By the standard of contemporary films like Avatar, some old fashioned Hollywood flicks can look completely laughable.
The only thing weirder and goofier than old Hollywood movies are old US GOVERNMENT movies.
Some of these movies may have been well-intentioned at the time but now some smack of awkward propaganda.
The film above is one of the most famous government-issued pieces of all time. “Duck and Cover” teaches children how to stay safe, even with the looming threat of a nuclear bomb. The concept seems a bit silly to us now, but was taken seriously to the point of duck-and-cover methods being practiced in schools.
Cartoons are supposed to be fun and lighthearted, but this animation depicts a disheveled Donald Duck learning the importance of his income taxes.
The Cold War Era of American history included a lot of anti-Communist sentiment. Lucky for us, the US government created this video so that we could learn how to easily identify a communist and get rid of the internal threat.
Veering a bit from the wartime track, the video above is an educational video by the US government on the effects of LSD, a popular drug in the 1960s. Wow, drug education has surely changed in the past fifty years!
These old government films and propaganda pieces may seem corny, but don’t think that similar tactics aren’t being tried today!
Have you seen anything on television or on the news that you think is propaganda? Do you find it to be an effective tool for the government to use to change attitudes? Leave us a comment and get the discussion started!
These were excellent uses of historic propaganda but we would like to see some of the recent stuff. Surely VP Cheney must have created some Patriot first films.