Abstract
Zachary Baqué examines World War II American propaganda films to analyze the representation of women from different cultural backgrounds. He questions how the federal government envisioned the role of women in the war effort at the time and uncovers, via looking at samples of the relevant film documentaries, that the films present a temporary and tempered version of revision in both roles and representations. In this way, while minute changes for women were implied in these propaganda films, women were never offered the possibility for radical evolution or to act as political subjects. Baqué concludes that the propaganda films of the time see the role of women as a kind of double bind rather than a process forward.
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Works Cited
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Films
The Arm Behind the Army (Signal Corps of the War Department, 1942).
Campus on the March (Office of War Information, 1942).
Glamour Girls of 1943 (Office of War Information, 1943).
It’s Your War, Too (Signal Corps of the War Department, 1944).
The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (Connie Field, Clarity Films, 1980).
Negro Colleges in War Time (Office of War Information, 1943).
Sex Hygiene (John Ford and Otto Brower, Signal Corps of the War Department, 1942).
Three Cities (Office of War Information, 1943).
Training Women for War Production (National Youth Administration, 1942).
Wartime Nutrition (Office of War Information, 1943).
Women in Defense (Office for Emergency Management, 1941).
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Baqué, Z. (2019). “So Long as They Are Maintaining a Bona Fide Family Relationship in the Home”: Women in World War II American Film Propaganda. In: Tholas, C., Goldie, J., Ritzenhoff, K. (eds) New Perspectives on the War Film. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23096-8_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23096-8_8
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