American Propaganda During World War II
Julia Cao
CHC20
June, 3 2001
Mrs. Bryans
American Propaganda During World War II
Propaganda: information and opinions (esp. prejudiced ones) spread to influence people in favour of or against some doctrine or idea. Americans used this in a variety of methods to provide a black and white view of different countries with half-truths or misleading information. Some of the most effective methods that they used to bring the message out were cartoons, movies, posters, and the type of colours.
One of the ways of showing how bad the Germans or the Japanese were was through cartoons. They would show this with a stamp engraved with either the swastika or the sun (symbol of the Japanese) coming out of the air and marking a country. Then, black and white ink would move out across the map to represent all the countries that these evil leaders had taken over. This was very important because it was factual and had a big impact about what was happening around world through some simple animations. Another one of the ways to show discrimination against the Japanese and the Germans was to purposefully draw them in a very unflattering or mocking way. For example, Japanese people had the small buckteeth, glasses, and insect-like features. They tended not be quite exactly human and they were more of a sub-species than anything else. Germans, on the other hand looked more like humans and the artists like to poke fun of them by making their noses and chins larger than usual. Germans usually had their noses and chins pointed towards the sky because they wanted to give the impression that Germans were very egoistic about themselves and their country. Hitler was an epic character and the animators made fun of him by having people throw tomatoes at him or else make him look insane by just rambling on and on in a language that nobody understands while making silly hand and body gestures.
