[Spliffdaddy]

This stuff freaks me out a little. These are war posters from an era not so long ago.

Today we work harder in order to buy Japanese cars. Driving alone is no longer equated with being a Nazi loyalist - it's far worse now. You're killing the planet or something.

I'm gonna get in my japanese car, drive alone up to Food Lion's meat counter and offer them my pan of grease drippings from my George Foreman grilling machine. Gonna tell 'em to make bombs with it. Look for me in state custody undergoing psychological evaluation.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
This stuff freaks me out a little. These are war posters from an era not so long ago.

Today we work harder in order to buy Japanese cars. Driving alone is no longer equated with being a Nazi loyalist - it's far worse now. You're killing the planet or something.

I'm gonna get in my japanese car, drive alone up to Food Lion's meat counter and offer them my pan of grease drippings from my George Foreman grilling machine. Gonna tell 'em to make bombs with it. Look for me in state custody undergoing psychological evaluation.

yeah, today you just accuse people of being Saddam-sympathizers and pinko commies for expressing (what now is turning out to be wise) suspicion about the Bush administration's motives.

Same thing, different decade. The only difference is that now people like you are the ones giving the rest of us creeps.
The fact that you get freaked out by these posters is the height of irony.

[Spliffdaddy]

That's the blackest looking 'Jap' I've ever seen.


Ever seen those old "Bull Durham" tobacco posters with negroes in stereotypical themes?

I think it was the same artist that did the 'Jap' poster above.

here's one:

[Spliffdaddy]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
yeah, today you just accuse people of being Saddam-sympathizers and pinko commies for expressing (what now is turning out to be wise) suspicion about the Bush administration's motives.

Same thing, different decade. The only difference is that now people like you are the ones giving the rest of us creeps.
The fact that you get freaked out by these posters is the height of irony.

Don't blame me for your disdain for Dubya.

Checks and balances, ya know.

8 years of Slick Willie - 8 years of Dubya.

You'll live through it. I did.


PS, are you trying to say America was wrong, in retrospect, to go to war with Japan? To participate in WW2? Hell, I AGREE with the sentiment expressed in those posters. They weren't divisive and villifying enough for the time when they were created. War isn't warm and fuzzy and full of love - it's about winning no matter what.

I doubt in a few decades that anybody is going to reflect back to the liberation of Iraq and suggest it was a bad thing. Well, perhaps you will still be harping about it.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
That's the blackest looking 'Jap' I've ever seen.

Who says a Jap can't be a brotha'

He's keepin' it real in TKO man!

[Spheric Harlot]

Have you seen the Disney and Warner Bros. propaganda cartoons from WWII?

"Der Führer's Face" and "Education for Death - the Making of the Nazi" are two wonderful Disney classics that they'd rather not be reminded of.

And then there's "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" and a couple of others that are supremely racist.

:: shudders ::

-s*

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Have you seen the Disney and Warner Bros. propaganda cartoons from WWII?

"Der Führer's Face" and "Education for Death - the Making of the Nazi" are two wonderful Disney classics that they'd rather not be reminded of.

And then there's "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" and a couple of others that are supremely racist.

:: shudders ::

-s*

I was just thinking the same thing... they were really creapy. Almost unbelievable.

[Spheric Harlot]

and really, really well done. Especially "Education for Death".

(Though the regular cartoons with Bugs or Donald are just really, really cheap racist potshots. )

-s*

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

http://www.authentichistory.com/imag...w2toons01.html


A collection of US WWII cartoons (In WMP format).

"Scrap Happy Daffy" has one of the funniest caricatures of Hitler ever, Mel Blanc even infuses Chihuahua dog barks into his dialouge.

My absolute fave: "The Ducktators". The portrayal of Hitler and Mussolini are classics. I had the good fortune to actually work with the Director, Norm McCabe back in the 90's, and of course he always got asked about the 'racist' content in the wartime films he made. (Check out "Tokyo Jokio" if you're really overly P.C. sensitive!) His response was exactly what I'd have expected- at the time, there was no political correctness such as we have now- and of course there was absolutely none in the places being made fun of (IE: Germany, Italy, Japan).

