So, I was linking today to that Remapping Debate gadget about tax rates since World War II, and I started out by typing "since the war." I went back and made it "since WW II," because it occurs to me that "since the war" is not only dated (which it has been, more or less, since I was a kid), but that it's now so dated that I'm not sure many readers would know which default war I was referring to. I figured it's a slowish Friday semi-holiday, so I'd ask: if I had said "since the war," would y'all know what I meant? What about if I refer to "postwar" presidents presidents or elections? Do you know which war we're "post" of?
(If you feel moved to respond, it might help if you included your age, or at least some generational marker).
Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts
Friday, April 22, 2011
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Sunday Question for Everyone
Nagasaki. I'm pretty aware of the arguments on all sides about the choice to use the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, and don't want to rehash those here, but: is there any legitimate justification for the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945? Or, to put it in a more straightforward way: regardless of the justifications for other civilian-targeted and civilian-indifferent bombing in WWII, shouldn't we think Harry Truman a war criminal for bombing Nagasaki?
Monday, July 12, 2010
Monday Movies Post
I'll go ahead and join everyone in linking to this, but when it comes to World War II, there's more than enough terrific stuff to watch, of course. I just watched a bunch of Warner Brothers war cartoons -- they're helpfully collected in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 6, Disc 2. Well, that is, most of the cartoons on that disc are WWII-related; I guess they ran out, because there are three postwar Lessons in Capitalism cartoons included at the end of the disc (although then there are three war-related bonus cartoons...I'm not asking for the logic in it). Nor are these the very best WWII Warner Brothers cartoons -- hey, this is Volume 6 we're on, here.
Nevertheless, what these are useful for is getting a feel for what life was like during the war -- what the vocabulary was, what struck them at the time about life at home, what were the stereotypes to play with about being a soldier, and of course the stereotypes of the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese, and their leaders. Well, actually just the Germans and the Japanese; the Italian people really are a no-show, for whatever reason -- which of course, is interesting in itself.
The thing that struck me on watching these was that Hitler is mostly played not so much as an evil madman, but as a bullying buffoon. To me, that's always been the Mussolini role (and when he shows up, he always plays that role). There is a bit of Hitler-as-madman, but relatively little, I thought, either on the examples on V6,d3 or, from what I remember, of the other WWII-era Looney Tunes. He mostly goes into madman mode when he's speaking at rallies, but, for example in "Russian Rhapsody" (1944), in which he falls victim to the same gremlins, now from the Kremlin, who tortured Bugs Bunny in "Falling Hare" the previous year.
The German people are generally both mindless yahoos but also terrorized, clearly afraid to be punished for not Sieg Heiling quickly or enthusiastically enough. They are, of course, easily outwitted by Bugs or Daffy or whoever is playing the Americans; of course, this is the typical Bugs Bunny pose, that Americans are not necessarily stronger but are always craftier than the enemy. About the ugly Japanese stereotypes...well, everyone should be sure to see this stuff once.
By the way, it's not on this disk, but I'm a big fan of watching the Warner Brothers' "Point Rationing of Foods" (1943) a short cartoon made for the government to explain the rationing system. Not only does it help give you a sense of just how thoroughly the war pervaded everyday life, but there's all sorts of stuff that gives you a sense of what food was like in that era, anyway. It's an extra on Volume 3, Disk 3, of the Golden Collection. I'm less of a fan of the "Private Snafu" series of short features about the title character, done for the military. They're neither very funny, in my view, or especially helpful in understanding very much about the war, especially after you've seen any one of them -- although I've only seen, if I recall correctly, about six of the 24 produced, so perhaps others are better. Basically, what I got out of them was that people in the 1940s were amazingly entertained by stuff that seems extremely mildly risque to us, or at least either the Warner Brothers cartoonists or the military or both thought that they would be amazingly entertained by it.
Oh, the other interesting thing about the set of cartoons on Volume 6, Disk 3 is that it includes two anti-war efforts: "Bosko the Doughboy" (1931), and "The Fighting 69 1/2th" (1941). The first is a fairly standard interwar anti-war effort. The latter is mainly interesting because of its late date. It features two ant armies pointlessly fighting over a picnic, complete with WWI-type trench warfare, and no good guys to root for; this is a world where war is all pointless squabbles between people who should just grow up and learn to share, a lesson that was very much Off Message soon after -- in fact, I'm surprised that FDR-supporting Warner Brothers would have released this as late as 1941.
