Friday, October 19, 2007

I'D BET THEY'RE ASLEEP IN NEW YORK. I'D BET THEY'RE ASLEEP ALL OVER AMERICA: As Ken Burns recently demonstrated, World War II was a total war: a conflict in which all of America's resources were mobilized for victory. Those resources necessarily included the nation's popular culture and mass media. While most pop-culture producers willingly supported the Allied cause, the federal government took no chances, creating a new propaganda arm, the Office of War Information (OWI), in June 1942. The OWI produced everything from posters to training cartoons, all urging citizens and soldiers alike to do their part in defeating the Axis powers.

The OWI's most influential efforts were directed towards the movies, through its Bureau of Motion Pictures (BMP), which enlisted filmmakers in two distinct propaganda campaigns. First, the BMP recruited directors, screenwriters, composers, and other talent to create patriotic documentary films, the most famous of which are the Why We Fight series, directed by Frank Capra. By 1942, Capra had already become a cinematic adjective, as his romantic comedies and political fables mined a deep vein of sentimental populism in American audiences. Even in the depths of the Depression, the Capraesque hero remained a proud American; indeed, this sequence from 1939's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (just after Jefferson Smith's arrival in the capital) looks indistinguishable from a wartime propaganda film. Working for the OWI, Capra brought the same optimistic patriotism and cinematic manipulation to Why We Fight. Originally shown to American troops and later re-edited for general release, the films combined summaries of recent military events with inspirational declarations of the ideals for which the "free world" was fighting.

The BMP also put pressure on Hollywood studios to produce features that would assist the war effort. The June 1942 Manual for the Motion Picture Industry outlined general principles for producers and directors to keep in mind as they planned future projects and urged filmmakers to consider how their pictures might help win the war. Within a few months, BMP officials were also encouraging studios to submit their scripts for review before shooting even started, the better to advise filmmakers about potentially touchy subjects or objectionable scenes; by late 1942, the OWI was threatening revoke export licenses (essential for the vital overseas market) for any studio that failed to seek BMP script approval. By and large, the studios complied with the BMP's script review. In some cases, like 1943's Bataan, Hollywood features might as well have been armed-forces recruiting films; in other instances, like 1942's Casablanca, the propaganda was more subtle but no less powerful, as noted approvingly in the BMP's review.

Today, of course, we're in the midst of another war, albeit one with a very different relationship to pop culture. On the one hand, we do seem to be witnessing a boomlet in films about Iraq and Afghanistan; on the other hand, those movies tend to be more critical of the war's military management, political justification, and human cost. Will such films ultimately be more lasting than the patriotic features of WWII? Or will today's Iraq War movies quickly feel dated? We've talked before about September 11 in American popular culture; do you think the war in Iraq will inspire any memorable pop-culture moments? (Remember, kids, let's play nice and try to keep politics out of the discussion....)

Next week: the dawn of television, movies of the '50s, and comic books.

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