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Dylan Luttrell
Doctor Trujillo
English 203
16 December 2016
Not So Innocent Racism
Since the dawn of civilization, war has been an ever present part of human society. As
civilization progressed, so too did the techniques and technologies of war, making humans ever
more efficient killing machines. In order to go to war you must first convince the people that
your cause is worth dying over, and such “propaganda” has evolved as well. Historically it might
have been enough for a leader to tell his people that their God demanded that they go slaughter
those in an adjacent city state. As the “age of reason” came, people began looking for more
“logical” reasons to murder his fellow man. With the emergence of the theory of evolution in the
19th century came the notion that some human “races” were “superior” to others, and thus had a
“natural right” to dominate over the “others” through force. Both the Academia and public
consciousness have long discussed this as the justification for Hitler’s war in Europe. What is
less often discussed is the fact that White Americans held very similar, if not as extreme, views
of racial superiority in WWII, viewing the Japanese as inferior. Propaganda, such what was
shown in WWII era animation, simultaneously reflected and reinforced these racist views. It took
away any sense of humanity from the people of Japan and their American born descendants in
the eyes of American soldiers and policy makers, making it possible to justify everything from
mass internment of civilians to the desecration of the dead, and even potential of genocide.
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White America’s racist perceptions of the Japanese far predated WWII, originally having
been directed at Japanese-Americans, who were always viewed as outsiders and quickly
associated with Imperial Japan following Pearl Harbor. O’Reilly and Fugita note that in the
1910s and 1920s states enacted laws legislation baring Japanese from owning land, based on the
rationalization that that, “… They were from such a different culture that they could never adopt
American ways” (1). From the outset Japanese immigrants were seen as “alien” by White
Americans. They did not act like us, or look like us, and therefor could not be trusted. Denying
Japanese-Americans the right to own property means that they would only be able to settle where
they were tolerated, since they would have to find a willing renter. Downer notes, “After Pearl
Harbor, many eateries on the West Coast placed signs in their windows reading ‘This Restaurant
Poisons Both Rats and Japs’” (92). Given that, outside of Hawaii, Japanese-Americans were
concentrated on the West Coast, these signs would have specifically been targeted towards them.
The continued perception of these people as outsiders made it easy to put them on the side of the
Japanese, despite the fact that they were Americans. The signs specifically compare Japanese to
vermin, suggesting that they should be dealt with the same way. This was not the only time that
this particular comparison would be made.
WWII animated shorts echoed the sentiments and emphasized the racist views of wartime
Americans. In his book Serious Business, historian Seven Kanfer states that, “In their own
eccentric way, they provide an extraordinary reflection of the society and politics of their time”
(15). One thing wee see reflected in many wartime cartoons is a consolatory feeling over the
attack on Pearl Harbor. In much the same way that television latched onto the idea of “defeating
terrorists” after 9/11, these shorts portrayed the Japanese as a generic enemy to be beaten. They
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weren’t the only form of media to do this, however these cartoons could emphasize the racist
caricatures of this enemy, replete with buckteeth and dwarven proportions. Kanfer continues by
saying, “They also reveal a great deal about the psychology of the people who made them”. We
may not think of it that often, but those who produce our media are people too. In the case of
something like animation it is an entire group of people, all of whom have their own views and
beliefs. These views and beliefs help inspire their creations. In other words their creations reflect
their thought processes, and in this case prejudices against the Japanese. That is not to say that
animators at the time were necessarily responsible for these prejudges. As people, they were, and
are, equally subject to the influence of propaganda. Put simply, they themselves may repeating
something that they heard. Although when they repeat it, thousands if not millions more people
hear it too. Wittingly or not, these cartoonists helped spread this propaganda.
In the opening of “Tokio Jokio” the studio uses a deception of a malicious entity
concealed within a seemingly innocent one to suggest that everything we heard of Japan before
the war was just a deception hiding the true empire. At the start of the Warner Bros. cartoon
“Tokio Jokio” we are shown what at first appears to be a rooster in front of a rising run. The
crow of a rooster is symbolic of the new day. Since Japan is known as the land of the rising sun,
its native name “Nihon”, literally meaning “root of the sun”, the sun therefor represents the rise
of Japan, with this “rooster” announcing their rise in the global spotlight. However, as the
creature tries to crow, its skin comes off to reveal that it is actually a vulture with slanted eyes.
