Interview: Karl F. Cohen on Propaganda Animation
Interview About Brainwashed! Cartoons That Tell You What to Think
Oct 1, 2008
Prof. Karl F. Cohen earned his undergraduate degree in Art History at Berkeley in the late 1960’s. After realizing that films, not sculpture, were closer to his heart, he started collecting old movies, and showing them to his friends.
Eventually, he discovered propaganda animation, and he thought, “Why are we hiding this stuff? People should see this.” He wrote the 1998 book Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America, and put together Brainwashed! Cartoons That Tell You What to Think.
Suite 101 chatted with Cohen after a screening of Brainwashed! at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
What drew you to propaganda animation?
“I loved animation. In 1974, I worked on a political campaign for (hippie activist) Wavy Gravy, which was ‘Nobody for President.’ ’Who’s gonna lower your taxes? Nobody!’ (laughs)
"Those were wonderful days: young people raising Hell, collecting films in San Francisco. That’s how I discovered “The Sunshine Makers,” through hippies.
“I’ve been showing that to people ever since I got my print. Then I got more into scholarship. I’m writing another book, I’ve written articles for magazines about animation in politics, I wrote a piece about how the CIA helped fund (the 1954 film) Animal Farm - an adaptation of George Orwell’s book - to make it a little more hopeful and anti-communist.”
What’s the philosophy behind the Brainwashed series?
“People should see them. But it’s for the individual to decide how they’re going to relate to it. I can’t say, ‘Like this, and don’t like that’ because that’s my taste, that’s my political consciousness.
“For instance, if I was a segregationist in the Southern United States, I would say that “The Brotherhood of Man” was one of the most evil, vile things I’ve ever seen. And that’s how Southern senators responded to it.
"Whereas, if I was a White Liberal, I’d say, ‘Yeah, we have to show that (other people) are our brothers, not the enemy.’"
Do you see your work as arming the current generation against propaganda?
“That’s what I want to do with this program, is to make people aware. Because my students don’t understand what propaganda is until I show them these films. They understand afterwards, but what does propaganda mean? (imitates dense student) ‘I dunno.’
“They don’t realize that advertising, promotion, public service announcements: all of these are forms of indoctrination, they’re behavioural science experiments to see if they can get us to conform.
"Because, after World War II, they discovered they couldn't count on teachers to get the important messages across, so film companies started manufacturing these products. And these were films that were shown at PTA meetings: ‘How to be a Good Mother,’ ‘How to Raise Your Daughter,’ films about menstruation that the Kodak and Modus companies made, because at the time, (women) weren’t using the new sanitary products available."
To encourage women to go from using moss to using Playtex.
“Right. There was one product that had a commercial in the 1970’s: ‘You can rely on Rely’.
“Do you know what Rely was? It was a tampon (made by Procter & Gamble) that was so good that it absorbed all the liquid, and unfortunately it caused toxic shock syndrome, and women died from it.
"You’d have products that were wonderful, until they passed a law that forced them to say: ‘The side effects of this drug are . . .’ (laughs). You need a minute-long commercial because 30 seconds were (high falsetto) ‘I feel so much better when I use Brand X!’ then, ‘You have to be careful because it can cause so-and-so-and-so, and did we mention death?’ (laughs).
“So these films are wonderful, and at the same time, frightening. So how should people respond to it? Tough to say. Most people don’t think.”
Other than Brainwashed! and your classes, how else do you discuss propaganda animation?
“I teach at San Francisco State University part-time. I’m a freelance writer, I’ve written for The Guardian in London, a few US papers, and mostly on the Internet.
“Animato, Nelson Shin’s publication in Korea, he has made a lot of money, and he’s given it back to them in the form of this wonderful magazine. Whereas in the US, there’s not really a good animation magazine that really covers all aspects. We have a good trade, but that’s strictly for TV animation, which I detest. I grew up on things like Smurfs, and I love Dudley Do-Right and (Rocky & Bullwinkle animator) Jay Ward’s stuff, but most of the rest I could care less about: The Flintstones, and all that Hanna-Barbera stuff.”
Or the 80’s, with He-Man, Mask, Transformers: they were toy commercials disguised as entertainment.
“And that’s another problem today: deregulation has allowed product placement everywhere. For instance, Toy Story: wonderful film, but how many people think about it as a toy commercial? It is. Advertisers actually paid to be part of Toy Story, they paid to be part of Space Jam.
“I thought (Space Jam) was horrible, but I was also aghast because I was expecting a fun Bugs Bunny cartoon and I go ‘What the hell is that commercial doing there?’
“And it’s not only the merchandising that’s within the film, it’s the spin-offs. I remember reading about Space Jam, and they said, ‘The advertisers are going to make a billion dollars with their tie-ins’ just by having the Space Jam logo on their packaging. That’s gross. But it’s big business.”
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