The Inverted Power Dynamics during the Rise of Hollywood (Alyna Johnson)

Introduction

After World War I derailed the European film industry, American films enjoyed minimal competition and thus a rapid rise in popularity, which encouraged the United States government to work with Hollywood as the country joined the conflict. Studying films produced during this collaboration reveals their propagandistic nature, which, along with the film industry’s other war-related efforts, helped the U.S. government mobilize the homefront. Therefore, some scholars believe that the industry was forced to appease the government. However, the partnership’s underlying dynamics must be examined in tandem with its products to recognize that seemingly subordinate parties exercised influence over the government. Although films appeared to transition from informative to propagandistic during mobilization, the film industry had already begun this shift voluntarily, and it reaped its own rewards from aiding the war effort. That the dissemination of film propaganda hinged on the continued support of exhibitors, who displayed movies in theaters, affirms that neither they nor the film industry as a whole submitted to the government.

Counterargument

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Due to the emergence of propagandistic works, a common yet fallacious scholarly opinion is that the U.S. government forced Hollywood to buttress the war effort. During the U.S.’s period of neutrality, from August 4, 1914, to April 1917, advertisements did not severely ridicule the Germans or encourage war involvement. In fact, they de-emphasized the nations to which soldiers were affiliated, for they aimed to underscore how visually striking war was as opposed to illustrating an exaggerated conflict between a clear protagonist and antagonist. However, once the country joined World War I, advertisements began portraying Americans heroically while disparaging their enemies. For instance, the U.S. was depicted as technologically, economically, and morally superior. Fights between personifications of the U.S. and Germany, such as Uncle Sam and Kaiser Wilhelm II, represented the likely triumph of democracy over the tyranny of the malicious Germans. These biased portrayals seem to reflect the U.S. government’s desire to marshal pro-war sentiment by galvanizing national pride, especially since their creation coincided with the beginnings of its partnership with the film industry. The lack of apparent prejudice in some of the industry’s works prior to war involvement fuels the misconception that a propagandistic style was mandated by the government.

Liberty Bonds

A cursory analysis of the partnership may also suggest that Hollywood’s substantial promotion of Liberty Bonds was involuntary, for industry members were responding to governmental requests and deviating from their initial pacifism. Specifically, when the government, seeking to raise money for the war effort via bonds, organized the first Liberty Loan campaign from May 14 to June 15, 1917, the secretary of the treasury urged Hollywood to participate; therefore, the industry’s generous donations seem coerced by governmental authorities. Subsequently, in 1918, the most prominent Hollywood stars, such as Charlie Chaplin, were featured in short films to promote the Third and Fourth Liberty Loans. However, Chaplin had previously condemned militarism and thus contradicted his promotion of peace with his marketing of war bonds. His inability to maintain his pacifist cinematic tone in the face of governmental demands appears to be reflected by the propagandistic nature of his 1918 film The Bond. Its plot did, in fact, employ an anvilicious style, or a lack of subtlety, to urge participation in fundraising efforts. As a result of its minimal artistic nuance, Chaplin’s noticeable pleasure with purchasing Liberty Bonds encouraged viewers to recognize their value to the military endeavor, and Uncle Sam’s appearance underscored the patriotism of such a deed. Ultimately, Chaplin incapacitated the Kaiser with an oversized mallet labeled “Liberty Bonds” to overtly demonstrate that payments directly enabled the country to defeat Germany, an additional incentive. The stark contrast between this aggressive pro-war message and the levity of Chaplin’s older works–aimed at uplifting wounded soldiers and avoiding the provocation of immigrants from warring countries–may imply that filmmakers lost creative freedom when subjected to governmental orders. Thus, analyzing Hollywood’s contributions to the war effort in isolation reinforces the false narrative of the government’s overpowering the film industry.

Rebuttal

The Sinking of the Lusitania

However, examining a broader range of earlier works refutes that the evolution of factual films into nationalist propaganda was due to the film industry’s nonconsensual acquiescence to the U.S. government. Numerous pro-war films voluntarily produced before the government even began to encourage war involvement featured propagandistic techniques similar to those employed afterward. On May 7, 1915, prior to U.S. mobilization, the RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner, was sunk by a German U-boat seeking to hinder enemy war efforts. Despite the fact that the U.S. government remained neutral, American animator Winsor McCay started creating the pro-war short film The Sinking of the Lusitania. By highlighting that the attack killed 114 Americans and that these casualties included “men of world wide prominence,” it emphasized the U.S.’s significant losses as later, government-sponsored works did to mobilize the homefront. In addition to explicitly characterizing victims as “innocent,” the film employed a pathetic appeal by depicting a mother’s desperate attempts to keep her baby afloat. This sympathetic portrayal contrasted with the film’s demonization of the German enemy, to whom it referred with the disparaging term “hun.” Although this silent animation may have reflected the government’s eventual desire to antagonize the Germans and thus appear mandated by it, the piece actually rebelled against the government’s neutral stance at the time of its release. To further encourage U.S. military intervention, the sky and sea remained broad, blank expanses, negative space that provoked anxiety about German forces. This method for eliciting strong emotional responses spread to filmmakers in the years leading up to The Sinking of the Lusitania’s production, well before Hollywood’s governmental partnership. Evidently, although McCay’s artistic choices mirrored the provocative language and imagery in subsequent collaborations with the government, these techniques arose independent of its influence; thus, filmmakers maintained aspects of their style upon joining the partnership.

