Postscript

Among its many novel consequences for postwar American politics and culture, World War II gave birth to a vast and highly-effective propaganda apparatus ensconced in the warfare state. While “propaganda” has always been regarded as somehow alien to the American experience, something more familiar with dictatorships, it has in fact thrived in the U.S.—not, however, as a classic, state-controlled system of ideological manipulation, but rather as a deeply-ingrained culture of militarism embedded largely in the corporate media. Above all, this has meant a powerful role for Hollywood cinema, prolific conveyer of Good-War motifs since the 1940s, in both documentaries and feature movies. To this point Thomas Doherty writes: “More than any other war—more than any other twentieth-century American experience—it [World War II] was motion-picture friendly. The magnetic pull of the war years wasn’t merely the attraction of adventure, romance, or high melodrama but the consolation of closure and the serenity of moral certainty. For Hollywood and American culture the Second World War would always be a safe berth.” ¹