Private Snafu: Going Home (1944): Politics and Propaganda

Private Snafu: Going Home (Chuck Jones, 1944)

The American government utilized the rising popularity of animated films during the 1930s and 1940s to curate several propaganda shorts during the Second World War. The Private Snafu series aired from 1943-1946, and followed the eponymous Private Snafu whose mishaps functioned largely as a cautionary tale against misbehaving in the military. Produced by the Warner Brothers studio, the series was strongly instructional and addressed the anxieties of warfare in a light-hearted and highly comedic manner. This blog post examines a short sequence from Private Snafu: Going Home (Chuck Jones, 1944) in relation to its political agenda and status as animated propaganda. This clip sees Private Snafu carelessly spilling military secrets at a bar, which leads to his entire body transforming into a printing press that prints papers headlining “Our Next Move Against Enemy, Snafu Tells All” (Fig. 1). I will analyse the aesthetics of Private Snafu: Going Home and debate the appropriateness and effectiveness of using animation for propagandist purposes. Secondly, I will discuss the trivialisation of warfare and the infantilization of Private Snafu. Lastly, I will explore Michel Foucault’s concept of the ‘docile body’ and focus my analysis on both this sequence and other moments from the film.

Fig. 1 - “Our Next Move Against Enemy, Snafu Tells All.”

Animation is, as many scholars have noted, highly suitable for warfare propaganda, and is a medium that has the capacity to illustrate what might be understood as the intangible. The Private Snafu series in particular illustrates the invisible anxieties of warfare, such as the leaking of military strategy, and visually articulates them in simple way to remind soldiers how they ought to conduct themselves. The world of Private Snafu provides, for Seán Harrington, “a space in which fears are played out” (2015, 170), with animation an ideal medium for propaganda because people ‘become dependent on images and illusions to guide their actions” (ibid., 171). It is perhaps unsurprising that the American government recognised animation’s “strength as an ideological platform” (Fischer 2018, 95), as the medium itself permits the total manipulation of imagery which enabled governments to promote their ideologies effectively and economically. Animation becomes entirely suitable for propagandist purposes, and even more so to depict narratives of warfare. Warfare, and its horrors, counter the childlike associations of animation while potentially making narratives of warfare more palatable. In the Private Snafu series, it is precisely these anxieties of war that are communicated in a more light-hearted manner.

There are several moments in Private Snafu: Going Home where Snafu’s body transforms into different objects, including a printing press. Moments earlier, Snafu’s body similarly transforms into a gramophone and a film projector, icons that are intended to show how he has inadvertently spread confidential military information across town. These moments of metamorphoses amplify the severity of ‘gossiping’ whilst on military leave. In this instance, the animator’s ability to seamlessly change Snafu’s body into a variety of mechanical objects articulates this invisible anxiety of the unseen enemy obtaining confidential military information. Animation is the only medium that can effectively and visually articulate this process of gossip spreading and make the dangers of it apparent to the soldiers watching this short. Such moments of metamorphoses also address a more general anxiety surrounding technological reproduction, which was likewise topical throughout World War II. In each instance, Snafu’s body becomes a machine that permits the rapid spread of information. Walter Benjamin’s cultural criticism of the impact of mechanical reproduction upon the arts was published in 1935 (and revised the following year [see Benjamin 2002], at the start of Adolf Hitler’s regime. This Snafu cartoon, from 1944, indicates how images of mechanical reproduction operated for more insidious purposes within a wartime context.  

Fig. 2 - Private Snafu: Going Home.

Another defining quality of animation is its consistent affiliation with children’s entertainment. David Whitley comments that “Disney’s cultivation of the attribute of innocent, family entertainment” is a “central strand of its marketing” (2013, 75), demonstrating how animation and innocence became closely linked in the first decades of the twentieth century. This notion of innocence is, however, immediately disrupted in the Private Snafu series. When considering the aesthetics of Going Home, a tension arises between the childlike associations of animated media and the adult themes with which the short grapples. An ethical dilemma arises regarding the use of animation as a medium of communication, and the extent to which the aesthetic of animation trivialises and oversimplifies warfare. However, in the Private Snafu series the aesthetics enhance and sharpen the effectiveness of the instructional shorts as they communicate a clear message to the soldiers watching. The series itself was not compromised solely of instructional shorts for existing soldiers but were also curated to “acculturate new enlistees and conscripts who had no previous military experience” (Fischer 2018, 94), suggesting the aesthetics of animation were beneficial to the propagandist goal. It is entirely logical that the imagery of Snafu’s world does not reflect the realities of war and the role of a soldier. For example, in Going Home, a bomb explosion is depicted in a highly stylized manner, which is further trivialised as this moment is shown in a cinema to an entertained audience within the animation (Fig. 2). Obviously, this is not a depiction of the actual reality of a bomb explosion in World War II, as that would only deter new enlistees from joining the army. The tension between form and content in the Snafu series renders the medium of animation highly suitable and effective for propaganda. The imagined reality of Private Snafu perpetuates a simplified image of warfare, aiming to delegitimize any genuine anxieties possessed by men who were yet to serve their country.