Civilization

Some pacifist films did align with the government’s initial stance and also featured propagandistic techniques visible in governmental projects; however, they, too, were created without its coercion. For example, 1916’s Civilization employed an ethical appeal by equating peace to Christianity and war to blasphemy. When submarine commander Count Ferdinand had the opportunity to sink the SS Pro Patria, an enemy passenger ship of the fictitious nation Wredpryd, he, opening his shirt to uncover a cross and claiming to be “obeying orders – from a Higher Power,” decided to sink his own vehicle instead. His religious devotion, as well as his nation’s ultimate decision to sign a peace treaty at Jesus’ request, reinforced the Christian morality of pacifism. The resemblance of the Teutonic antagonists to Germans–hence their upturned mustaches, spiked helmets, and use of submarines and torpedo attacks on passenger ships–was anvilicious, as were the glaring similarities between the movie’s plot and the sinking of the Lusitania. Since the latter strengthened American opposition to the Germans, such parallels, alongside the contrast between Wredpryd’s militarism and Christianity’s promotion of peace, inspired similar anti-German sentiment. While this film was pacifist, its heavy-handed advocacy for a certain political perspective–via appeals to the audience’s Christian values and an anvilicious vilification of Germans–rendered it propaganda. Nevertheless, it was produced prior to Hollywood’s alliance with the government. Thus, the film’s stylistic similarities to governmental collaborations, while used to argue that filmmakers involuntarily adopted propagandistic techniques, actually support that they maintained previously employed ones. However, some scholars argue that since the Democratic National Committee cited the film as bolstering Woodrow Wilson’s 1916 re-election campaign, built on avoiding World War I involvement, it was intended for governmental use. Although Wilson was undeniably realizing the power of film to influence the public’s stance on war, the government did not play an active role in the creation of works until the U.S. entered the conflict.

U.S. Entry into World War I

Upon U.S. entry, on April 6, 1917, the government, now forced to garner support for war involvement and cognizant of the film industry’s growing influence, requested aid. Although the industry relinquished some control over films’ content by agreeing to a partnership, its assent was voluntary, for it recognized the self-serving benefits. Specifically, the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry, created to resist aggression against Hollywood, realized that the collaboration had the potential to prove its credibility to skeptics who deemed it unnecessary in the midst of war. Thus, the organization’s spread of propaganda not only aided the government but also elevated public perception of the film industry. In fact, due to Hollywood stars’ contributions to Liberty Loan drives, it was declared an “essential industry” by the War Industries Board as it had desired. Moreover, Hollywood subverted the majority of state and all federal efforts to censor its films, so in this sense, film historian Leslie Midkiff DeBauche believes the partnership maximized rather than minimized its creative freedom. Not only did the industry as a whole benefit, but individual actors also improved their public images. According to Brian J. Robb, a biographer who has written extensively about Chaplin, although The Bond’s objective may be reduced to fulfilling governmental demands, he had been rebuked for not contributing to the U.S. war effort. While Chaplin understood that the Establishment was utilizing him to spread propaganda, he believed that his cooperation would revive his reputation. Evidently, even industry members who did alter their styles from anti- to pro-war did so primarily due to their pursuit of self-advancement, not governmental pressure.

Film Exhibitors

The motion picture industry clearly did not lack power in its governmental partnership. However, the need of it, as well as the government, to appease film exhibitors is an often overlooked indicator of the control such individuals held in their relations with these larger, supposedly more powerful institutions. As Motion Picture News expressed, although industry members strove to create propagandistic works, they had to ensure they were “valuable enough to . . . exhibitor[s],” many of whom were resistant to war-related films, to receive satisfactory pay for them. In addition to influencing films’ content, in 1917 and 1918, exhibitors were able to transform recent governmental rulings that threatened their business into favorable outcomes, for administrative agencies were eager to satisfy them. For instance, beginning at midnight during the bitter winter of 1918, manufacturers and businesses east of the Mississippi River had to shut down for ten successive Mondays to conserve fuel. However, soon afterward, to avoid losing a vital collaborator, the government modified the command by permitting exhibitors to instead close their theaters on Tuesdays so that they would benefit from a “three-day weekend,” a lucrative alternative.

Conclusion

Sources

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7. “1916 Film Brings Jesus to Battlefield”
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9. Animating Space: From Mickey to WALL-E
10. Feature image: https://gregoryballos.com/featured/hollywood-california-sign-in-black-and-white-square-format-gregory-ballos.html