspondence used to control or impact the feeling of groups to support a specific reason or conviction. Throughout the hundreds of years, purposeful propaganda has taken the type of craftsmanship, movies, discourses, and music, however it's not restricted to these types of correspondence. In spite of the fact that its utilization is not only negative propaganda all the time includes a substantial accentuation on the advantages and excellences of one thought or gathering, while all the while mutilating reality or stifling the counter-contention ( “What is Propaganda”).

In regard to World War II, the U.S. government’s involvement extended beyond just the battlefields overseas. In need of boosting public morale, officials looked to the nation’s entertainment industry, and as a result, ultimately found themselves in the realm of animation. Having a history of charm and popularity all on their own, cartoons were now being developed with a new agenda in mind, their broad appeal holding a unique potential for wartime propaganda. Familiar characters such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck of Warner Bros. were now at the center of the public’s attention, and not just for their silly antics, but for building the support needed by those in the home front as well. Detailing how to buy war bonds or pay taxes under the guise of animated entertainment, these shorts and the effect they had on their respective industry can be further analyzed through

Language, or more generally communication, is used by one person to influence another. Propaganda has long been used by governments, or by other groups, particularly in time of war, to influence populations [7, 11, 12, 28]. Although the message conveyed by propaganda, or other communication intended to influence, may be believed to be true by the propagator, it usually is presented in a distorted manner, so as to have maximum persuasive power, and, often, is deliberately misleading, or untrue. Propaganda is a form of perception management. Other types of perception management include psychological operations in warfare [17], consumer fraud, and advertising [7].

The United States largely used propaganda during World War 2 to influence Americans that we needed to fight the war. This was often done by claiming that America was fighting against the evil of Hitler and his allies. Artist like Dr. Seuss, Jerry Siegel, Bill Mauldin, and many others helped create something that would influence the war effort against the Axis. They were famous for contributing in the form of various cartoons or comics. But Walt Disney would contribute major films and animations that would be shown nationwide. “Winston Churchill arranged for Franklin Roosevelt to see the film at the Quebec Conference in 1943. Roosevelt’s subsequent order that Victory through Airpower be shown to the Joint Chiefs of Staff may have influenced air strategy” (Langer). Walt Disney was often asked to create films that would help the war effort. Before the United States joined the war, Disney was known to work with the Canadian government to make defense films. But it was not only films that

A great change came during WW1 and WW2. War images were not the only way war was portrayed, but motion pictures also came along. The motion pictures gave a whole new perspective on war to the American people. Thus, by seeing this influence, many powerful leaders saw an advantage. They saw, “the tremendous potential of movies for propaganda and

American media and propaganda had been mostly separate before WWII. In World War I (WWI), propaganda was spread very blatantly, using forms of media that Americans had come to expect propaganda from, like posters and radio. In fact, the government’s propaganda was so undisguised, it passed laws preventing anyone from speaking negatively about the war. However, entertainment was already taking advantage of the American spirit by making patriotic movies, cartoons, and comics. The government had close to no power over the entertainment industry before WWII. Nevertheless, the entertainment industry had power over the government, since they could partially control whether the public backed the war effort. The government made a