Abstract
In this chapter, I want to reframe our understanding of the role of movies in the US war effort in 1917–1918 by focusing not on American propa-ganda war movies and their assumed power to persuade and manipulate, but on the marketing paratexts of such movies and their power to offer participatory spaces for audiences.1 More precisely, I propose to forego any discussion of film texts as propaganda in order to analyze film culture as a discursive space designed with audience engagement in mind; specifically, as a performative culture used by the American nation to engage with patriotic values. What made this possible, I argue, was the deployment of humor in the marketing of propaganda films—through jokes, hoaxes, carnival-inspired fun, and excessive theatricality.
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© 2015 Clémentine Tholas-Disset and Karen A. Ritzenhoff
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Lyczba, F. (2015). Hoaxes, Ballyhoo Stunts, War, and Other Jokes: Humor in the American Marketing of Hollywood War Films during the Great War. In: Tholas-Disset, C., Ritzenhoff, K.A. (eds) Humor, Entertainment, and Popular Culture during World War I. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137436436_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137436436_4
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