Deb Carson
Semester 2, 2009 - Contemporary
Graphics and Illustration Essay
Propaganda Illustrated - Introduction
Research into Propaganda as a
perspective and Illustration as graphic factor, has culminated in a multimedia
introduction to an electronic journal/website. This culminated animated collage
entitled Propaganda Illustrated
embodies the examination of perceived roles and images of women from 1942 to
1960 in a theme of Òempowerment to depressionÓ and invites further exploration
through an electronic Òmagazine styleÓ journal/website.
1942 to 1960 exposed pivotal and
profound times of change, beginning with a world at war, full of loss,
separation, shortages and uncertainty and immediately followed by mass-society
theory in a period of unprecedented prosperity, near third world birth rate,
multiple fads and fashion of popular culture and mass consumption and
production. (Peters p 265, Nickles p 583) Illustration was the predominant
technique in advertising and government propaganda campaigns, billboards,
posters and mass circulated womenÕs magazines as well as adding visual
personality to popular escapist fiction. There was population density in new
urbanised environments enabling maximum impact for images and messages,
(Timmers p 103) all in a time before television thoroughly penetrated
households.
Due to labour shortages during the
war, propaganda campaigns sought to recruit women, particularly married women,
into the workforce and war effort. After the war, similar campaigns urged women
to leave their work and resume the Òproper roleÓ of homemaker. (Honey) The mass
media in turn targeted the housewife (and her image) as the primary consumer
for mass consumption in the evolving suburban environment. (Naughton) The
marriage of illustration to propaganda was successful in achieving these
campaigns targets, but had significant and far-reaching social and cultural
consequences.
Theses
campaigns required womenÕs image to change dramatically, from the confident and
empowered heavy machine operator, factory worker or glorified in war uniform,
to the disempowered childlike and naive glamorous housewife, constrained and
stereotyped in uniform of high heels, pearls and apron. This profound
transformation took less than 15 years, or less than a generation!
Propaganda
Illustrated mimics this layered and whirlpool period of change. Animated
to reflect the timeline and applying music to help convey and hold the
animation together. The music tracks chosen are: (introduction to) Glen
MillerÕs ÒChattanooga Choo Choo,Ó a big band number and The Andrew sisters
ÒHold TightÓ.
Please Note that due to the
abundance of resources and imagery, American culture prevails in this exegesis,
most western middle-class white cultures were similarly affected.
Propaganda
In general can be described as
techniques designed to persuade an intended audience to think and behave in a
certain or biased manner. One of the key features of propaganda information, or
disinformation is that it is calculated to appeal to the emotions and circumvent
rational judgment. Complex issues are generally simplified and glorious
solutions promised using short or easily remembered messages. Advertising and
propaganda united can be a powerful and persuasive force.
http://www.linesandcolors.com/2008/10/09/propaganda-posters/
Illustration
Illustration can be described as
artwork that helps interpret and make something clear or attractive and that
can more easily communicate text. Susan Griffin, author of Pornography and
Silence: Culture's Revenge Against Nature has expressed this eloquently,
Ò...Images work a powerful effect on the mind. If we
question in our hearts who we are, our minds throw up to our vision an image of
ourselves. We seek a picture, a word, a name. We feel we do not know our own
feelings unless they are named. And we inherit through culture the very names
we give to feelings.Ó
(Honey p 12)
Barbara Stern in ÒMedieval
Allegory: Roots of Advertising Strategy for the Mass Market" defines the
power of illustration (or the illustrator) to portray any given message.
ÒIt is the very nature of thought and language to
represent what is immaterial in picturable terms...you can start with an
immaterial fact, such as passion which you actually experience, and invent
visibilia to express them.Ó(Stern p84)
Rosie the Riveter1,
is the first image to appear in Propaganda
Illustrated, illustrated by Norman Rockwell in May 29,1943 for the
Saturday Evening Post in conjunction with AmericaÕs Office of War InformationÕs
ÒBasic Plan for WomanpowerÓ encouraging women into the workforce, the plan
read...
