The Center for the Ethics presented a speaker on February 7th, named Mark Harris. His book, “Five Came Back,” fits well into the center’s theme of “War and Peace-Building”.
Harris began by saying he could end this talk quickly by posing a simple question: “Is war propaganda ever good?” He could say no and end it there, but he made it clear that there was more to learn about it.
His book features five movie directors who were at the top of their fields during World War II. They suspended their careers for three to four years to join the army. They then returned to Hollywood as changed men. Harris explained how different the media was during the time of the war and how much it has changed since.
The main movies in theaters were weekly short news clips. During the time of the war about 80 million people out of a population of approximately 130 million were going to the movies on a regular basis to view these. He said simply, “People went (to the movies) to escape reality or engage with it.”
In the 40’s, documentaries were also very different and the use of propaganda in them was acceptable. They did not have the same set of ethics in place when it came to these films meaning they saw nothing wrong with confusing the audience by mixing up the real and the fictional.
At the time, Washington was attempting to use Hollywood’s creativity for its own benefit. They came up with topics they “suggested” Hollywood include in their movies to demonstrate how dangerous the enemy was and how well prepared America was. The government also insisted they include more African Americans in their films to “normalize” them and stop producing “hate pictures” depicting the Japanese as subhuman.
One example he included of the government’s influence in Hollywood was in the movie, “Tunisian Victory”. Three American filmmakers decided to create a sequel to a film created by the British which poorly depicted their victory in Africa. They recreated footage pretending to liberate villages in Africa and carry out bombings. They convinced the British to work with them on the film and the result was terrible. There were simply too many parties with different goals involved in the filmmaking and there was no regulation of what could be shown in documentaries.
During the Q&A section of the talk, he was asked why he chose the five directors he did. He explained they were the most famous in Hollywood at the time and between them, they had a large variety of experiences.
Harris claimed that despite all this, there were immense benefits from the marriage between Hollywood and Washington. The lesson to be learned is that while we shouldn’t dismiss everything, we should always question a little. When we watch a movie we should ask ourselves: who made it, under what circumstances, and what is its purpose. Basically, “Can you believe your eyes?”
