10 Films That Were Blatant Propaganda

Let it never be said that Canadians can't be jerks, too.

We've all seen offensive wartime Bugs Bunny and Superman cartoon shorts that featured the leads humiliating some yellow-skinned cartoon of an Asian man, and we still kind of giggle at how silly it is, but the actual racism on display during World War II is often downplayed. Japenese internment is the kind of mortal sin the U.S. prefers not to address.

A such, Canada did their part to hate too, though the film did get some play in the U.S. The Mask of Nippon was produced by the National Film Board of Canada as a piece of blatant anti-Japanese propaganda. In it, Bonanza's Lorne Green narrates: "The soldiers of the rising sun are little men. Two-faced, with a modern and progressive surface thinly hiding their savage and barbaric double character.”

It goes on to inform viewers that Japenese citizens believe their Emporer is a literal God with supernatural abilities, pre-empting the release of countless B-Movies of the seventies and video games today.

This was, of course, an intentional misread of Japanese culture, as the reality is that even in feudal times, most of the citizenry was atheist. Their obedience was actually just a generational thing about respecting your elders.