Warners' War: Politics, Pop Culture & Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood Background  The connection between Hollywood and American politics became an increasingly pertinent area of inquiry after the 9/11 attacks. The marriage between the media, its moguls, and the American political system has long affected public life in this country and around the world. There's no clearer example of this than the politically-driven films Warners Bros. produced before and during World War II.
This period exemplifies the sometimes ambiguous relationship between Hollywood's and Washington's respective political agendas. While the Roosevelt Administration still embraced a neutrality policy, the Warners made propagandistic films aimed at swaying public sentiment toward involvement in the war. In fact, Hollywood propaganda was so successful that in 1941, a Senate subcommittee began investigative hearings on war propaganda disseminated by the motion picture industry.
Once the U.S. entered the war, the hearings stopped and Warner Bros. continued their cinematic campaign against the Nazi threat - this time with government support.
The Warners' War Project
The Lear Center's Celebrity, Politics & Public Life project - in partnership with the USC Warner Bros. Archives (based at the USC School of Cinema-Television) and USC's Fisher Gallery - sponsored a gallery exhibition, a panel discussion, and a screening of rare materials from the Warner Archives, all focusing on the remarkable anti-facist efforts of the studio.  Gallery Exhibition: October 1 - December 13, 2003
This exhibition, based on the collection of the USC Warner Bros. Archives, examined the marriage between purveyors of filmic culture and the American political machine. Armed with one of Hollywood's most powerful studios, the Warner brothers fought a personal crusade against Hitler with propagandistic films made for both public consumption and exclusive military use. Photos, historical documents, and animation art, along with selected animated shorts that continuously screened in the Fisher Gallery Reading Room, demonstrated the power of cinema as a propagandistic tool. By tracing the connection between films like Confessions of a Nazi Spy (which prompted the hearings), Sergeant York, Mission to Moscow, and Casablanca, we revealed the transition of feature films from independent political tools to government supported propaganda. Warner Bros.' Private SNAFU, an animation series made for military personnel, lays bare the symbiotic association between cinematic culture and politics.
 Film Screening: October 28, 2003
The Lear Center organized a public screening of Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Warner Bros infamous anti-fascist film.
Panel Discussion: October 30, 2003
This stirring discussion featured Frank Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, English Professor Leo Braudy (author of The Frenzy of Renown), Cinema Professor Dana Polan (author of Power and Paranoia: History, Narrative and the American Cinema), History Professor Steven J. Ross (author of the forthcoming Hollywood Left and Right: Movie Stars and Politics), and Nancy Snow, Senior Fellow at USC's Center for Public Diplomacy.
Book: Warners' War: Politics, Pop Culture & Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood
This beautifully produced book, funded by a USC Arts Initiative grant, brings together the materials from the exhibition, including an introduction by the curator, Randi Hokett; essays by Professor Braudy, Professor Ross, Professor Polan, and Professor Snow; a report on the panel discussion by Johanna Blakley; and a research bibliography and filmography. The book is richly illustrated with film stills, animation art, and scans of press materials and correspondence from the Warner Archives. The book addresses multiple audiences, including members of the entertainment industry and researchers and students in film, history, cultural studies, American studies, Jewish studies, law, communications, and political science. If you would like to receive a free copy of book, please email us at enter@usc.edu. | 