In case you're wondering, all Warner Brothers cartoons get my highest recommendation. Well, OK, I mostly could do without Bosko and the other early ones, but even those have their charms.
Nevertheless, what these are useful for is getting a feel for what life was like during the war -- what the vocabulary was, what struck them at the time about life at home, what were the stereotypes to play with about being a soldier, and of course the stereotypes of the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese, and their leaders. Well, actually just the Germans and the Japanese; the Italian people really are a no-show, for whatever reason -- which of course, is interesting in itself.
The thing that struck me on watching these was that Hitler is mostly played not so much as an evil madman, but as a bullying buffoon. To me, that's always been the Mussolini role (and when he shows up, he always plays that role). There is a bit of Hitler-as-madman, but relatively little, I thought, either on the examples on V6,d3 or, from what I remember, of the other WWII-era Looney Tunes. He mostly goes into madman mode when he's speaking at rallies, but, for example in "Russian Rhapsody" (1944), in which he falls victim to the same gremlins, now from the Kremlin, who tortured Bugs Bunny in "Falling Hare" the previous year.
The German people are generally both mindless yahoos but also terrorized, clearly afraid to be punished for not Sieg Heiling quickly or enthusiastically enough. They are, of course, easily outwitted by Bugs or Daffy or whoever is playing the Americans; of course, this is the typical Bugs Bunny pose, that Americans are not necessarily stronger but are always craftier than the enemy. About the ugly Japanese stereotypes...well, everyone should be sure to see this stuff once.
By the way, it's not on this disk, but I'm a big fan of watching the Warner Brothers' "Point Rationing of Foods" (1943) a short cartoon made for the government to explain the rationing system. Not only does it help give you a sense of just how thoroughly the war pervaded everyday life, but there's all sorts of stuff that gives you a sense of what food was like in that era, anyway. It's an extra on Volume 3, Disk 3, of the Golden Collection. I'm less of a fan of the "Private Snafu" series of short features about the title character, done for the military. They're neither very funny, in my view, or especially helpful in understanding very much about the war, especially after you've seen any one of them -- although I've only seen, if I recall correctly, about six of the 24 produced, so perhaps others are better. Basically, what I got out of them was that people in the 1940s were amazingly entertained by stuff that seems extremely mildly risque to us, or at least either the Warner Brothers cartoonists or the military or both thought that they would be amazingly entertained by it.
Oh, the other interesting thing about the set of cartoons on Volume 6, Disk 3 is that it includes two anti-war efforts: "Bosko the Doughboy" (1931), and "The Fighting 69 1/2th" (1941). The first is a fairly standard interwar anti-war effort. The latter is mainly interesting because of its late date. It features two ant armies pointlessly fighting over a picnic, complete with WWI-type trench warfare, and no good guys to root for; this is a world where war is all pointless squabbles between people who should just grow up and learn to share, a lesson that was very much Off Message soon after -- in fact, I'm surprised that FDR-supporting Warner Brothers would have released this as late as 1941.
In case you're wondering, all Warner Brothers cartoons get my highest recommendation. Well, OK, I mostly could do without Bosko and the other early ones, but even those have their charms.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday Movies Post
OK, since last week I've had the chance to watch the remaining segments of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series, so here's part two of my comments.
On the movies themselves...first of all, they're really good. Very watchable, and with a great job of avoiding heavy-handed propaganda (again, it certainly does help to have the Nazis as enemies). Oh, it's clearly propaganda, but with a light touch. Second, and again I don't know much about them other than what I saw, there's a fascinating mix of real documentary-style footage and reenactments. None of the latter (except for some cheesy History of the Great Chinese and Russian Peoples) is identified as such, but some of it clearly shows things that no camera would have been there to record. Because it's not labeled, though, it's easy to imagine it's all equally real, and there is quite a bit of the real stuff (keeping in mind, of course, that what's "real" is also subject to all sorts of manipulations. Again, I have no bright things to say about it, only to report that it was on my mind as I watched.
