Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" is sometimes ranked as the most effective propaganda film of all time, although she claimed that it was simply an "art film."
The latest email bulletin from the USC Center on Public Diplomacy called our attention to a list that someone has compiled of the "Top 10 Propaganda Videos." Viewing the list in chronological order is like taking a trip through the social obsessions of yesteryear: a clip from Leni Riefenstahl's 1935 pro-Nazi film, "Triumph of the Will"; a 1943 anti-Nazi cartoon by The Walt Disney Company, and a pro-tax film from the same year featuring Donald Duck; a Communist propaganda film from Moscow in the 1940s; American anti-Communist and anti-homosexual films from the 1950s; anti-porn and anti-LSD films from the 1960s; an anti-software piracy film from the 1990s; and a recent anti-American film that denounces the war in Iraq and the Project for the New American Century.
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Mutternich replied on Permalink
Great ant-porn clip.
Makes you want to rush out and take an ax to a newsstand. Don't you love the way George Putnam says "fet-tishhhhh"?
Maynard replied on Permalink
"Best Propaganda" ?
Isn't that an oxymoron?
What is good about propaganda? What makes one propaganda better than another?
Given that a lie, or deceptionn is inherent in propaganda, ...
Is it the veracity, or the lack thereof, of the message conveyed which makes it good? Or is it the facility by which the lie is promulaged?
Does the qualification of "good", "better", or "best" promote and validate the lie itself, or the technique?
These are serious questions for serious users of specific language, such as propagandists and those who intend to expose them.
Sadly, I couldn't find this reference on the USC Center on Public Diplomacy website.