Favorite Over The Top Propaganda in History

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

Going to have it old-school - British stuff from the American Revolutionary War:

The text in the lower right reads as follows:
Behold the Dutch and Spanish Curs,
Perfidious Gallus in his Spurs,
And Rattlesnake with head upright
The British Lion join to fight.
He scorns the Bark, the Hiss, the Crow,
The he's a Lion, soon they'll know.

Subtlety, thy name is James Gilray

 

[Raferty]

Japanese propaganda often depicted Americans as some sort of monsters, but at the same time it usually lacked the idea that Americans were inferior to Japanese, at least physically or mentally. Japanese, having been avid students of the West, had became very aware of racial theories of the time and more or less had accepted their conclusions i.e. that they belonged to a race somehow biologically inferior to Whites. Because of this, their propaganda usually emphasized things like the stronger Japanese spirit or the degeneration of modern western culture in addition to general evilness of western powers towards Asian countries instead of racial factors.

What I find striking in their propaganda (the anti-China stuff does seem to me to be pretty racially loaded, though) is how similar the depictions of Roosevelt are to the German depictions. The Germans made him look like a Jewish banker trope, basically, and the Japanese did basically the same except with a few more monstrous qualities. I wonder if the propagandists from the Axis had some kind of common strategy.

 

[Laqueesha]

What I find striking in their propaganda (the anti-China stuff does seem to me to be pretty racially loaded, though) is how similar the depictions of Roosevelt are to the German depictions. The Germans made him look like a Jewish banker trope, basically, and the Japanese did basically the same except with a few more monstrous qualities. I wonder if the propagandists from the Axis had some kind of common strategy.

Dunno if coincidence or not, but apparently in East Asia even today, caricatures of westerners usually depict them with huge noses.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

And from the French Revolution...

​

So you can see the roots and trunk of the Tree of Liberty. What might be less easy to see unless you zoom in is the crowned tree behind it, with a trunk marked 'Justice' and three sturdy roots of 'Commons', 'King' and 'Lords', and apples called things like 'Prosperity'.

Again, subtle

 

[jmc247]

The late teens and early 20s British posters were often not so subtle with their messaging.

 

[Dreadpool]

For its sheer, cinematic pomposity, it's hard to beat Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will'...

 

[Raferty]

And from the French Revolution...

​

So you can see the roots and trunk of the Tree of Liberty. What might be less easy to see unless you zoom in is the crowned tree behind it, with a trunk marked 'Justice' and three sturdy roots of 'Commons', 'King' and 'Lords', and apples called things like 'Prosperity'.

Again, subtle

Propaganda from that period is the whole reason why people think Napoleon was extremely short. But, I have to admit, it is far more complex and interesting than a lot of the stuff that came afterwards.

 

[Laqueesha]

Propaganda from that period is the whole reason why people think Napoleon was extremely short. But, I have to admit, it is far more complex and interesting than a lot of the stuff that came afterwards.

He's about the same height as me IRL.

 

[jmc247]

Going to have it old-school - British stuff from the American Revolutionary War:

The text in the lower right reads as follows:
Behold the Dutch and Spanish Curs,
Perfidious Gallus in his Spurs,
And Rattlesnake with head upright
The British Lion join to fight.
He scorns the Bark, the Hiss, the Crow,
The he's a Lion, soon they'll know.

Thomas Jefferson was often depicted as a rooster to denote his attachment to France in 1790s/1800s political cartoons.

Accompanied by a black female hen with a what looks like a 1780s French style woman’s bonnet.

 

[TimTurner]

My favorite is probably East Germany's Lied Der Partei (see below)

they put the "Lied" in "Lied Der Partei".

 

[Tripledot]

The 1995 North Korean romantic comedy Oh, Youth! is pretty hilarious given that actors would suddenly break from a scene to extol the virtues of Dear Leader out of nowhere.

Accompanied by a black female hen with a what looks like a 1780s French style woman’s bonnet.

You sure that isn't supposed to represent Sally Hemings?

 

[WarPlanInfrared]

Kinky

 

[Uniquelyequal]

There is this thing, which was, I believe, already posted in the Insane Meme Thread some time ago.

 

[H.Flashman(VC)]

Italian Fascism was the most open minded to abstract art as the following picture shows:

 

[Temeraire]

You sure that isn't supposed to represent Sally Hemings?

I'm pretty sure that's the reference.

 

[Dreadpool]

Kinky

That image rather reminds me of the ring worn by Spectre agents...

 

[Baron Bizarre]

World War I was also good for over-the-top propaganda!

Somewhat ironically, WWI propaganda in the USA at least was much more anti-German ( as opposed to anti-Nazi) than the WWII propaganda was!

So, in World War One, we fought Mr. Hyde from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

 

[longsword14]

The late teens and early 20s British posters were often not so subtle with their messaging.

And all that to keep competition from German goods away.

 

[Minnesota_Nationalist]

One of my favorite Propaganda Posters of all time

"Murderers always return to the scene of the crime"

Vichy French propaganda poster attacking the allies for bombing Rouen, where Jean d'Arc was executed. I just find it fascinating that both the Vichy French and the Free French used Jean d'Arc for propaganda, the Vichies using her as a symbol of resistance against the English, and the Free French using her as a symbol of resistance against Foreign Occupation. Guess which one was ultimately more powerful as a symbol.

 

[jmc247]

That was large extent due to racism. Compared to Germany, Japan was much easier to represent as the "other". To generalize (as there were many exceptions), American propaganda directed against Germany was more ideological while in the case of Japan it was racialized.

The enemy in the Japanese propaganda was typically the generic ‘other’ yes. Not infrequently depicted as being out to rape white WAllied women.

One of the many difference with the European theater is that a select few Germans the WAllied populations got to see speak on an almost weekly basis on the newsreels and became household personas to the public in a way that didn’t happen with WW1 Germans nor WW2 Japanese.

Hollywood and the Pentagon saw the potential in cultivating the well known WW2 German personas into images to emotionally attach the WAllied public to the war and not just Hitler.

So you had posters and magazines of Japanese troops coming to rape American women. While at the same time you had posters up of a big budget movie of a fictional French Jewish woman who comes down to Egypt to seduce Rommel for help in getting her brother out of a Concentration Camp in Poland.

They helped to crank up the public hatred of the Japanese to the end of the dial and then some, but they managed to make the European/African theater more emotionally compelling and relatable to the public.