Saturday, February 7, 2009

Saturday Morning Cartoons

You know who sucked a lot? The Nazis.
Now that I've gone out on such a limb here is a propaganda cartoon by Walt Disney from 1943 called Education For Death: The Making of The Nazi

This film was released when Disney, fresh off the bomb that was Fantasia (at the time)needed more money and so, according to Wikipedia, "Nearing bankruptcy and faced with a strike that left less than half of his employees on the payroll, Walt Disney was forced to look for a solution to upturn the production of the studio. Because of the physical closeness to the military manufacturing giant, Lockheed Martin, it allowed for the U.S. government to offer Disney a contract for 32 short propaganda films at $4,500 each which would create work for his employees and in turn save the studio"

So we can thank this little gem for allowing us to have, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and The Tramp and Sleeping Beauty (I think after that point the ship would've righted itself) and it is kind of a gem. Even though the material and story are as grim as you can get (expectedly), the animation is superb and the Sleeping Beauty vignette is actually kind of funny. Though it always troubles me that in 1943, when everyone must've known about the concentration camps and atrocities and other cruelty that Hitler was portrayed as an object of farce and ridicule instead of an object of malevolence.
But from 1943 here's "Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi"




And I guess I'm just maybe a little naive or I'm of my time and place but it never made sense to me how a whole nation could hate so thoroughly and vitriolically...until I saw some of the propaganda the Nazis offered to the smallest and most impressionable of their citizens like this cartoon
or saw this 1940 film about Jewish Immigration

and read The Poisonous Mushroom

It still doesn't make sense to me, but I guess I understand if this is all you see and are raised on from the time you can think, well...there would be little hope.
Ugh; I feel sick and it is too early for this; I'm sorry.
So mommas don't let your kids grow up to hate

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