Major Assignment: CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS

206 Contextual Analysis

 

An analysis of The Ducktators and the  WW2 American animation industry

 

Brian Prais
October 30th 2021

LOONEY TUNES (Looney Toons): The Ducktators (1942) (Remastered) (HD 1080p)

 

     The Ducktators, is a 1942 cartoon produced by Warner Brothers studio under the Looney Tunes brand. The short cartoon was directed by Norm McCabe, and was worked on by many of the regulars of the studio at the time, including famous voice actor Mel Blanc. Note the time in the war this cartoon was produced, it was created after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack and the allied invasion of Africa, but before the Normandy invasion of D-Day.

     The Warner Brothers studio at this point had already engaged in little over 4 years of making propaganda cartoons, with their first known “wartime” cartoon, What Price Porky, being published February 26, 1938, which was inspired as an American response to Mussolini’s campaigns in Ethiopia and european Facist warhawks of the time. However, only since 1941 had cartoonists begun using direct references to the German Nazi party, and direct references to the Axis leaders were not common. Come 1942, there is a significant increase in both the number of wartime propaganda cartoons, and the direct mention of Fuehrer Hitler, ”Il Duce” Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito, The Ducktators being one of many of those pieces released during the year. 

 

     The Ducktators itself begins with the introduction of the Barnyard setting, and two happy, German-sounding ducks surrounding a black egg, and to their surprise a small Hitler-look alike duckling emerges giving a loud “Sieg Heil” salute. See the images below for a comparison between the Duck Hitler, and the real Hitler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From then on the new duckling Hitler, the now called “Bad Egg” grows, fails at his artistic pursuits, and begins giving loud and rousing speeches to the other ducks, including one bald, bulky goose with a thick Italian accent, the cartoons portrayal of Benito Mussolini, see the comparison below to see how his features are exaggerated. Despite being part of the Italian Fascist party, Mussolini is seen wearing a Nazi armband, most likely for easy understanding of who is the villain, and to drive home the swastika is not meant to be trusted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

     These new “Ducktators”, a play on the word dictator, take over the barnyard through force as shown via a few skits, and are not to be taken as anything benevolent. A dove of peace laments the show of might, and during a Swastika covered peace treaty meeting, the duck Hitler tears the treaty up comically and begins a brawl. The cartoon cuts from the brawl to the third Ducktator, Emperor Hirohito, who appears with comically large round glasses, buck teeth, and a silly hat, while singing in a very stereotypical Asian accent. Note, some sources claim the duck does not represent the Emperor Hirohito, but in fact Hideki Tojo, the prime minister of Imperial Japan at the time, which is understandable due to the fact they wore similar glasses and military hats, as you can see in the image comparisons below. However, all future propaganda where the Japanese leadership is mentioned in a worldly context, such as Der Fuehrer’s Face(1943), directs it towards Hirohito primarily, so it is safe to assume Hirohito was consistently on full blast. Names of the Japanese leaders would not really matter to the primarily American target audience of the time anyways, they would hate either leader vehemently after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. Notice the armband on Duck Hirohito, who again isn’t a Nazi but a sovereign leader, being lumped in with the swastika for audience convenience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duck Hirohito proceeds to try claiming an Island, to represent Japanese expansion, the island actually revealed as a disgruntled turtle who proceeds to begin beating the diminutive duck in some slapstick, while racist comedy thrown about in between swings.

     United, the Ducktators three now take their reign over the barnyard to the dismay of the dove of peace. The dove tries to plead once more for peace only to be trampled by the feet of duck soldiers, which drives him to instead roll up his imaginary sleeves and begin beating the Ducktators. Seeing the dove fight inspires the oppressed animals, who proceed to begin their own brawls with the soldiers and secret police of the barnyard, and in the end, all three Ducktators are beaten down, and their heads hung over the dove of peace’s fireplace with the scene transitioning into an ad for war bonds, using the statement “If you’d like to make this true, this is all you have to do.” and promptly  flashing the ad on screen. (See images below):

 

 

 

 

 

 

      The Ducktators was meant to portray the direct personalities of the axis leaders, especially the European leaders in a negative light, to deliberately rile the American people to support the war effort in Europe. Allied forces at the time just began the invasion of Africa to set up a staging point to invade Italy, D-Day did not occur yet, there was no American presence in Europe. We can assume this because the cartoon included a prominent ad to promote the buying of American War bonds as well as introducing/reinforcing the stereotypes of the European axis leaders to American people.

     None of this is coincidence in regards to timing or content, and the shift in cartoon topics from general war with “off-brand” fascists to get the peoples minds on war, to the new goal post of direct attacks on the axis leaders and more pointed name dropping. More specific cartoons most likely made for more compelling content, and also drove home the need to win the war, which in turn would not only keep war time people entertained, but also compelled them to aid in the war effort, out of a sense of duty, patriotism or disgust for their enemy. This is how the animation industry, and much of the rest of the entertainment industry, survived the war.

