March 08, 2008

Hollywood: the Propaganda Machine of US in WWII

One of the most important weapons that all major countries involved in Second World War used was propaganda, and perhaps the most suitable medium for it was cinema, mainly due to its visual appeal. Not long after Pearl Harbor Roosevelt’s government established the Office of War Information, which was acted as a liaison between Hollywood and government in homogenizing the act of propaganda. Cinema of the World War II in the United States operated certainly on much higher level than simple escapist solution. It touched a subconscious level of an audience, which were in thirst of information about a war that mostly took place away from the homeland.

According to Richard Taylor: “propaganda is the attempt to influence the public opinions of an audience through the transmission of ideas and values.” By using the word attempt Taylor suggests that nature of propaganda in which there should be a purpose. What separates propaganda from other political and social activities is that it pursues a purpose, and a political direction. A propagandist should precisely know the values s/he tends to transmit, and her/his audience’s existing opinions, values, tastes, and needs, in order to establish a connection with her/his audience. For this very reason Taylor dismisses the possibility of the unintentional or accidental propaganda. Regardless of how an artwork might be influential, it only serves as propaganda if it pursues a purpose, or if it is put, by the propagandist, in a context that serves the purpose.

In such a context in which the purpose of the propaganda serves as its core element, it is also important that, the purpose would be kept concealed from the audience. It was Goebbels who once stated: “ Propaganda becomes ineffective the moment we are aware of it.” It is required and absolutely essential for propaganda, in order to be effective, to conceal its origin or sources, the interests involved, the methods employed, the content spread and the results accruing to the victims.

Considering some of the qualities of propaganda described above, it is relevant to reflect on the reasons why cinema above all other mediums, was the main apparatus of propaganda during the Second World War. At that time, cinema was perhaps the most popular mass medium. While the press, only appealed to a certain group of the society, cinema, on the other hand, drew its audience from all different social classes and groups. It gathered them all under one roof and allowed them to share reactions to a particular picture, or in other words, cinema allowed different classes to influence each other’s viewings of a picture. Cinema was less demanding, and easier to comprehend, but above all it was the power of the visuals that made the cinema the most attractive. According to Tylor, the visual appeal operated on the emotions rather than intellects, and it touched us at a more primitive, subconscious level. From the perspective of the propagandist, cinema, provided control over content more than any other medium, and at the same time provided much more diverse variety of possibilities. What was being captured, the position of the camera and how it depicted its subject, the relation between images that was provided by editing, the added value of the voice over narrations and etc., all assisted propagandist in developing her/his desired affect.

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Quoting Clayton Koppes: “When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the United States was the only major power without a propaganda agency.” But even though there was no precise institution in charge of propaganda before Pearl Harbor, the Motion Picture Committee Cooperating for National Defense existed, which was responsible for the distribution and exhibition of national defense films, produced by governmental bureaus. These films included the recruitment films seeking volunteers to serves the military forces and workers for defense oriented industry.

Roosevelt’s first attempt towards establishing a propaganda agency was when he ordered the creation of the Office of Government Reports (OGR) in the late 1939. The president assigned Lowell Mellett, the former editor of the Washington Daily News, as the head of OGR. The agency was mainly responsible for putting the information in a context that serves in boosting the public’s confidence in the military power. OGR was in charge of assuring an atmosphere that would be supportive of the president’s international policies. Citing Koppes: “ the office assumed that if such information were readily available, the private media could be counted on to use it –– a strategy that worked well.”

From that point till the June of 1942, which marked the establishment of the Office of War Information, several information agencies were founded. These institutions, which in some cases had parallel responsibilities and interests, were mainly engaged in production, exhibition, distribution of propaganda material, or the treatment and censorship of the information. Among these institutes was the Office of Coordinator of Information (COI). Made of much stricter personnel, COI was created by executive order in July 1941. COI was mainly committed in producing psychological warfare and confrontational propaganda. This type of propaganda required covert actions such as black propaganda, or what we now call disinformation, skillful use of rumor, deceptions and lies to generate confusion and defeatism among the enemy. And we have to remember this is four month before the Pearl Harbor incident.