ÒThese
jobs will have to be glorified as a patriotic war service if American women are
to be persuaded to take them and stick to them,Ó http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/journey/rosie-transcript.html
RosieÕs image embodies the womanpower
campaign: She is portrayed with large and masculine forearms imitating strength
but retaining feminine characteristics. She wears lipstick and rouge to accent
her upturned nose, nail polish to feminise working hands and has a lace
handkerchief visible from her pocket, her visor could be interpreted as a halo.
She has a very large riveting gun resting in her lap which visually
links beneath her boots to Adolf HitlerÕs book, Mein Kampf. Illustrated in the same tone as the American flag waving in the background
compounds the patriotic message. The message is clear, through her defence job
she will help to defeat Hitler. Working women portrayed on posters, known
collectively as ÒRosie the Riveter,Ó dressed in overalls and bandanna were
conveyed as strong and competent creating a new, vigorous image of feminine
beauty. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/journey/rosie-transcript.html
Barbara Stern articulates how ÒRosie the RiveterÓ embodies the womanpower
message...
ÓPersonification in any form is never merely ornamental. It has a more serious
purpose, for is in its ÔdressÕ- its words, shapes colours, or notes. Only the
ÔdressÕ can incarnate an imaginative reality in a physical modeÓ
(Strern p 286)
Having no legal means to draft women
to serve in WW2, government instead employed emotive propaganda techniques of
patriotism, glamour, pride and fear to convince. Magazines were made aware of
government campaigns (Honey p14) and posters appeared in places where women
frequented such as the grocery store or beauty salons. (Propaganda Illustrated women in Navy Uniform2) ÒVogue magazine wrote,Ó
ÒThe uniform stands
for our new spine of purpose, our initiative in getting women working, splayed
out into hundreds of different jobs, to find talents which have been massed
over. It means that we know that it is time to stop all the useless little
gestures, to stop being the Little Woman and be women.Ó
http://www.freshlipstick.com/chapter.html
The male dominated patriarchal system
was already in a process of being redefined by a combination of womenÕs
suffragette efforts, economic necessity during the depression, labour relations
and new practices brought about during World War 1. (Buckley
p 288) WomenÕs roles during the World War 2 took on the task of ÔMenÕs workÕ, enabling the blur of
gender roles. Women also controlled the family spending and were the primary
receivers of income, giving them the role of head of house while husbands were
away. Many joined unions and found substantial new benefits from labor
representation. There was significant recognition that middle-class married
women could work and run a home, (although poorer women had always done so).
Women discovered a new sense of pride and dignity in their work and for the
first time in history masses of women had real options.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/journey/rosie-transcript.html
Propaganda
Illustrated image of Rosie the Riveter3, illustrated by J. Howard Miller emerges larger than life, fist
clenched ÒWe can do itÓ representing this period of womenÕs confidence and
vitality.
After
the war there was a period of celebration in which white middle class enjoyed
prosperity not felt through the depression and war years. It was a time of
unprecedented economic growth, incomes trebled and mass education saw the
breaking down of class barriers. Rapidly expanding mass consumerism was now
becoming the way in which western society operated. (Hamilton p 1). Peace
brought an end to agonising anxieties, to shortages, to the separations, and
the long hours of work and all of this coincided with a boom in babies and
marriages.
