Honored Faculty Lecturer of the Year Dan Loomis, professor of history and humanities, presented his topic "Cartoons, Psychological Warfare, and WWII or Willy and Joe Get Drafted" on April 21.
Loomis has been teaching at Chaffey since 1993, joining the full-time ranks in 1998. He attended Chaffey as a student and obtained his bachelor's degree from Cal State San Bernardino and his master's from Cal State Fullerton.
Loomis' theme for the lecture was propaganda and psychological warfare in cartoons.
Psychological warfare's primary purpose is to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives. Loomis explored several cartoons in his lecture.
He said that propaganda can be as blatant as a swastika or as subtle as a joke. Both are persuasive techniques used to exploit political aspects.
Loomis illustrates his point by using a few Disney cartoons. For example, the Donald Duck cartoons titled "The New Spirit," and "The Spirit of '43" show Donald torn between spending his money or saving it for taxes to support the war.
"Taxes will keep democracy on the march," is a reference to "The Spirit of '43" which is now banned due to the offensiveness of the film.
Loomis also explored the work of Bill Mouldin, a WWII cartoonist who created two cartoonist infantrymen, Willie and Joe. Many GI's used his cartoons as an outlet for their frustrations, but in peace time others were just plain offended.
The people who created these cartoons may not have known the controversy that they would be getting themselves into, but Loomis acknowledges that these images dehumanized the enemy and portrayed them as racially and, in many cases, biologically inferior to Americans.
"These images reflect a wartime mindset that all things are subject to conscription and impressments during times of total war," Loomis said.
Tying these images to American History is significant. Although some of the images raise controversy, he said, "these images prove to be a medium of the stereotypical version of the enemy we are at war with."
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