Anti-Facism Film 🎬 Don't be a Sucker

"Don't be a Sucker"

Anti-Facism Film

Why are people circulating this old anti-facism film?
Don't Be a Sucker is a short film produced by the United States Department of War released in 1947, adapted from an earlier, longer version from 1943.

It has anti-racist and anti-fascist themes, and was made to educate viewers about prejudice and discrimination.

The film was also made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.

Plot
An American who has been listening to a racist and bigoted rabble-rouser, who is preaching hate speech against ethnic and religious minorities and immigrants, is warned off by a naturalized Hungarian immigrant, possibly a Holocaust survivor or escapee, who explains to him how such rhetoric and demagogy allowed the Nazis to rise to power in Weimar Germany, and warns Americans not to fall for similar demagogy propagated by American racists and bigots.

VIDEO

In popular culture
In August 2017, the short film went viral on the internet in the aftermath of the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and various copies have been uploaded to video sharing sites in the past year.

The 1947 educational film "Don't be a Sucker" was shared online in the wake of a neo-Nazi protest in Charlottesville, Va.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Be_a_Sucker

Title: Don't Be a Sucker (high resolution 35mm transfer).webm
Author: US National Archives
Date: 22 August 2017

Distributed by  United States Department of War
Release date     

- July 4, 1943
- 1947 (shorter version)
Running time - 18 minutes (1943)
- 17 minutes 21 seconds (1947)

See Original Full film here:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Don%27t_Be_a_Sucker_%28high_resolution_35mm_transfer%29.webm

In 1943, the US government created and distributed an anti-fascism PSA that showed a man realizing the danger in fascist propaganda and hateful rhetoric. At one point he says, "He's talking about me."

A World War II anti-fascism propaganda video made found a new audience after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday, Aug. 12.

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This 1943 anti-Nazi film keeps going viral.

It may be less effective than it seems.

By Alissa Wilkinson VOX Updated Jun 29, 2018

A study of the short film Don’t Be a Sucker suggests old attitudes about fascism in America have never gone away.

In the hours following the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in August of 2017, a short propaganda film called Don’t Be a Sucker, first produced in 1943 by the US Department of Defense and then re-released in 1947, went viral on the internet. And in the months since, it’s been repeatedly invoked on Twitter as a prescient harbinger of our current reality, 75 years after its creation.

Created as a warning against creeping fascism and racism in the United States, the movie illustrates the divide-and-conquer method employed by German Nazis. When the film was produced, the US had entered the ongoing war in Europe only two years earlier. Originally 20 minutes long, it was created by the Army Signal Corps to raise soldier morale, but an edited version was produced after the war and shown widely for educational purposes — including in cinemas.

Don’t Be a Sucker feels strangely timely today. But in 1951, researchers Eunice Cooper and Helen Dinerman published a study in the Public Opinion Quarterly analyzing the film’s effectiveness (it’s now accessible on JSTOR) — and their findings are just as timely and important as the film. Beyond that, they’re chilling.

 

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/8/14/16143782/dont-be-a-sucker-propaganda-charlottesville-nazi-racism