1930s Propaganda Photos Exhibit

[Charles]

1930's Japanese Military Propaganda Photos

I found a small exhibit of about 16 vintage propaganda photos while poking around the web. These photos can be viewed in New York City by appointment, and they are available for purchase for a relatively low price of about $1000 each. High rez versions can be viewed online, or downloaded for your Photoshop pleasures.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Those don't seem overyly propaganda-ish to me. Maybe I've just been spoiled by US and German WWII propaganda.

[Charles]

Those don't seem overyly propaganda-ish to me. Maybe I've just been spoiled by US and German WWII propaganda.

Remember these are from the 1930s, so this isn't from the peak of WWII. They're more generic propaganda pics that were intended for general publications, so they pretty much fit any vaguely militaristic theme. But I wonder if these are fully authentic, since they seem to have hand coloring, which would be useless for publishing in B&W newspapers, etc. Perhaps the coloring was done after-the-fact, to make them more attractive for sale.

If you want to read an interesting analysis of Japanese WWII propaganda on both sides of the Pacific, I recommend John Dower's "War Without Mercy."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394751728/

There's an extremely interesting anecdote that I believe I read in Dower's book. It describes how the US dropped propaganda films by parachute into Japan, showing horrible battle atrocities with piles of dead and dying Japanese. It was intended to demoralize the command structure, with a targeted audience of just a few generals. But the government immediately duplicated the films and distributed them to theaters everywhere, and they were a smash hit. The US Psy-ops people thought the films clearly showed demoralizing images of mass slaughter, and would convince the generals to give up since they surely faced this sort of horrifying defeat. But quite the contrary, the films were percieved as soldiers gloriously sacrificing their lives for the Emperor, and hailed as the peak achievement any soldier could aspire to. People stood in line to see the films in theaters.

[Andocrates]

Not to argue with you or the artist, but I would call that patriotism or nationalism at the worst.

Here is some good old fashioned American propaganda directed towards German Soldiers.



"Her husband isn't here, what should she do?
Her pussy cannot always be idle.
For this reason and to defy you
she now eats another pussy!"

[kurohinge1]