     Looking at how this short, and on a larger scale the animation industry as a whole, used stereotypes to push their agendas is important to understand the times they were made. At the time, before any sort of civil rights movement, defamation by race, appearance, nationality was not only common, but usually rewarded by audience engagement and profit. Even worse, by creating stereotypes, one could control the thinking of other people, whole nations even, making them an effective tool in wartime. Before The Ducktators, the Japanese Americans already experienced the possible after effects of pushing racially charged propaganda, and would feel it for generations to come.

     In The Ducktators the emergence of many stereotypes pertaining to the personality, appearance, and culture of the leaders of axis nations can be seen. These are not done without intent, and many of these ideas and clichés would be repeated in later years of the war and evolved, such as the Japanese stereotype used in The Ducktators  later appearing more fleshed out in later cartoons such as the aforementioned Der fuehrer’s face,  Tokio Jokio, and  Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.  Stereotypes that both “sell” and get across ideas useful to those in power end up becoming the most prolific, and end up sometimes becoming confused with history itself. 

     One main stereotype exploited by the cartoon is not one based on race or personal appearance, but rather the attitude of the axis leaders toward peace. At the time, Neville Chamberlain’s Munich agreement was still fresh, however, there was no true peace treaty signed, but “a declaration of a desire to resolve differences through consultation to assure peace”.(Munich Agreement, Encyclopedia Britannica) The Munich Agreement at the time, as it is today, was always misconstrued as a hard peace treaty, and thus ended up treated as such.

     The Ducktators takes the same stance, and displays the axis leader’s disdain for peace in a scene beginning at the 4:00 minute mark. In this scene, the dove of peace weeps over the “show of might”, and once done the scene fades into a Swastika covered peace conference(4:12) displaying Germany’s overbearing presence. Inside the conference, while Mussolini goofs off, mirroring the opinion of Mussolini goofball attitude amongst the axis leaders, Duck Hitler signs a peace treaty only to immediately throw it in the aptly named “Treaty Tearer Upper”(4:24) and begin a brawl in the conference. Audience members are shown Duck Hitler does not care for peace treaties at all, even though he never signed a true peace treaty, and sums up Hitler’s character regarding treaties as irreverent, and carries no goodwill. An exaggeration for sure, as what are the axis powers held together by if not treaty and goodwill themselves?

     Of course, race and appearance are not left out of the picture, and are used often in the cartoon. Duck Hitler’s appearance is made specifically to portray an idea of the man more than his actual appearance. In the image below from the cartoon, he is portrayed with frantic eyes and wild hair, and is more often than not yelling at the top of his lungs, this portrayal is one of the more common ones seen throughout wartime films. A caricature that could be considered harsh and belligerent humor, poking fun at the man while not making him out to be non threatening, to ensure the audience has laughs while not dulling them to the threat.

 

 

 

Mussolini’s portrayals couldn’t be farther from that sentiment , and he is often portrayed as a fat, bald, egotistical goofball. Mussolini is often portrayed without teeth so to speak, especially when Hitler is in the same piece of media, as to give Hitler even more bite. Often seen in the piece is where Mussolini is used as almost a comic relief to Hitler, such as his antics at the peace conference seen in the image below, or his jovial nature and hand gestures when talking about how smart Hitler is, seen at the 2:22 mark in the cartoon. Mussolini was ousted in mid 1943, and this position of comic relief  was replaced by high ranking Nazis such as Herr Goering or Goebbels in other wartime cartoons.

 

Recognizing these threads of thought is important, because they can be traced all back to Hollywood and government intermingling.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 17th 1941, Lowell Mellett was appointed as the coordinator of government films, and made a get-acquainted trip to Hollywood in January 1942. To quote Koppes Black’s book Hollywood goes to war “ Addressing a gathering of the War Activities Committee of the Motion Picture Industry, Mellett reaffirmed his belief in freedom of the screen he praised the industry for alerting Americans to the danger of Fascism, even before the war:”. Even before the United States entered the world war, Roosevelt had helped establish the Motion Picture Committee operating for Defense in 1940 to steer the entertainment industry in an American Positive direction(Black, 1987). Black describes the effort the entertainment industry went through to create films and shorts using wartime themes, even using legal action to protect their films.

     In the summer of 1941, before the Pearl Harbor attacks, American interventionist activity was at an all time high, with a pro war rally being held that year’s Hollywood Bowl in late June, with a Hollywood Bowl normally being a big event for the entertainment industry to show off their work to each other. In response to this, an anti war US Senator, Senator Nye held a national radio speech calling out pro-war Hollywood. He claimed these movies and shows did not show the true horrors of war, “ Films did not show men “Crouching in the mud… English Greek and German boys disemboweled, blown to bits You Merely See them marching in their bright uniforms firing the beautiful guns at distant targets“”(Black 1987).  He also pointed out how Hollywood was home to many British actors and directors, who had vested interest in their homeland. Nye then led a committee hearing against the entertainment industry, and the “propaganda” films they made, even when the US presidency backed the Hollywood entertainment monopoly through the Motion Picture Committee operating for Defense.

