Cartoons in Hard Times

The Animated Shorts of Disney and Warner Brothers in Depression and War 1932-1945

Tracey Mollet

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781501328756
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Animation

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2018 Cartoons in Hard Times provides a comprehensive analysis of the short subject animation released by the Walt Disney and Warner Brothers from 1932 and 1945, one of the most turbulent periods in Unites States history. Through a combination of content analysis, historical understanding and archival research, this book sheds new light on a hitherto unexplored area of animation, suggesting the ways in which Disney and Warner Brothers animation engaged with historical, social, economic and political changes in this era. The book also traces the development of animation into a medium fit for propaganda in 1941 and the changes in characters, tone, music and narrative that took place to facilitate this transition. Animation transformed in this era from a medium of entertainment, to a socio-political commentator before finally undertaking government sponsored propaganda during the Second World War.

1

Introduction: The Storyboard So Far

In the summer of 1941, Nelson Rockefeller and John Hay Whitney approached Walt Disney to make a series of animated shorts for the Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA). The OIAA was formed in 1940 and was primarily concerned with the financial problems of Latin American countries, but its role became limited to cultural relationships following the establishment of the Board of Economic Warfare (McCann 1973, 148). Rockefeller and Whitney wanted Disney to tour South America as a ‘goodwill ambassador’, believing that Disney’s animation could be fundamentally important at curbing pro-Nazi feeling there. They offered to underwrite the cost of the trip and promised Disney $50,000 for making animated shorts fostering good relations between Latin America and the United States (Jackson 1993, 37). Disney set off with two dozen of his best animators in August 1941, leaving his studio in the aftermath of a disruptive strike, with the remaining artists fumbling through the animation for Dumbo (1941). ¹ Disney had accepted his first state contract to produce propaganda through the medium of animation.

Nearly six months prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Schlesinger Studios released Meet John Doughboy (1941). It was distributed by Warner Brothers, who were well known for the political undertones of their feature films. ² Released the day after 4 July and just a short week following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, this animated production was unquestionably interventionist in its tone, calling for Americans to support the war and oppose anti-draft legislation. Despite the fact that the United States was not yet at war, these two studios quickly mobilized to present political messages through the medium of animation, recognizing its strength as an ideological platform.

While the contribution of animation to the enormous body of literature on Hollywood’s war propaganda has been recognized, the extent of this contribution has yet to be analysed in real depth. What is more, the current scholarship on animation falls short of any content analysis of animation before 1941, ³ with most works focusing on the ideological undertones of feature length animation in the late twentieth century, as well as animation’s important role as propaganda during the Second World War. However, these contributions represent the culmination of animation’s commentary on politics and society in this period. Cartoons produced by all the animation studios in America, but most especially the Schlesinger Studios and the Walt Disney Studios, provided their own interpretations of contemporary events, from Roosevelt’s election, to the economic situation, to the pressures of total war.

This book will document this uncharted period of animation’s history, from the presidential campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932 to the Japanese surrender in 1945, with the aim of finding an answer to the following fundamental question: How did the animation of the Walt Disney Studios and the Schlesinger Studios (distributed through Warner Brothers) provide a commentary on American politics and society?

In this period, the animated productions of these two studios underwent a significant transformation. They began as an experimental medium in the motion picture industry at the beginning of the 1930s, transmitting ideas through symbols and music. In the mid-1930s, as the medium progressed technologically, it changed from a vehicle for commentary on sociopolitical ideas into a powerful weapon of propaganda utilized by the American government in war.

The problem with animation

From the outset, it would seem that animation is something of a problematic medium for analysis by film historians. Leonard Maltin claims that there is a ‘snob barrier’ between cartoon shorts and animated features which prevented any serious consideration of the former medium (Maltin 1980, viii). While Lewis Jacobs’s contemporary study of film in 1938 highlighted Walt Disney’s animated feature films as ‘the highest expression of modern picture art in America’, this seemed to elevate the animated feature, leaving its short counterpart cast aside into an area of Hollywood not worthy of critical attention (Jacobs 1939, 496). Despite being on the same bill as feature films, animation still remains an enormously understudied area of Hollywood filmmaking. As Joe Adamson has argued, it would appear that, ‘When a man goes about writing an inclusive history of film, throwing out cartoons seems to be the first order of business, right after rolling up the sleeves and clearing the desk of rubber bands’ (Adamson 1985, 11).

