Rise Of Isolationism: A Discussion Of Propaganda Into Film

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Prior, to the emergence of America entering World War I the era of Industrialization had finished and continuous conflicts between the ideals of the United States remaining in isolation were brought amongst by President Woodrow Wilson. However, this idea of Isolationism was challenged by the idea of expanding the nation 's borders, also known as Imperialism these two ideas conflicted greatly with each other. Towards the early 1900’s President Wilson was in office when Germany sank The Lusitania in which the United States had a decision to make by choosing to go into the war, around this time film was making an introduction into the world whether it being in the newly built film palaces or somewhere else. When the United States had announced …show more content…

The early uprising of emission of propaganda into film started with simple signs that displayed a message by President Wilson that cautioned and reminded viewers that around this time the United States still remained neutral, with the predicted effect of relief towards the American audience. However, as more propaganda became converted into commercial like film, film industries used religious figures to display a different method of solution that did not involve fighting such propaganda was promoted by uprising pacifist film industries. The expected effect towards the audience would be as a different approach towards their idea of war, and possibly change it to a peaceful mentality. In other words, the intended effect would be to hopefully change and show the American audience that conflicts can be solved without the need of fighting. By around 1914 the film industries created a “fiction film series” that “recreated” the destruction of German submarines, most of the American audience saw actual real submarine warfare. Such film propaganda of submarine warfare caused massive hysteria and theoretical mindsets in the newly exposed American society. By the end of 1915, after the sinking …show more content…

Film industries began to show more war propaganda to show the American audience that the United States had a big impact in the war. Joe Creele created the CPI, which greatly influenced and controlled war media that was allowed to be seen by the United States citizens. In other words, some of the war films were to graphic to be seen by the public in which needed to be “filtered”. The primary effect of this was to give the audience a glimpse of how the war was actually played out. However, most of the film created was “acted” out which caused manipulation of the American society, for example towards the middle of 1916 film industries created war films that gave an “accurate” view of the war some of this propaganda would show an American soldier who was severely wounded killing four Germans with his sidearm, some believed it was not possible. The overall purpose of this was to further fuel the patriotic mindsets of the American audience/society, and to give them more hope, confidence that the United States was set to win the war. The promotion of war bonds began to be used by the film industries, such as for example Bonzai, some in which movie starts would come