Animation had several advantages. Firstly, it is an audio and visual tool. Strong and vibrant colours and dramatic music could be used to portray an emotion, while leaving an image or melody in the memory of the audience that will make the message more likely to stay. This also provides a large range of styles, genres, and even references known to the audience to be made (e.g. a man with a tall hat with the American flag is clearly Uncle Sam, and not just a random fellow).
Secondly, it gives the artist freedom. When filming with real people, there are limits to what can be done - back in the black and white error there was a lot of things that could not be done in a movie. In animation, there is no limit. Plot, setting and character design indeed vary from more realistic styles (e.g. Ave Maria, an anti-Vietnam clip) to the pure caricatures (The Millionaire, the story of how a bulldog becomes rich and powerful). This enabled Soviet artists to portray they're idea of America, without ever having been there - it needn't be truthful since it's not meant to look real anyways. This made it a powerful propaganda tool.
A third advantage is that animations have the appearance of being innocent and child-like, being something for children. Thus, they could be watched by the young who are more easily influenced, and the ideas planted in them through the images could take root and grow into beliefs and "understanding" as they themselves grew.
From my understanding, the reason propaganda is so effective is that it plays to your emotions, rather than logic. I for one was touched by the images in Ave Maria, but I know that the Soviets were not mere bystanders in the war, and hardly saints.
I have thrown in a few links to some propaganda animations (plus two links above!), and while watching, you can ask yourself How does this make me feel? Try looking at the whole package first - the music, the colors, the mood, character - as this will probably shed light on how it is that propaganda works.
Similar tactics can be seen today, e.g. in music videos and advertisements - are they propaganda as well?
Part 1 of this documentary. Includes Mister Twister, A Strangers Voice, The Millionaire, Ave Maria, The Shooting Range and commentary.
Segments from the same documentary
Cinema Circus 3:37
A Lesson Not Learned 5:16
What Hitler Wants 8:13
Thank you for your interesting analysis about the propaganda movies. I also think that emotion is one of the most important parts of propaganda and to hide real information behind beautiful pictures and music. I guess there also a lot of similarities to the German propaganda in the 1930s and 1940s.
ReplyDeleteTobias Hofferbert
I was teaching a history class few weeks ago because my colleague was sick. He had left me a video to show to the pupils about animated and "normal" nazi propaganda films. It was quite awful thought to think how the films were brain washing the children of the nazi era. E.g. the bad guys were always jews and and even bad animals in animal fairy tales were jews!
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