This is a preview of a paper to view the full text you need to signup and login.
|
The 1940's
|
|
|
John S. Moreland Mr. Vasey AP American History 26 October 2003 Popular Culture of the 1940’s The 1940’s were to become a decade of triumph, not only over the fascism that threatened the free world, but also over the horrible economic oppression that followed the First World War. America became united by conflict, and patriotism soared high. In many respects it would be incorrect to say that the true beginning of the 1940’s started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” as Franklin Roosevelt had solemnly put it. The war was a horrible waste of human life, but from death and destruction grew hope and prosperity. The Japanese had awakened a sleeping giant whose industry was in desperate need of a catalyst to drive the economy forward. World War II answered this call and affected everything from music, to literature, to fashion. War drives forward the advancement of mankind like no other event, and the radical popular culture of the forties reflects the turbulent times. The 1940’s were consumed by the war effort. Every man-hour of labor was devoted towards improving our armed forces; every speech was designed to instill pride in our country, and every newspaper preached Allied victories. In order to continue the devotion and passion started by Pearl Harbor, leaders of our country used the power of propaganda to enrage our country, give them the will to fight, and dedication to win. Using mass marketing, made possible by new forms of entertainment, our nation was able to win the propaganda war. The most valuable trait in any soldier is the will to fight. Not only to fight for love of family, home, and comrades, but also for love of country. Office of War Information director Elmer Davis once said, “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go in through the medium of an entertainment picture, when they do not realize they are being propagandized” (qtd. in Koppes and Black 64). America realized the value of morale and used the motion picture industry to infuse pro-war sentiment into our society regardless of whether it was accurate or unbiased. It wasn’t just the motion picture industry involved in spreading the story of American Victories and tales of heroism throughout the country. Actors and even the government joined the movement to promote the view of our armed forces as a morally justified, well oiled killing machine that was bent on pounding the Axis forces into the ground. In the 1940’s, the motion picture industry was made up of five major and three minor companies that had a monopoly on nearly all movie production. They even owned the theaters in which their films were played and controlled the actors that starred in them. These five studios were Warner Brothers, RKO, Paramount, MGM, and 20th Century Fox. This huge movie oligopoly would later be broken up by the Supreme Court for anti-trust activities, but at the time, they were the workforce that spread pro-American propaganda. In order to see that the movies being made in Hollywood complied with the image that the government wished to project, they established the Office of War Information (OWI) which contained the Bureau of Motion Pictures (BMP) under it in order to regulate the content of motion pictures (Uschan 59). The OWI had no real power over the film industry and had to rely on their voluntary obligation to help the war effort. The OWI issued a manual to the major studios which outlined what they believed was helpful, and what was not helpful to promoting the armed forces. “Will this picture help win the war?” and “If this is an ‘escape’ picture, will it harm the war effort by creating a false picture of America, her Allies, or the world we live in?” were just some of the suggestions made by the manual (qtd. in Koppes and Black 65). Along with the War Department who had more leverage because they provided studios with soldiers, technical advisers and access to military bases that brought down the price of making war films, the government was effectively able to project their image of the war.
|
|
|
To link to this page, copy the following code to your site:
|
|
Paper Information
|
|
|
Title: The 1940's
Words: 3349
Rating: None
Pages: 13.4
submitted by: GOOSE12
If you think this paper shouldn't be here then
|
|
|
|
|
Signup & Login
|
|
|
If you don't currently have a login then Signup here
|
|
|
|
|
Pre-Written Papers
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Custom Papers
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
