V Was for Victory.... (3)

Politics and American Culture During WWII (3). John Morton Blum. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1976.

Why read it? Perspective from the Home Front in World War II. The effects of American propaganda on the American people. A completely different view of a war from our more recent wars, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Ideas:

“The wartime function of the movies is to build morale, and morale is… education… inspiration… confidence.” Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense. p. 25.

“…every picture, romantic or dramatic or funny, would ‘involve consciousness of war.’ ” p. 25.

“The forthright facts…would depress people to the point of suicide.” p. 28.

“MacLeish could not…feel comfortable with the prospect of suburban love and life as the objective of the war.” p. 28.

“MacLeish was caught…as others had been before him, in the clash of competing bureaucracies in Washington.” p. 30.

“The result, as he [MacLeish] put it to Roosevelt, was a Tower of Babel.” p. 30.

To be continued.