     This hearing was a bitter affair, opening with Nye giving a 41 page speech on foreign control of Hollywood, both British and Jewish, and how their lust for war and protecting their people was completely natural to them, but definitely not American born. The industry responded with the claims of being entertainment first, but soon more claims went back and forth, and Hollywood defenders declared Nye as pro censorship and racist. Hollywood’s defense soon brought out their ace, Wendell Willkie who denounced Nye and his perceived racially motivated attacks, “ If the committee feels that the racial and geographic background of American citizens is a condition to be investigated there is no need for the investigation”… “ We frankly state that in the motion picture industry there are in positions both prominent and inconspicuous, both Nordic and non Nordics, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, native and foreign born”. Willkie continued on, his main point being, “ the motion picture industry and its executives are opposed to the Hitler Regime… we make no pretense of friendliness to Nazi Germany”(Black, 1987). After a long battle the hearings ended, where the crux became those who were believed to be antisemetic, and anti Hollywood, were pro Hitler, and the movie industry that fought against Hitler were the true Americans. Isolationists who headed the hearings soon became public targets for the media, and the entertainment industry, Warner Brothers included, kept on with interventionist themes.

      Between government support, the failure of anti war supporters, and the markets of Europe drying up due to Nazi expansion, Hollywood and Warner Brothers with it, were more than willing to support the war effort.  There exist many cartoons, such as Bugs Bunny Bond Rally and Donald’s Decision that were used as advertisements for war bonds, they directly supported the war effort, and were accessible even for many common folk who couldn’t help with skills or enlistment.  Many other animations were made for other pro war civilian efforts too, such as recycling scrap metal, saving cooking grease to be used in explosives, or the growing of victory gardens to save on food costs. Animation was also widely used inside the military for entertainment and instructional videos, but the most concentrated efforts and the first efforts were focused on war bond advertisement, the first among them being the already mentioned Bugs Bunny Bond Rally, which released only 7 days after the pearl harbor attack, on December 14th 1941.

     Clearly, Warner Brothers animation studios and the pre wartime government had a common goal in mind during the second world war and the ideas to be presented to the people, even before the rise of the Office of War Information(OWI), which was founded in 1942. With the OWI was founded a scant two months before this cartoon was created, and after quite a few pro war cartoons were already released starting in 1939, meaning the relationship between the two was not always dictated by the needs of war, as the US was outside of the World War at the time besides providing supplies to allied Britain. A conjoined effort took the form of the stereotypes seen in many productions, and the effort not only remained consistently but grew and evolved with the progress of the war until its end. 

  

Works Cited

“Donald Duck – Der Fuehrer’s face | eng sub”, Youtube, uploaded by Solarer111, January 4th 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn20oXFrxxg

 

 Koppes, Clayton R., and Gregory D. Black. Hollywood Goes to War : How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies  Black. Free Press, 1987.

 

“Munich Agreement”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Sep. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Agreement. Accessed 29 October 2021.

 

“List of World War II Short Films.” Wikipedia, 5 Aug. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_short_films. , accessed October 29th 2021

“LOONEY TUNES (Looney Toons): The Ducktators (1942) (Remastered) (HD 1080p)” Youtube, uploaded by 8thManDVD.com™ Cartoon Channel, December 8th 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdMlqq-vL5A 

 

Reflection on the work done, and what I learned.

In writing and revising this paper, I grew more as a writer than my past two assignments combined. This paper built off of my multimodal analysis, and its topic. I learned that when a topic isn’t broke, there’s no need to fix it. However, I needed to step up my game severely in order to keep the ball rolling. To do that, I revised how I incorporated images into my essay, including giving them captions for ease of reading, and including a lot of images in the first place when a point needed to be accentuated. Giving the reader more things to break up the monotony while saving the time of explaining every image helped keep the paper on track. The other big thing I stepped up on is research. Before, I would dig around exclusively on the internet, due to its reach and ease in use. I was challenged however, to use a book from the SUNY New Paltz library as well, something that I took a bit of time perusing to find a useful source. While my research did not line up with what I was expecting, Hollywood Goes to War was extremely enlightening nonetheless. It was a niche topic, extremely unknown, and relevant to the groundwork laid out, so it was a no brainer to include it. My initial draft it only was given a small paragraph mention, but when given a chance to revise I dug into the text and brought the meat of the book I used forward.  Images and Research really carried the essay, filling the gaps with content, explanation was secondary.