With the notable exception of the Disney Studios, many animation departments attached to the ‘Big Five’ during the 1930s were so far removed from the daily activities of the studios that many studio heads were unaware of their own cartoon production, or even unaware of their existence! ⁴ Until fairly recently, this exclusion has been applied to all histories of animation. However, during the 1930s and 1940s, animated shorts were shown in theatres before the screening of feature films and became almost more popular than the features themselves. In an article in the Saturday Evening Post, one journalist commented that the essence of Americanism was ‘spending millions of dollars to make spectacular movies’ and ‘sticking through them to see Mickey Mouse’ (Jacobs 1939, 496). These cartoons received widespread circulation.

Over the last thirty years, the study of animation has started to flourish. Leonard Maltin focuses largely on the changing technology in animation, as well as the high turnover of staff between studios (1980). Similarly, Michael Barrier’s extensive history on the American animation industry focuses largely on the differing techniques of the studios and the personalities and preferences of the animators involved, particularly the continued competition between Hugh Harman and Walt Disney for animated excellence (1999). There are also a significant number of general histories of animation, covering the medium’s technological development throughout the twentieth century. ⁵ Furthermore, the proliferation of work on animation theory and aesthetics, as well as dedicated scholarly journals on animation, has propelled its serious consideration within academic circles. ⁶ These works do not focus on particular studios, or on the content of the cartoon shorts produced during certain eras and on how they developed through time. Scholars such as Janet Wasko and Chris Pallant have done much to advance the study of Disney animation. While their works are comprehensive, they do not focus on the animated shorts of the 1930s and 1940s and their historical context. ⁷ Importantly, however, these works underline the premise of so-called ‘classic’ Disney and the essential characteristics of Disney’s narratives.

Donald Crafton was one of the first scholars to recognize the importance of the messages within ‘classic’ cartoons. He has contended that ‘failing to see beyond the childlike nature of animation simply perpetuates a fallacy of innocence’ (Crafton 1993, 204b). Crafton’s work speaks clearly to the adult themes running throughout animation, particularly his study of caricatures in Warner Brothers’ animation. Crafton also stated that many of these cartoons have a ‘hidden agenda’ and contain certain ‘social viewpoints’ (ibid.). Indeed, veteran animator Charles Jones famously commented that ‘these cartoons were never made for children. Nor were they made for adults. They were made for me’ (Bogdanovich 1997, 699).

Sybil DelGaudio has also made the case for animation’s incorporation of adult themes. Her work charts the use of animation for the purpose of education, documentary and propaganda. In the early teens, for example, she argues, Winsor McCay’s The Sinking of the Lusitania, ‘represented McCay’s own outrage, as well as a depiction of the event’ (DelGaudio 1997). DelGaudio’s contribution is illuminating in its representation of animation as a medium for a sociopolitical agenda, asking the fundamental question, ‘If truth be told, can “toons” tell it?’ (ibid.) Can animation, a medium largely associated with light entertainment, be channelled for a more serious purpose? Subsequently, the content of animation came to be considered by scholars for the first time as more than just an opportunity for comedic expression.

Michael Shull and David Wilt’s work Doing Their Bit: Wartime Animated Short Films was groundbreaking in considering animation as a historical source. Shull argued that animation should not be cast aside as simply ‘funny animals’ in children’s cartoons (1987, 4). Cartoon shorts were shown in the same theatres as feature films, with the same audience and therefore should be accredited the same substantial treatment by historians as valid empirical sources. They have a dual layer of interpretation. While it is true that they largely follow the antics of animals or children in fantastical settings, for adults, animation has significant sociocultural implications for historians of the 1930s and wartime America.