Vultures have a reputation of gathering around animals and even people who are close to death.
For this reason they are considered a bad omen, as their approach could signal your own demise
is nearing. The slanted eyes are an exaggerated stereotype commonly used to depict the Asian
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“race”, which suggests that this bird is meant to represent the Japanese. This creature pretended
to be something innocent, in much the same way, it would have been viewed at the time, that the
Japanese “pretended” to want peace with the United States by sending their envoys to
Washington (Reynolds). Its sudden reveal as a more menacing creature reflects how the attack on
Pearl Harbor would have seemed to have come out of nowhere. As the scene comes to a close,
this vulture is shown grinning and rubbing its hand-like wings together as the sun behind it
transforms into the flag of the Japanese Empire. The gesture that the vulture displays is
associated with malice. It reinforces the notion that this creature, and thus the Japanese people
whom it represents, intend only to cause harm. The transformation which occurs in the
background similarly shows that the country of Japan had hidden its intentions. Japan is not a
country looking to compete economically, but rather an empire looking to conquer. As the rooster
would have ushered in the day, the rise of this empire is being ushered in with an omen of death.
Through their 1944 animation “Commando Duck”, Disney argues that the Japanese
soldiers lack the sense of honor that American soldiers have. The short features Donald Duck as
a soldier on a mission to wipe out a Japanese base. While crossing a river, several concealed
snipers take aim at him. One of the snipers asks whether it is okay to open fire, to which the
other replies, “No no. Japanese custom say always shooting a man in the back please”. These
words are a variation upon the phrase “stab a man in the back”, which means to betray or act
against others in an in a dishonorable manner. This phrase exists because attacking someone in
the back, usually while they are retreating, is considered a violation of the “code of honor” which
western society expects soldiers to adhere to. While this may not accurately reflect the reality of
war, it was, and to some extent still is, the public perception of how war “should” be fought. The
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cartoon is suggesting that Japanese soldiers don't fight with honor like their American
counterparts, seeing no problem in resorting to “dirty tactics” like attacking a retreating enemy.
This in turn would have made American soldiers look better, as they were able to win battles
against the Japanese despite having their “hands tied” by the restrictions of having to “fight
honorably”. Furthermore the allusion to honor also serves to belittle Japanese’s own ideas of
honor, which we see in another part of the cartoon where two Japanese soldiers bowing over and
over to each other after one causes the other to be accidentally shot. While Japanese culture does
emphasis honoring others with polite words and gestures, these scene negatively exaggerates that
attitude, making it look like the Japanese are just obsessed with bowing to each other. They care
so much for their sense of honor, yet show no respect for the “code of honor” that soldiers are
“supposed” to follow. Their honor is not the “real honor” that their American counterparts
supposedly live by.
Though a later scene of “Tokio Jokio” featuring a diminutive General Yamamoto, the
studio sought to not only discredit the character and culture of the Japanese, but their very being.
Painting them as an “inferior” race compared to Europeans. This scene starts with Yamamoto
behind a desk. He seems of normal height at first, though as he leaves the desk, it is revealed that
he is walking on stilts. Height in western culture is a sign of power and authority. We say things
like “to look down upon” when viewing someone as inferior to ourselves. American propaganda
exaggerates the shorter stature of the Japanese in order to make them look vastly inferior to
ourselves. By wearing stilts, he pretends to be of the same height and thus equal in status to a
westerner. However ultimately it is only an act; one which isn’t even well hidden. In this way the
artist argues that no matter hard the Japanese try, they will always and obviously be inferior to
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the “white race”. The connection between height and equality is noted by Dower, “The western
perception of the Japanese as ‘little men’ or ‘lesser men’ messed easily with images of the enemy
as primitive…” (190). Early hominids were shorter than modern humans. A racist interpretation
of evolution could therefore be that shorter people that the Japanese are “closer” to these
“primitive” ancestors, while conversely taller white people, who are taller in statue, must be
“more evolved”. The idea of primitiveness itself implies less intelligence. Since they were part of
the “smarter race”, white Americans would “naturally” be able to outwit the Japanese in war.