World War 2 saw a period that
threatened traditional values and an urgency of returning to "normal"
was quickly adopted. Strict gender roles and the importance of the nuclear
family and suburbia where propagated. Women were returned to their Òproper
placeÓ as full-time housewives through the emphasis that husbands and children
needed them there. Motherhood was seen as the acceptable goal for women. McCallÕs a popular magazine at the
time, launched an issue on family ÒTogethernessÓ promoting women to leave
behind ÒRosie the RiveterÓ type jobs and pursue their proper role as a
homemaker. (Honey)
Government and employers still held on
to the patriarchal sexual division of labour i.e. jobs on the basis of gender
and although the needs of capitalism for cheaper labour, it was common belief
that women should be kept in a separate domain. (Buckley p 288) Fulltime
childcare centres were deemed unnecessary after the war and federal funding was
withdrawn. There was the assumption that married women working for wages was
secondary to their proper role as fulltime housewife. (Honey p27) This proved
untrue as an excerpt from a Boeing tools aircraft worker explains,
"My mother
warned me when I took the job that I would never be the same. She said, 'You
will never want to go back to being a housewife.' At that time I didn't think
it would change a thing. But she was right, it definitely did ...at Boeing I
found a freedom and an independence that I had never known. After the war I
could never go back to playing bridge again, being a club woman...when I knew
there were things you could use your mind for. The war changed my life
completely. I guess you could say, at thirty-one, I finally grew up." Inez
Sauer, Boeing tool clerk. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/journey/rosie-transcript.html
In spite of pressure
on women to give up their jobs after the war, the seeds of permanent change had
been planted.
Magazine articles began to stress family issues such
as, children needing a full-time mother, exploiting the dangers of working
mothers to the extent to which they might be blamed for social problems of
teenagers. This cultural and popular pressure, reflected in the pages of the
women's magazines, was sharply visible in 1949 and progressed through the fifties
in the promotion of articles telling women to ÒHave babies While YoungÓ, asking
women ÒAre you training Your Daughter to be a Wife? and informing readers that
ÒReally a ManÕs World is PoliticsÓ (Metzl p 247)
Advertisers also aimed women toward the finer perks
of life – appliances, attempting to have women believe they either needed
or wanted these new and exciting domestic devices to make their lives more
simple. Consumer products promised liberation in the home in return for
increasing dependence on corporate production. (Spigel p 21) The image of the
glamorous hostess housewife, who marries younger than ever, bears more babies
and looks and acts far more feminine than the emancipated girls of the 1920Õs,
and 30Õs (Look magazine 1956) was promoted rather than the servant substitutes
women had become.
A relatively constant feature
of the sexual division of labor, however, is the delineation of women's role as
housewives and as carers for the family...As a result of this sexual division
of labor, designers assume that women are the sole users of home appliances.
Product advertising presents women as housewives who use domestic appliances
and family-oriented products. (Buckley p8)
Advertising
exploited the image of women's bodies, and helped endorse the powerful male
attitude that women were passive bodies to be endlessly looked at, waiting to
have their sexual attractiveness matched. (Buckley) Illustrators, of theses images, placed emphasis on face,
expression and body language. A new Look presented by fashion illustratorÕs
exaggerated small waists with big skirts reminiscent of Victorian times.
Al
Parker, prominent illustrator of the time concluded,
ÒIt wants no message, other than girls are cute and
men like cute girls. Prettiness prevailed, and warts and all were a no-no. The perfect woman demonstrated a new blend of
sexuality, ignorance, and naivete. " http://profmendez.tripod.com/html/ripk2.htm
Propaganda Illustrated Marilyn Monroe4, the pin-up icon is
perhaps the best known stereotype of this era. Articles downplayed her
skills as an actress and instead focus on her naivete and sex appeal.
Propaganda Illustrated 5, 6 Attractive and glamorous women are typical illustrations in many popular
escapist fictional stories in magazines before television pervades.
Betty Freiden author of
The feminine mystique, points out of magazines in this time that...
The image of woman that
emerges is young and frivolous, almost childlike; fluffy and feminine; passive;
gaily content in a world of bedroom and kitchen, sex, babies, and home. The
magazine surely does not leave out sex; the only passion, the only pursuit, the
only goal a woman is permitted is the pursuit of a man. (http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst203/documents/friedan2.html)
Post war consumer and popular culture,
so intimately linked to the housewife began to take its toll. Women felt
trapped and pressured by unrealistic images and roles created for them.
