We've also seen some pretty serious racism:
I realize the racism comic is not by Superman or Batman, but I found it just too shocking to pass up. But my point is, the main two types of comics books regarding the war were acts of violence against the "enemy" or displaying the "enemy" in some sort of villainous, horrible caricature. However, there was a third type of comic used that did not incite fear or direct hatred, but one of duty. These are, of course, the "War Savings Bonds and Stamps" comic type. Yes, certainly, many cartoonists used these racist images to encourage buying of war savings bonds and stamps, but other techniques included an approach that filled one with a sense of pride. However, why would children be buying war savings bonds and stamps? Well, they weren't. The whole reason these war loans and war savings bonds and stamps made it to comic book covers was to encourage children to get their parents to buy these bonds and stamps to to help fund the loans. It was an ingenious way to instill this sense of pride and duty to children and families. There is no better ploy than to tell naive children that in order for these superheroes to pull through and to win this war against the "monsters", that they need to fund these loans and savings bonds somehow. And of course, adults reading these comic books were also filled with the sense of urgency of how to finish the war quickly. Comic books have always been a so
rt of news median, mixing reality with the fantastic world of comic book heroes. Seeing Batman giving a soldier a new gun and saying how he can pretty much now win the war and go home, all thanks to people back in the States funding a war loan gives the reader a glimpse of how the money was being used and how they can affect the outcome. Here are a series of the odd comic book covers that were used to encourage children and adults to participate by buying and investing.
So really, some of these comics are just silly.
In conclusion, comic books were used as a huge source of propaganda during WWII, usually to incite rage, fear, or general dislike of the "enemy". In the examples I have provided, the US focused more so on portraying the Japanese as some sort of monster. Of course the Nazis were too, but it is through my own speculation that it was because many US citizens were of German ancestry and also because this was a time when Japan and other countries in Asia were so unknown, it was easy to make them into creatures or horrible caricatures. It is rather clear that propaganda's existence during WWII went beyond the tyical median, such as newspapers, movies, radio shows, flyers and songs. It even went beyond politcal cartoons and went directly into tapping a market thought to be untouched by war-children. They used tactics that made children think a certain way, believe certain things and instill truths some may still even believe today. A plethora could be written about this topic, and there are stacks upon stacks of comics from this era that remain hidden from today. Indeed, these comics did their purpose, to incite the beliefs of "pride" and "honor" and "duty", and they did so in a very clever fashion. It begs the question, will comic books be ever used again as a propaganda tool in the US?
Perhaps....
..."America’s future has become an Orwellian nightmare of ultra-liberalism. Beginning with the Gore Presidency, the government has become increasingly dominated by liberal extremists.
In 2004, Muslim terrorists stopped viewing the weakened American government as a threat; instead they set their sights on their true enemies, vocal American conservatives. On one dark day, in 2006, many conservative voices were forever silenced by terrorist assassins. Those which survived joined forces and formed a powerful covert conservative organization called “The Freedom of Information League”, aka F.O.I.L. It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11 It is up to an underground group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City."
...
...
...
...
...oh my god...
No comments:
Post a Comment