Making fun of people was a no-holds barred affair, it didn't matter if the subject was white, black, Asian, whatever. The war films weren't actually intended to be truly 'racist' they were intended to poke fun at people who many Americans were (quite rightly) mad at for turning the entire world of the time on its ass, starting vicious imperialist wars (in the FOR-REAL sense, not the 'lets pretend' sense people yap about now) attacking us and killing a lot of Americans who just might have had better things to do with their lives than toss them away fighting Asian and European wars. There just might be a level of resentment there that's hard for current generations to fathom.


If you can watch "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" without busting up at least once, you're sense of humor has to be greatly impaired. Of course it's overtly ‘racist’ by today's standards, but let's face it, Bug's Bunny's enemies were always bumbling dimwits. If it makes people feel any better, the bulk of the bunny's career was spent outwitting a pudgy dimwitted white guy, not exactly any argument for white supremacy.

Besides, US propaganda of WWII absolutely PALES in comparison to that of the Axis. It's the height of bizarre irony that it would be the US that's called out for using racist images during WWII.

Nazi cartoons and propaganda posters of the era are chock-full of swarms of balloon-lipped US African American GIs and foreign Jew ‘bankers’ and ‘businessmen’ with big hooked noses- warning that these 'hordes' were coming over to violate the sanctity of 'pure Aryan' German women, etc. etc. The Japanese never had a care in the world about considering the Chinese and others as sub-human, and their actions in Asia at the time speak pretty loudly to that fact.

US propaganda ain't got nothin' on that of the folks that were the absolute masters of it.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
[url]Nazi cartoons and propaganda posters of the era are chock-full of swarms of balloon-lipped US African American GIs and foreign Jew ‘bankers’ and ‘businessmen’ with big hooked noses- warning that these 'hordes' were coming over to violate the sanctity of 'pure Aryan' German women, etc. etc. The Japanese never had a care in the world about considering the Chinese and others as sub-human, and their actions in Asia at the time speak pretty loudly to that fact.

US propaganda ain't got nothin' on that of the folks that were the absolute masters of it.

Goebbels studied advertising in the US before became propaganda minister.

I'm not making some claim that the US is the source of all evil, I'm just pointing out the the techniques of manipulation and persuasion are the same. The only thing that changes is the product.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Goebbels studied advertising in the US before became propaganda minister.

I'm not making some claim that the US is the source of all evil, I'm just pointing out the the techniques of manipulation and persuasion are the same. The only thing that changes is the product.

Just to underline that: This is in NO WAY implying that the Nazis didn't produce absolutely atrocious propaganda (watch snippets of "Jud Süß" for some of the most horrific stuff).

It's just really interesting that Warner and Disney, and many others, produced material that they would much rather not see mentioned today.

I didn't know that about Goebbels.

-s*

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
http://www.authentichistory.com/imag...w2toons01.html

US propaganda ain't got nothin' on that of the folks that were the absolute masters of it.

Agreed.

And thank you for that link; great site!

-s*

[davesimondotcom]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Agreed.

And thank you for that link; great site!

-s*

I couldn't get sound.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by davesimondotcom:
I couldn't get sound.

Use MPlayer (get it from www.macupdate.com or www.versiontracker.com )

-s*

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Goebbels studied advertising in the US before became propaganda minister.

Um, I think not. If so, sources please? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but such a fact would be counter to any bio I've ever read of Goebbels.

I think perhaps you're misinterpreting that Goebbels studied the work of PR giant Edward L. Bernays, but that's hardly to say he was in any way educated IN the US, nor that the US in any way is responsible for the propaganda creations or actions of such a monster.

I'm not making some claim that the US is the source of all evil, I'm just pointing out the the techniques of manipulation and persuasion are the same. The only thing that changes is the product.

Of course, human communication and the working of our minds is the same. Therefore, there are only so many effective ways of reaching people, and those techniques of course have good and bad uses.

In any realistic context, it's a huge stretch to say that because Goebbels used the same human forms of human communication that others did, that each are morally equivalent. Such would be ludicrous. The 'changes' in the content of the ‘product’ is not some minor point. It's the 'product' and the content of such that makes all the difference.
.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
Um, I think not. If so, sources please? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but such a fact would be counter to any bio I've ever read of Goebbels.

