I've seen American wartime "documentaries" that portrayed Japanese in
caricature form as little more than vermin with round glasses and buck
teeth. There's one we saw in a class that featured Robert Conrad and
Jack Webb where "Reds" were portrayed as mindless, robotic servants of
evil. Persuasive films used for political purposes are frequently
pretty misleading and often used to portray a group of people as less
than human. That dehumanizing makes a lot of what's asked of the public
during times of war more palatable.
On Nov 30, 2003, at 12:34 PM, Jerry Liles wrote:
Reifenstal's films are the best known from the Third Reich, and, as
you say, have a debatable message, though I would argue the Triumph of
the Will was ultimately malignant. The so-called documentaries that
were unequivocally malign were those like, "The Eternal Jew". Failing
to condemn them is unconscionable. They were, without doubt, evil.
Jerry Liles
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