Magazines began to address the Òemotional problemÓ(depression) through health
columns in magazines advising the cure was to simply visit a doctor and obtain
a prescription pill, setting a precedent connecting women and
psycho-pharmaceuticals. The pills, commonly known as Òmothers little helpersÓ
were prescribed to help mothers Òget through their dayÓ. By the end of 1956 the
demand for these drugs surpassed any medication marketed in America, in 1957
the rate was one prescription every second for a year! (Metzl p 241)
In
1956, Life magazine published interviews with five male psychiatrists who
believed female ambition was the root of mental illness in wives, emotional
upsets in husbands and homosexuality in boys and in the same year the first
lobotomy in the U. S. was performed on a 63-year old woman. Some surgeons
believing this controversial operation was a cure for "mad housewife"
syndrome. http://www.feminist.org/research/chronicles/fc1956.html
Propaganda Illustrated The black and white image of the housewife
in a cup7 represents a
prisoner in her own home and the ludicrous and hopeless situation she finds
herself in.
Propaganda Illustrated The image of
the housewife slowly sinking8 represents the loss of power and identity in her role
as housewife. A young wife in a Long Island development interviewed by Betty
Freiden said:
ÒI seem to sleep so much. I don't know why I should be
so tired. This house isn't nearly so hard to clean as the cold-water Hat we had
when I was working. The children are at school all day. It's not the work. I
just don't feel alive.Ó
Betty Freiden also quoted
ÒThe feminine mystique has succeeded in burying millions
of American women alive.Ó
ÒThe problem that has no name — which is simply
the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human
capacities — is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental
health of our country than any known disease.Ó http://www.h-net.org/~hst203/documents/friedan1.html
Conclusion
Through propaganda and advertising
campaigns between the years of 1942 to 1960 a collage of many and paradoxical
illustrated images penetrated womenÕs culture. Propaganda Illustrated has sequenced them into a dizzying, spinning animation, strong and
powerful to begin and fading appropriately towards the end.
Wini Breines articulates this period
well when she says,
...femininity has always been characterized by such
inconsistencies, or, double binds. When the possibilities for fuller
participation in social, economic and political life have grown so has the
punishment for taking advantage of those possibilities. The decade of the
1950Õs is an extreme example of this phenomenon. As several writers of the
period point out it was a time of profound paradoxes; inconsistencies and
contradictions were heightened. (Breines p 602)
Depression has many guises, in the 1950Õs
women were seen as neurotic or had Òmad housewife syndromeÓ, before that it was
termed ÒhysteriaÓ, today it manifests in anxiety, mood and eating disorders.
(Gardner) Propaganda and illustration realised a profound result with ÒRosie
the RiveterÓ and ÒWe can do it!Ó
Perhaps this style of campaign could be adopted to benefit many others with
depression related disorders?
Illustration and Propaganda
saw their last powerful relationship between 1942 and 1960. Their lasting
legacy helped to establish a vibrant visual vocabulary for the new suburban
life so apparently desired in the aftermath of the Depression and World War 2.
Television and Photography, preferred for capturing the moment, catapulted
illustration from centre stage to a more decorative and conceptual role.
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Art,
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Harvey, Sheridan
Rosie the Riveter Transcript
Lines and Colours
Propaganda Information
Society of
Illustrators – history of Illustration 1940 to 1950
Norman Rockwell
Museum Ephemeral Beauty Al Parker Exhibition
Warring Images: The Missing Chapter
Animation Image References
1 Rosie the
Riveter, Oil on canvas, Rockwell, Norman,1943
2 Don't Miss Your
Great Opportunity, Oil on canvas, John Falter, Poster, 1944
3 Rosie the
Riveter, J Howard Millar, medium unknown 1942,
Produced by Westinghouse for the War Production Co-ordinating Committee
4 Gentlemen prefer
Blondes, medium unknown, artist unknown, Movie Poster, 1953
5 Women in tight
suit, De Mers, Joe, 1950Õs
6 Man and Woman,
medium unknown, Lovell, Tom, Cosmopolitan magazine, 1955
7 Women in cup, pen
& ink wash, Allen, Charlie Billboard, Year unknown