With the establishment of such organizations and reactions in Hollywood similar to that of Twentieth Century-Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck , which frequently spoke in the favor of America’s Entering the war, the isolationists’ frustration was resulted. They accused Hollywood of initiation of a devious campaign to inject its entertainment pictures with propaganda and eventually draw America into a war. However it is also worth mentioning that in three years between Munich and Pearl Harbor, out of one thousand films produced by Hollywood, only fifty had anti-Nazi theme. The majority of the films were non-controversial pure escapists.

In the June of 1942 the Office of War Information (OWI) was established by the government, as a single central liaison between Hollywood and Washington, mainly under the influence of Mellett. OWI budgeted and produced different variety of films. It reviewed and made “suggestions” to the producers. It impose a control over the import and export of the movies, and it provided the armed forces with films, varied from pure escapists to serious educational training films.

On the top of OWI, pentagon imposed its own restriction and censorship. Almost any film that involved the armed forces, Navy or the Army Air Corps in a major way had to go to pentagon, to seek the military’s approval. Each film was checked for the accuracy of the uniforms, insignias and traditions. But obviously it was much more than that, as all the scripts were read before the official approval was given. They made sure that the picture was not harmful to the military’s interest. In return the military provided the film crew with the professional and equipped personnel to assist them in the staging of the battle and camp scenes. The pictures were absolutely dependent to this crew, and the savings in the production cost could have been enormous.

By the summer 1942, when America was already in the war, OWI articulated a guideline for Hollywood called: “Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry.” In this manual OWI highlighted five major aims, which motion pictures needed to take into consideration. Understanding and probing these five element will helps us identify OWI’s main intention and also its comprehension of the American public. It will tell us a lot about what American audience expect from the motion pictures and at the same time what the government wanted to transmit to the public.

1.Why We Fight: In order to justify American presence in war, and also accentuate the patriotic emotions in the public, government and consequentially OWI, were keen on one word more than any other: “democracy.” The flexible term was used as a precious value common between the Allies and perhaps what they fought for. The war was put in a context where it would appear as protection of the American democracy.

Besides the notion of democracy, other values were as well meant to be highlighted. The government wanted to advertise the war as “a people’s war.” Therefore it was keen on depicting and emphasizing the American way of life and “democracy at work.” The pictures showed everybody contributing according to her/his ability regardless of her/his class, ethnicity, or religious identity. It was advised by the OWI to avoid absolutely any stereotypical depictions.

The Pearl Harbor incident, as what initiated the American involvement in the war, was over emphasized. In fact the Japanese were victims of United States propaganda, much more than Germans.

2. Enemy: while American and the Allies resembled the essence of righteousness, the enemy stood for all evil. There were two major issues regarding establishing a general standard of enemy depiction. First who was enemy? Officially Roosevelt administration considered the Axis governments and not their people as the enemy. But motion pictures needed a less abstract, and more visual examples and guidelines for depiction. The second issue was to define fascism. They knew that the enemy was not the entire Germans, Japanese or Italian people, but rather the ideology that seeded the evil doctrine of hatred. But the bureau was still unclear about what fascism was, and who was a fascist, and it sent vague messages to the motion pictures.

However after studying several films of the wartime, Joe Morella draws a general conclusion about the stereotypical portrayals of the enemy in the motion pictures. Germans were regularly portrayed as cultured swine; they could be brutal but were intellectual about it. Japanese were shown as fanatical savages, devious, filthy fighters. In the early war some Hollywood pictures made reference to the Japanese as the “yellow cowards” and “yellow rats” but not very long after the producers were reminded that Chinese, the American’s allies, were also yellow, and might not like racial slurs. As mentioned earlier Japanese were given a much more cruel and brutal image in the films mainly because they were depicted as the ones responsible for United States involvement in the war.