The studio behind Popeye’s “Scrap the Japs” typifies the most extreme form of racist
propaganda towards the Japanese by completely stripping them of their individuality and
humanity. We see Popeye towing a cage full of Japanese sailors, each identical to the other and
all screaming to be let out. By drawing each character identically to the other, the artist removes
any sense of individuality, suggesting to the audience that all Japanese are the same, all Japanese
think alike, and all Japanese were responsible for Pearl Harbor. The cage suggests containment,
which is exactly what we did to those of Japanese descend living in America. In fact this cartoon
was released in November of 1942, just a few months after the initial stage of the JapaneseAmerican interment (O’Brien 61). These people were not the ones who attacked America, but
because "all Japanese were the same" they were just as "guilty". The screams to be let out are
analogous to the protests by Japanese-Americans against internment. One Japanese-America by
the name of Korematsu attempted to challenge the legality of imprisoning an entire group of
people based on race, however when the matter reached the Supreme Court the justices would
ultimately rule it constitutional (Korematsu). Like the screams of the of the Japanese soldiers in
the cartoon, the cries of the Japanese-Americans would go ignored. The cartoon ends with the
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Japanese sailors transformed into rats screeching and scurrying around in the cage. This
transformation removes the humanity from the Japanese. Not only were they all alike, but they
weren’t like us. They were an inferior creature to be looked upon with contempt. Those who
lived among us in the states were not to be considered “citizens”, but rather an “infestation” to be
dealt with. This depiction of Japanese as rats was not unique, as Dower notes that, “The Western
Allies … consistently emphasized the ‘subhuman' nature of the Japanese, routinely turning to
images of apes and vermin to convey this” (9). This goes beyond simply calling the Japanese a
lesser form of human. A “less evolved person” may lack the intelligence of a “more evolved
person” as whites believed themselves to be, it still meant that they were a “person”. People can
be empathized with. By stripping the humanity away form the Japanese, this form of propaganda
is saying that they are not even “people”. The Japanese are more comparable to animals, and
should be treated that way. They should be kept away from “civilized society", locked away in
cages, and, if need be, exterminated.
The dehumanization used in propaganda was more than just rhetoric, as American
soldiers and civilians actually treated the Japanese as less than human. For example, in 1942
Time published a photo of a white women with a skull. The caption underneath it reading,
“Arizona war worker writes to her Navy boyfriend a thank you note for the Jap skull he sent her”
(Cosgrove). This American soldier showed no respect for fallen Japanese counterpart. He treated
this man’s body part as mere trinket to be sent back to his sweetheart in the states. The look in
the woman’s face suggests no more respect for the deceased. She is staring at the skull with a
fawning look in her eye, suggesting that her thoughts are of her far away lover and not of the
man who this once belonged to. This might as well be a sea shell or something else trifle that he
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collected for her. While the behavior of this soldier was officially discouraged by the Armed
forced, as Niall Ferguson notes, “Allied troops often regarded the Japanese in the same way that
Germans regarded Russians… Boiling the flesh off enemy skulls to make souvenirs was a not
uncommon practice. Ears, bones and teeth were also collected” (qtd. in Cosgrove). American
soldiers were literally treating Japanese the same way a hunter might treat a dear. The rhetoric we
see in anti-Japanese propaganda so successfully removed the idea that the Japanese were human
beings from the minds of these soldiers that all they were able to rationalize collecting body parts
from these dead “Japs” as a keepsake.