I talked a bit last week about how the Russians were treated, and of course they were portrayed as heroically defending their nation once the actual invasion started. As I said, there was a fair amount of very cheesy Russian history, which I thought was (along with the history of China) the only real mistake of the seven movies. On China, there was if anything less of the Good China stuff than I expected to find. Oh, the Chinese (like the Russians, and the Brits, etc.) were peach-loving people who would never dream of starting a war or fighting one until it was really necessary, but that's mostly all, just generic Good Guys stuff.
The seventh movie tackles America's entry into the war, basically from 1918 up to Pearl Harbor. There are a lot of ways you could play that history...you could have a story line of America foolishly retreating from the world, only to be attacked at Pearl Harbor anyway. You could argue that America was wise to retreat in the 1920s, and was necessarily distracted in the 1930s, but then rushed to arm itself as war approached. I can imagine other possibilities...the way that War Comes to America tells it is that Americans engaged in a protracted democratic discussion about the war, only reluctantly concluding that the US should prepare. There's an emphasis on public opinion polling, with the narrative arguing that Americans moved from isolationism to engagement as the news continued to confirm just how evil the Axis powers were.
I enjoyed the entire set, and highly recommend it.
On the movies themselves...first of all, they're really good. Very watchable, and with a great job of avoiding heavy-handed propaganda (again, it certainly does help to have the Nazis as enemies). Oh, it's clearly propaganda, but with a light touch. Second, and again I don't know much about them other than what I saw, there's a fascinating mix of real documentary-style footage and reenactments. None of the latter (except for some cheesy History of the Great Chinese and Russian Peoples) is identified as such, but some of it clearly shows things that no camera would have been there to record. Because it's not labeled, though, it's easy to imagine it's all equally real, and there is quite a bit of the real stuff (keeping in mind, of course, that what's "real" is also subject to all sorts of manipulations. Again, I have no bright things to say about it, only to report that it was on my mind as I watched.
I talked a bit last week about how the Russians were treated, and of course they were portrayed as heroically defending their nation once the actual invasion started. As I said, there was a fair amount of very cheesy Russian history, which I thought was (along with the history of China) the only real mistake of the seven movies. On China, there was if anything less of the Good China stuff than I expected to find. Oh, the Chinese (like the Russians, and the Brits, etc.) were peach-loving people who would never dream of starting a war or fighting one until it was really necessary, but that's mostly all, just generic Good Guys stuff.
The seventh movie tackles America's entry into the war, basically from 1918 up to Pearl Harbor. There are a lot of ways you could play that history...you could have a story line of America foolishly retreating from the world, only to be attacked at Pearl Harbor anyway. You could argue that America was wise to retreat in the 1920s, and was necessarily distracted in the 1930s, but then rushed to arm itself as war approached. I can imagine other possibilities...the way that War Comes to America tells it is that Americans engaged in a protracted democratic discussion about the war, only reluctantly concluding that the US should prepare. There's an emphasis on public opinion polling, with the narrative arguing that Americans moved from isolationism to engagement as the news continued to confirm just how evil the Axis powers were.
I enjoyed the entire set, and highly recommend it.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Monday Movies Post
Pearl Harbor Day, and I had a chance to watch something I've never had the chance to see before: the famous "Why We Fight" series from WWII. TMC is, as always, totally awesome. I'll watch the rest of the series later, but I'll write something brief about it now.
So far, I've watched Prelude to War and The Nazis Strike. First of all, they were terrific at what they set out, presumably, to do: tell the audience who the enemy was, and gear them up to fight.
Second, I knew that they were directed by Frank Capra...you all know I'm not exactly a huge fan of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but I like plenty of Capra's work, and if you're ever going to have rousing Americana, these propaganda films seem like a good place for it. At any rate, I think they're very good. What I didn't know is that they were written by Julius and Philip Epstein, who as everyone knows (well, maybe not, but...) wrote Casablanca. Of course, Casablanca is among other things a great propaganda movie, perhaps the greatest of the many that Hollywood produced during the war.
