Why We Fight: Prelude to War

The Frank Capra film Why We Fight - Prelude to War divides the world in two sides, one good and one evil. The good side is the U.S. and its allies, what are called "free" peoples versus the evil side represented by dictatorships in Germany, Italy, and Japan know as the "slave" peoples (Capra, 1943). In Capra's film, generally considered to be the best piece of cinema propaganda aside from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, the director uses propaganda to persuade Americans to move away from isolationism, send troops into war, and form an alliance with the Russians. While Capra's film might be called government public relations by some, this essay will use Edward Bernays' theories on public relations and propaganda in Propaganda to show that all public relations attempt to persuade and are a form of propaganda.

Throughout history the elite classes in society who control a majority of the resources and the media have institutionalized the customs, ideas, values, products and services that are considered the "mainstream norm." As Edward Bernays (2004) maintains in Propaganda, "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." Bernays could have been referring to the government, powerful businessmen

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ry. The film maintains that there is a "totalitarian" world conspiracy intent on turning the free world into a slave world (Capra, 1943). While Capra does persuade through the use of propaganda, his methods are less overt than say Germany's Goebbels. Capra does use evidence to support many of the points being made, but the films still pits good against evil and a black and white manner without suggesting there are any redeeming qualities on the side of the enemy. Yet the film is propaganda at its best when it repeats scenes of Hitler's speeches and statements and then shows what Hitler did. It shows Hitler to break many promises without any explanation of why he felt he had to break promises. The film had a significant impact on American audiences, after being successfully used to train U.S. military forces. Like modern propaganda by the Bush administration, many were willing to believe after watching this film that it had to be us against them to protect freedom and democracy. As Bernays (2004) asserts of the average individual's willingness to accept such propaganda, citizens have "voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be na

Category: Film - W