Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Report on the Propaganda of World War 2 by Cartoons

    Cartoon, the word comes from the italian word "pasteboard". I found about that in a book called Propaganda and Mass Persuasion by David Culbert. During the World War 2, the U.S government made business to the video cartoons industry to make propaganda videos. That was going to targeting towards the Japanese and the Germans. The methods were a bit extreme and there was major racism physical characteristics.
      Walt Disney made countless videos that was propaganda towards the Germans and the Japanese.
One of the famous propaganda videos is the De Fuhrer's Face staring Donald Duck  
It shows that Donald Duck is forced to work for the Germans making look as though they are evil and give no help to the workers. Out of Disney cartoons, Donald Duck is the with the most WW2 propaganda videos.

While watching the propaganda videos of WW2, one of the recommended choices was a video saying Hiroshima bombed. I watched it and quit halfway because it grossed me out.
Cartoons that was about ww2 was always not hatred towards the Japanese or Germans. A Japanese manga drawer by the name of Keiji Nakawaza. He was also a Hiroshima surviver, he was a first grader when the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima. The explosion killed his entire except his mom and her unborn child, but the child later died from radiation poisoning. He created a manga by the name of Black Rain, which was the first manga dealing with the atomic in 1968 he then made a comic called Barefoot Gen. One of the main reasons of making the manga was to show kids and the world in his perspective of the atomic bombing. He has won many awards from his work. Barefoot Gen turned into a tv drama and cartoon.
(WARNING if you can not stand gore or people dying slowly do Not watch this cartoon.)

Not only did they usually depict Nazis as wolves or vultures due to them being ravenous but also put a history lesson that we already knew into the cartoon. In this adaptation of the 3 Little Pigs, they put a appeasement policy in it but like in real life, Nazi Wolf does not keep his word and still invades. The message was likely also a joke towards Britain due to the Appeasement crisis.

Not only do they do messages about the "Japs" and the Germans, but they also  try to persuade people to pay loads of money to taxes. It also persuades that spending the money for a good time instead for the army, is what the nazis want you to do. (here is a cartoon about Donald Duck paying taxes)
The only difference in the anti Japanese cartoons and the Anti German cartoons is the physical appearance. If the Germans are human in the cartoon episode they look pretty normal. Japanese however are drawn as short statured, buck toothed slant eyes and extremely big glasses. In looney tunes Bugs bunny proves that Warner Bros. were more racist in the cartoon business than Disney.
(side note- there are a couple of foul mouth words in the cartoon about Japanese if you feel uncomfortable about it do not watch it.)

Disney then tried to convince people that in Germany, kids that were sick would be taken away to a "special place", and convince them that it is okay for a big creature to kill a little because it is weak and deserves to die. Also that they are the super race, and also they need to get rid of the weak countries because they do not deserve to be countries.

The cartoons were making messages that we are good while they are evil.