For those who haven't seen these movies, here are the things that struck me, at least as far as the politics were concerned. First of all, unlike recent wars, American propaganda in WWII made it clear that the German people and the the Japanese people (called "Japs" most of the time here) were responsible for the war, not just their leaders. The leaders were evil, no doubt. But they had duped the people because Germans and Japanese both wanted to be duped by crazed military fantasies. The Germans, we're told, had a national love of militarism and a drive to conquer the world; the Japanese were easily swayed because of their fanatical worship of their Emperor/god. No one who watched and believed these movies would have any qualms about killing their soldiers, or even their civilians.
I was also interested in how the Soviet Union would be treated, and the answer is: very well. I know that's the case in the later episode I haven't watched yet about the Nazi invasion of Russia, but I was curious to see how the Non-Aggression Pact and Poland would be handled. Very generously: the Soviets agreed to the Non-Aggression Pact in order to give them time to prepare for what they knew would be the inevitable fight against Hitler, while Poland was lucky that the Soviets advanced from the east after the Germans had destroyed the rest of the country; only the Soviet-occupied areas were spared.
The odd thing about watching these is that as much as they are obvious propaganda, and the racial & ethnic stereotypes are something we would never see today, one of the things that strikes you while watching it that if anything they underplayed just how evil the Nazis were. Of course, they didn't know (in 1943) the full extent of it. Or maybe they don't underplay it (they do say that the Nazis intended to eliminate the entire populations of Eastern Europe), but it's just hard to take seriously the worst of the accusations, even when you know that they were true. At least that was my reaction to the sections about German life under the Nazis. Perhaps it's just me.
Very, very interesting watching. For those interested in movies, in WWII, in propaganda, and in 20th century America, I highly recommend them.
So far, I've watched Prelude to War and The Nazis Strike. First of all, they were terrific at what they set out, presumably, to do: tell the audience who the enemy was, and gear them up to fight.
Second, I knew that they were directed by Frank Capra...you all know I'm not exactly a huge fan of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but I like plenty of Capra's work, and if you're ever going to have rousing Americana, these propaganda films seem like a good place for it. At any rate, I think they're very good. What I didn't know is that they were written by Julius and Philip Epstein, who as everyone knows (well, maybe not, but...) wrote Casablanca. Of course, Casablanca is among other things a great propaganda movie, perhaps the greatest of the many that Hollywood produced during the war.
For those who haven't seen these movies, here are the things that struck me, at least as far as the politics were concerned. First of all, unlike recent wars, American propaganda in WWII made it clear that the German people and the the Japanese people (called "Japs" most of the time here) were responsible for the war, not just their leaders. The leaders were evil, no doubt. But they had duped the people because Germans and Japanese both wanted to be duped by crazed military fantasies. The Germans, we're told, had a national love of militarism and a drive to conquer the world; the Japanese were easily swayed because of their fanatical worship of their Emperor/god. No one who watched and believed these movies would have any qualms about killing their soldiers, or even their civilians.
I was also interested in how the Soviet Union would be treated, and the answer is: very well. I know that's the case in the later episode I haven't watched yet about the Nazi invasion of Russia, but I was curious to see how the Non-Aggression Pact and Poland would be handled. Very generously: the Soviets agreed to the Non-Aggression Pact in order to give them time to prepare for what they knew would be the inevitable fight against Hitler, while Poland was lucky that the Soviets advanced from the east after the Germans had destroyed the rest of the country; only the Soviet-occupied areas were spared.
The odd thing about watching these is that as much as they are obvious propaganda, and the racial & ethnic stereotypes are something we would never see today, one of the things that strikes you while watching it that if anything they underplayed just how evil the Nazis were. Of course, they didn't know (in 1943) the full extent of it. Or maybe they don't underplay it (they do say that the Nazis intended to eliminate the entire populations of Eastern Europe), but it's just hard to take seriously the worst of the accusations, even when you know that they were true. At least that was my reaction to the sections about German life under the Nazis. Perhaps it's just me.
Very, very interesting watching. For those interested in movies, in WWII, in propaganda, and in 20th century America, I highly recommend them.
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