The effect of American dehumanization of the Japanese made Japanese civilians
legitimate targets for American military strategists. Dower notes that the “dehumanization of the
Other contributed immeasurably to the psychological distancing that facilities killing… in the
plans adopted by strategists far removed from the actual scenes of battle” (11). The other in this
is the Japanese. Because these strategists could not actually see the enemy they were fighting,
their perception would have been based entirely on what they were being told. This includes
propaganda, which they too would have heard repetitiously. Bower continues with, “For
example, [dehumanization] surely facilitated the decisions to make civilian populations the
targets of concentrated attack. These American war planners did not see a difference between
Japanese soldiers and Japanese citizens. It did not matter to them whether they were actually
fighting against American soldiers or simply trying to live their lives. If “Japanese” was in their
description, then they were all the same deceptive, primitive, and inhuman enemy that needed to
be dealt with by whatever means necessary. It is therefor not surprising that America would
choose to use its newest and most devastating weapon against Japan, not once but twice. The
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justification for this action, which continues to be repeated to this day, was that the Japanese
would never surrender. We are told that the only alternative would have been an even bloodier
invasion. However according to Dower, the American Office of War Information had suggested
using psychological warfare to persuade Japanese civilians to force their country to surrender,
based on the “conclusion that Japanese home-front morale … was deteriorating rapidly” (137).
Despite what all the propaganda was saying, the Japanese were in fact human beings. They were
just as capable of feeling hopelessness and desperation as Americans were, as these are distinctly
human emotions. And while is impossible to know for certain if such an alternative might have
worked, it does challenge the notion that there were only two options for ending the war in the
Pacific. Dower continues by saying, “No U.S official in a policy-making position appears to have
read any of [these] findings… and one of the rationales advanced by secretary of war Stimson for
the use of the atomic bombs was that there was no indication that the Japanese resolve to go on
fighting was cracking.” (138). The people handing down orders had already made up their minds.
They did not want to be told anything which contradicted the dehumanizing rhetoric that had
defined all Japanese people, regardless of whether they were a soldier, civilian, or even an
immigrant to our own soil.
American anti-Japanese propaganda reflected white views of racial superiority,
portraying the Japanese as barely if at all human, which is ultimately how they were treated in
the US war effort. Japanese-Americans were the victims of this racism long before the world.
Cartoons helped spread this racist propaganda through its ability to create produce caricatures of
the Japanese. The “nicer forms” of these caricatures attacked Japanese culture, portraying it as
deceptive and dishonorable, while others marginalized their very existence, with depictions of
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the Japanese as “racially inferior” or even less than human. The propaganda that these shorts
represent had real world repercussions. Japanese Americans were torn from their homes and
forced into interment camps. American troops desecrated the bodies of Japanese soldiers for the
sake of a souvenir. And military leaders turned a blind eye to even the potential of a less violent
means of ending the war. Given more time and length, it would be interesting to compare racist
propaganda used against the Japanese in WWII to modern day propaganda against Muslims, as
well as the repercussions of each.
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Works Cited
Commando Duck. Dir. Jack King. Youtube. N.p., 25 Nov. 2013. Web. 1 Dec. 2016. <https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWAf3dQxAfQ>.
Cosgrove, Ben. "Thank You, Sweetheart, for the ‘Jap Skull’: Portrait of a Grisly WWII
Memento." Time. N.p., 22 Sept. 2014. Web.
Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon,
1993. N. pag. Print.
Kanfer, Stefan. Serious Business: The Art and Commerce of Animation in America from Betty
Boop to Toy Story. New York, NY: Da Capo, 1997. Print.
"Korematsu v. United States." Legal Information Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.
<https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/323/214>.
O'Brien, David J., and Stephen Fugita. The Japanese American Experience. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1991. Print.
Reynolds, E. B. "Sailor Diplomat: Nomura Kichisaburō and the Japanese-American War
(review)." The Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 38 no. 2, 2012, pp. 399-402.
Project MUSE.
"Scrap the Japs (1942)." IMDB. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2016.
Scrap the Japs. Dir. Seymour Kneitel. Youtube. N.p., 17 Jan. 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2016. <https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCFZ6nh9djY>.
Tokio Jokio. Dir. Norman McCabe. Youtube. N.p., 25 Mar. 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2016. <https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh5ypU2Ykto>.