With the 70th Anniversary of D-Day still fresh in our minds, can I take you down another contributor that helped the Second World War. That being Hollywood. More specifically, the people who made cartoons cartoon characters of the time. Be that Daffy Duck, Porky the Pig, Bugs Bunny or even Tom & Jerry. They all helped us.
Look at many of the cartoons of the time and they all end with the cry to “Buy War Bonds”. Help us beat Nazi tyranny several thousand miles away. I don’t know if it worked. I hope it did in a small way. It was good for morale to laugh at the enemy being trounced by their favourite cartoon character at the very least.
It did seem to be something that Warner Bros and MGM seemed to do. I can’t think of a Disney cartoon that does this.
They were very typical of the era. Sometimes, to modern eyes, quite racist. The Japanese were classic, slanty eyed, thick sceptical wearing stereotypes. Something that you would never think of doing today. Mussolini was shown as a pot bellied, greasy Italian. Hitler was shown in multiple guises. From the stupid sort that Tom & Jerry fought to a ranting maniac that was up against Daffy Duck.
I have done a post like this before. One about cartoons lighting up a refreshing smoke. It’s something that has, now, been removed from cartoons. Censoring cartoons because of modern values is wrong, very wrong. Keep it in. I knew as a kid you couldn’t survive a 1,000 foot fall off a cliff or a stick of dynamite to the face did a lot more than changing your face black and giving you big red lips! The casual racial stereotyping of the era. As a kid, we didn’t care as it was funny. Stop spoiling our children’s childhood because it is thought to be wrong!
I think that is one of the reasons we don’t see these “war cartoons” any more. The bane of modern thinking. Political Correctness. An insidious monster spoiling things because we live 70, or so, years after they were made.
They do say that the past is a different country. They are wrong. For what some people think, it could be a different planet.
This can be shown by the “controversy” with Jeremy Clarkson. I haven’t seen the footage that some of the British papers were up in arms over. He was pilloried for, apparently using the “N-word” – He didn’t!. It was never done for broadcast and why all the bile and vitriol. One coming from a newspaper who were for the British Union of Fascists.
What I understand he was doing a, classic, rhyme to select an item. “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo”. I know it using the same word that Clarkson was. I had to hit Wikipedia to find out what it should be. Today, you should catch a “teacher by the toe”.
Sorry about that off topic aside but I needed to get it off my chest. Back on topic about evil people being trounced by your favourite cartoon.
There are a lot out there. Archive.org has a series of Superman beating “The Japs”. Eleventh Hour. Yes, they were the same as mentioned above. As well as being a little slow. They have everything that I mentioned earlier. Stereotyping, racism as well as a plug for War Bonds. Gloriously un-PC.