But why was it so important to have a guideline for the way enemy was shown in the motion pictures? Due to the fact that war, at least in most parts, occurred away from the American homeland. The American public showed an interest in knowing and recognizing their enemy. At the same time the troops had to have a knowledge about who they are fighting against, and what ideology it is that in order to resist it they should risk their lives. Having said the sophistication of enemy’s description, such guideline was perhaps considered necessary.
3. The United Nations: Thirty nations were allied against the Axis. The manual homogenized them as anti-fascist democratic societies. The notion of democracy as the bounding value between the allies was over emphasized, even though the communist USSR was among the thirty nations. The manual’s strategy towards this issue was: “Yes, we American reject communism, but we do not reject our Russian ally.” said the manual.

As much as the American public wanted to know their enemy, they showed interest in learning about their allies in the war. The also found it extremely important strategically and also in terms of the increase of the morale, to educate the armed forces about the allies. Perhaps it was for this very reason that Frank Capra, decided to devote three out of seven episodes of his non-commercial government-sponsored propaganda, Why We Fight (1943-45), introducing Britain, China and Russia.

4. The Home Front: Americans certainly didn’t feel the pressure of war as much as some other allies. a notion, which was suggested by the manual to be highlighted, was civilians’ responsibilities during the war. It advised the motion pictures in showing everybody living their normal life while cheerfully their bit for the war. Also any kind f imagery or use of elements that suggested unity and triggered common emotions was encouraged.
5. Fighting Forces: Studios were encouraged to consider battle scene, more than just melodramatic segments of the narrative, rather a good reference for how the armed forces are engaged in the war. OWI urged the filmmakers to stress out all components of the armed forces. By this, Firstly, the public would have gained a reassurance of the strength of their country’s army. Secondly this kind of imagery will prepare them for casualties. And thirdly, to develop more dislike towards the enemy.

These five major factors were taken into consideration by most pictures, and were applied to all propaganda films, accordingly in their variety of genres. This included war documentaries, newsreels, training films, recruitment films, Narrative with war related subjects. The training films were made in order to educate both armed forces and the industry. These films were effective to an extent that General Eisenhower during the war made the statement that “training films had cut the actual training period to an extent that our army was better equipped to fight far sooner than they would have been without what was done by the film industry.” Out of all the newsreels seemed the most untouched and factual of all. However they were highly censored. Over fifty percent of the footage taken by Paramount was deleted and only impounded in government vaults.

As it is illustrated above, government of the United States used all his power, to impose its control over the cinema during the war years. Because of its, visual appeal, accessibility, and ease in its comprehension, cinema was truly the perfect mass medium of the propaganda, during the Second World War period. Even though it took almost a year of confusion in the information sector for the OWI to be established, but it certainly did acquired a respectable amount of authority over what was being produced in Hollywood, over a short period of time. The release of the manual and guideline for production was another step towards systemizing and homogenizing the war propaganda products.

Even though such restrictions were imposed, and the government started charging 20% admission tax, there was an incredible increase in the number of the moviegoers. In 1944 almost 100 million Americans (two third of the population) attended movies each week. With regard to what was illustrated before, we can conclude that the cinema during the war, was much more than an escapist solution. Considering the fact that most of the war happened away from the homeland, we can argue that the American public was much more in need of information, rather than escapism. The high attendence then perhaps was to watch the war news, and acquire information about the enemy and the allies, and of course noting the guidelines, most film were produced in a way to execute the job of boosting of the moral.

References:
Brady, Thomas. “Newsreels and The War.” The New York Times. Jan 12, 1941.
Ellis, Jack C. “ Why We Fight.” International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers. Vol.1, pages 976-979.
Farber, Manny. “With Camera and Gun.” The New Republic. Mar 23, 1942. Vol. 106, page399.
Koppes, Clayton R., Gregory D. Black. Hollywood Goes to War. The Free Press, New York, 1987.
Manvell, Roger. Film and the Second World War. J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, Great Britain, 1974.
Morella, Joe., Edward Z.Epstein, John Griggs. The Films of World War II. The Citadel Press. Secaucus, New Jersey, 1973.
Taylor, Richard. “ Propaganda and Film.” Film Propaganda. Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1979. Pages 19-33.
Thompson, Kristin., David Bordwell. “Wartime Documentaries.” Film History: An Introduction. Ed. 2nd. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1994. Pages 313-317.

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