7 Racist World War II Cartoons (Produced By Major Studios) You Won't Believe

6. The Ducktators €“ Warner Bros, 1942

The Warner Brothers, as we will see, were the masters of creating explicit propaganda that reflected their own passionate interventionist views. The Warner€™s got into a lot of trouble before the war because producing propaganda encouraging people to support the war was actually illegal in America €“ but being Jewish and knowing that the Nazis were bad news, this didn€™t stop them. When they got the green light to produce propaganda they upped the ante considerably, and really hammered into the Japanese, arguably more so than anyone else. This piece from not long after the US entered the war, was produced by the iconic Leon Schlesinger and like Der Feurher€™s Face presents a contrast in how European villains and Japanese villains were depicted. Aside from the physical differences, the cowardice of the Japanese is emphasised as the Duck representing General Tojo launches a sneak attack. Additionally, the duplicitous nature apparently only inherent to the Japanese was also presented when Tojo tries to claim that he was actually Chinese. This might seem like a passing racist gag about how €˜all Asians look alike€™ but it€™s actually more significant than that €“ the Chinese were victims of Japanese brutality so while the US government were quick to vilify and dehumanise the Japanese, they were actually sure to emphasise the humanity and innocence of the Chinese. Propagandists were going out of their way to make sure that people understood that it was only the Japanese that were uniquely racially characterised and had no shades of grey as people. They were all evil, barbaric cowards and would do anything to hurt anyone, and it had to be made clear that they were the only ones like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsBG34TSJJ4