Upload
bex-lewis
View
1.556
Download
1
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Presentation given at the Masculinities at War conference Summer 2009
Citation preview
MEN AT WORK: IN/VISIBLE MEN IN SECOND WORLD WAR POSTERS
Dr Bex Lewishttp://www.ww2poster.co.ukhttp://www.twitter.com/ww2poster
Appropriate?
http://ww2poster.wordpress.com
The Poster: Susan Sontag A public notice aims to inform or
command. A poster aims to seduce, to exhort, to sell, to educate, to convince, to appeal. Whereas a public notice distributes information to interested or alert citizens, a poster reaches out to grab those who might otherwise pass it by.
The Ministry of Information
• Central governmental publicity machine
• Formed September 1939
• Tell the citizen ‘clearly and swiftly what he is to do, where he is to do it, how he is to do it and what he should not do’.
Masculinity/Femininity
“Nationality, in the last resort, is tested by fighting. A man’s nation is the nation for which he will fight. His nationality is the expression of his ultimate allegiance.”
“One of the essential differences of function is that between fighting on the one hand, and the creation and preservation of life on the other.”
Ulster Unionist MP Enoch Powell, 1981
With Women
The Factories
The Fighting Front
In the Countryside
Posters did not stand alone Legislation Newspapers Radio Cinema Leaflets Window Displays
H.M. Bateman: The Man Who...
http://www.antiqueprintshop.co.uk/humorous.htm
Questionnaire ResponseThe one that seems very funny to me now but not at the time was VD Kills. In those days such a thing was never mentioned such was the ignorance, but it must have been a very big problem as this was the largest poster of the lot. When you asked about it, a look of horror would come over the person’s face and you would get no explanation. Then one of the schoolboys got the full facts from a soldier at the nearby camp. “You went deaf, and blind and your nose fell off” and you caught this affliction by talking to girls. Needless to say after that you only spoke to boys. I remember averting my eyes every time I passed that poster. Male, Rotherham, reply to questionnaire, March 1998.
Venereal Disease
Thank you for your time.
QUESTIONS?