I think perhaps you're misinterpreting that Goebbels studied the work of PR giant Edward L. Bernays, but that's hardly to say he was in any way educated IN the US, nor that the US in any way is responsible for the propaganda creations or actions of such a monster.

Thanks for the correction, I didn't mean to say he was in the US, but that he studied US advertising techniques. I'm a very sloppy typist

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
Of course, human communication and the working of our minds is the same. Therefore, there are only so many effective ways of reaching people, and those techniques of course have good and bad uses.

In any realistic context, it's a huge stretch to say that because Goebbels used the same human forms of communication that others did, that each are morally equivalent, is ludicrous. The 'changes' in the content of the ‘product’ is not some minor point. It's the 'product' and the content of such that makes all the difference.
.

I wasn't trying to make a moral equivalency comment at all. Not in any shape or form.

I just happen to be fascinated that the same tools, tricks, techniques that sell soap can be used to sell racism, nationalism or anything else. I think people should be much more aware and wary of those means of manipulation.

I'd like to see people more capable of recognizing and resisting that kind of brainwashing.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:

I wasn't trying to make a moral equivalency comment at all. Not in any shape or form.

Sorry, I should have stated that I knew you weren't making a moral equivalency statement yourself, just stating myself that one shouldn't be drawn. Chalk it up to my own sloppy typing!

I just happen to be fascinated that the same tools, tricks, techniques that sell soap can be used to sell racism, nationalism or anything else. I think people should be much more aware and wary of those means of manipulation.

I'd like to see people more capable of recognizing and resisting that kind of brainwashing.

Same here, agree with all of the above.

[zigzag]

Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
Making fun of people was a no-holds barred affair, it didn't matter if the subject was white, black, Asian, whatever. The war films weren't actually intended to be truly 'racist' they were intended to poke fun at people who many Americans were (quite rightly) mad at for turning the entire world of the time on its ass, starting vicious imperialist wars (in the FOR-REAL sense, not the 'lets pretend' sense people yap about now) attacking us and killing a lot of Americans who just might have had better things to do with their lives than toss them away fighting Asian and European wars. There just might be a level of resentment there that's hard for current generations to fathom.

Back in the early 80's there were ceremonies of some sort planned in connection with the Japanese community and WWII, and some controversy about the fact that some American vets didn't want to participate. I remember some younger acquaintances of mine saying how awful these old vets were for their negative feelings. I reminded them that these guys were enlisted, sometimes as mere teenagers, to go halfway across the world and give their very lives to combat one of the most relentlessly militaristic cultures ever seen, and that their brothers and sisters and friends died in the effort. I didn't blame the kids - they were idealistic young people who didn't know any better - but they had no idea what a different world it had been for those vets. That those vets were still bitter was unfortunate, but one has to consider what they had been through.

The irony, of course, is that some of those same vets wouldn't serve with a black soldier, and made them sit at the back of the bus again after they had risked their own lives in the same fight. It's a funny world.

That's a fascinating site, Crash, thanks for the link.

[zigzag]

Also, I'm reminded that the last time I saw The White Stripes, they opened with a bunch of Betty Boop cartoons containing a lot of the same sorts of images - funny, quaint, and unsettling all at once.

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

I forgot to mention another thing I once heard from McCabe, and the record proves him right.

The propaganda cartoons at the time of release weren't very popular at all.

McCabe said it's ironic how many people remember him for "The Ducktators" and "Tokio Jokio" and such, at the time they were released he couldn't get arrested for having made them. Audiences universally hated the films- people would groan and go to the refreshment stand while the cartoons played.

Basically Disney came out with "Der Führer's Face" in '42 and it was immensely popular, then everyone jumped on the bandwagon and tried to repeat its success.

The whole trend petered out in 1943 after the dismal reception of most of the films. Notice there are none made in '44 or '45. Unlike other shorts, the war films were very seldom repeated in subsequent years at the box office either.

Most audiences wanted escapist entertaiment, not to see Bugs Bunny make light of a very serious situation. People didn't actually like the idea of picturing the forces that were sending their loved ones home in body bags as mindless clowns.