Animation and propaganda

When analysing animation in terms of its historical and political content, it would seem that many of the same concerns surrounding the relationship between motion pictures and propaganda should be raised. Jacques Ellul has argued that ‘the movies and human contacts are the best media for sociological propaganda’ (1965, 10). What is perhaps more important for animation in the current research is the significance placed on the use of images to reinforce a particular ideology (Jamieson 1985, 134). Given that animation is an overwhelmingly visual medium, the prominence given to what an audience could actually see or understand within a frame is paramount to any consideration of this field. In addition, Ellul claimed that propaganda and persuasion were more effective when they conformed to the needs of a society. In content and in tone, animation corresponded with the national feeling within America. First, cartoons, with their caricatures of modern society and politics, as well as many references to the world of the fairy tale, provided a welcome landscape of escape, entertainment and laughter for a depressed and war-torn population. Secondly, the characters within these cartoons, particularly the figure of Mickey Mouse, became embedded in the cultural fabric of society (Smoodin, 1993). Their hopes and dreams became akin to those of the ordinary people of America. Animation did not just conform to the needs of the American people, it reflected them.

Jowett and O’Donnell’s contribution to the discourse on the power of propaganda is also of interest here. Their claim that propaganda is also formed through the creation of myth is seminal to the study of animation. They contest that ‘a myth is not merely a fantasy or a lie but rather a model for social action … a story in which meaning is embodied in recurrent symbols’ (2006, 272). Through the use of animated characters, the Walt Disney Studios and the Schlesinger Studios created their own models for social action. Animation utilized the same symbols and motifs present in Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s to comment upon the ideology and policies of Roosevelt’s government.

The movies and propaganda

The idea that movies, one of the primary beneficiaries of the free society, could be used to channel ideology and thus be used for the purposes of propaganda was deeply unsettling for Americans. The close relationship forged between propaganda and the totalitarian regimes between the two world wars led to an enforced awareness of ‘propaganda’ as a concept. Following the activities of the Creel Committee in the Great War, propaganda and the institutions ‘producing’ it were viewed with great distrust. ⁸ Propaganda was thus labelled as something distinctly ‘un-American’ and undemocratic in nature. Furthermore, isolationist groups enraged by the extent of US involvement in the conflict were quick to seize upon revelations regarding anti-US propaganda. The notion that America had been ‘duped’ into joining the war by Britain attracted a considerable following and Americans became increasingly aware of any medium that attempted to shape their values. Indeed, Anthony Rhodes has even gone as far as to argue that ‘the greatest obstacle to Allied propaganda in World War Two was the propaganda that preceded American entry into World War One’ (1976, 139).

Scholarship by the likes of Clayton Laurie, Philip M. Taylor and James Chapman has made the case for democracy’s deep connection with propaganda. ⁹ Due to the strategy of ‘truth’ promoted by such forms of government, propaganda in democracies could not look or sound like propaganda (Roeder 1993, 2). Indeed, both Roosevelt and Churchill rejected propaganda as a concept, failing to give much authority to those institutions responsible for its dissemination during the war. ¹⁰ This made movies the perfect medium through which to relay a particular political message to the general public.

Much of the stigma that has plagued the study of animation originally characterized the study of feature film. Following the foundation of the Historical Journal for Film Radio and Television in 1981 by Kenneth Short, the case was made for film to be utilized as an empirical source. ¹¹ These scholars felt that any analysis of film should be based on the contextual as opposed to the textual. According to this discourse, films produced within the 1930s and 1940s should be viewed as texts heavily influenced by the culture that created them. They should be analysed for political or social content in the same way any historical text should be examined. Consideration of film by historians has moved steadily over the years from informational propaganda films such as newsreels and documentaries to feature films. This change has brought the paradigm surrounding film history into the realm of film theorists, keen to separate feature production from historical scrutiny. Such scholars have made the case for each production to be analysed internally, with the emphasis being on factors of composition rather than circumstance. ¹²

These scholars reject historians’ interest in finding contextual understanding from Hollywood productions. In an article for film journal Screen, Higson suggested that historical approaches place emphasis on ‘representation, rather than points of view’ (1983, 84). He implies that focus should be on the narrative and visual perspective of the director, and not of the audience understanding of the film text. However, it would seem that to dismiss a film’s relative historicity is to dismiss not only its director’s vision, but the nature of film itself. Film is not produced within an ideological vacuum, and while one cannot ignore the director’s vision, it would be similarly complacent to ignore the historical context into which the film was released. Despite this tension, film scholars began to chart the intrinsic connection between history and film and the ways in which the latter could be used as a window into the attitudes and ideologies of the past.

As film and synchronized sound reached technological fruition at the beginning of the 1930s, so too did the medium of animation. When animation began to appear on the bill for feature films at t...