Fig. 3 - Private Snafu at the bar.

Meredith Fischer posits that Private Snafu is depicted as “the diametrical opposite of the handsome soldier played in Hollywood feature films” (2018, 104), which is made exemplary in this short sequence from Going Home. The soldier is small in build and sits at a bar, consuming multiple drinks whilst spilling confidential military information (Fig. 3). Not only is Snafu presented as the antithesis of heroic and handsome, but he is also reduced to an infantilized position and depicted as significantly smaller than the surrounding figures. His mumblings are indecipherable, like that of a baby. Earlier at the start of the short, Snafu jumps off the train into the arms of a woman, seemingly his lover. Yet, Snafu is almost half the size of her, as she picks him up and they kiss. The visuals more closely resemble a mother and child embracing, as opposed to a romantic relationship. Harrington highlights that throughout the Snafu series “the tone and implicit address is to the soldier as a child” (2015, 176). This is shown through the narrative of the short, where Snafu is consistently behaving inappropriately, and it is these actions that are reinforced by his size and appearance. The manipulation of imagery to infantilise Snafu holds the capacity to “provoke aggressivity in the viewer” (ibid., 183). Soldiers watching are shown how not to behave, and the short provokes a response in the spectating soldiers, which illustrates the effectiveness of Snafu’s depiction at conditioning behaviour.

Throughout Going Home, the boundaries of Private Snafu’s body are also explored. This depiction is crucial to the pervasiveness of the short. Fischer highlights that the Snafu series “deploy[s] the character’s body for the purpose of teaching troops” (2018, 96), which is particularly applicable to Going Home. Throughout the 1944 short, Snafu’s physical body is an unstable entity (as indicated by his transformation into multiple machines), while the cartoon itself concludes with a train crushing his body. The consequences for Private Snafu’s misconduct are seemingly resolved through either the transformation of his body into an object, or the total annihilation of it. Thus, a corporeal fear is instilled in the military spectator, as the animation illustrates that there are grave consequences to improper conduct. Furthermore, Private Snafu’s body becomes an “extension of the landscape” (ibid., 107), as it transforms into a series of objects. The animated world of Snafu has the “capacity to mutate and metamorphose […] instigating the productive energy flow that moves between bodies and assemblages” (ibid., 107), which articulates anxieties of warfare in a way that other media cannot. Additionally, Snafu’s body is central to each frame, as the other figures are consistently depicted as flat and static. Fischer argues that across the Private Snafu series as a whole, there exists an aesthetic pattern where “’other’ bodies are often flattened out,” and merge “into ‘the typically one-dimensional and static background scenery” (ibid., 110). In this particular sequence from Going Home, the figures surrounding Snafu at the bar remain still, thus the spectator’s gaze is drawn to the dynamic body of the soldier who transforms into a printing press. The juxtaposition of Snafu’s dynamic body and the static ‘othered’ figures and backdrop leaves these figures “deflated objects that merge with [the] flat space” (ibid., 110) of the bar. The instability and dynamicity of Snafu’s body is amplified. This is crucial to instil a corporeal fear in the military spectator and effectively condition their behaviour, which was the overall instructional aim of the Snafu series.

Fig. 4 - Going Home and Private Snafu’s “docile body.”

The consistent transformation, destruction, and reconstruction of Private Snafu’s body ultimately functions to produce a certain response in the military spectator (the aim is that soldiers will learn from Private Snafu’s careless mistakes). Fischer draws a connection between Snafu’s body and Michel Foucault’s concept of the docile body highlighting that a soldier’s body is “subjected, used, transformed, and improved […] through disciplinary power” (ibid., 98). She argues that “Foucault’s concept of the docile body elucidates the nature of the animated character’s training regimen” (ibid., 98). This resonates within this Snafu sequence, as his body exists in a cycle of destruction and reconstruction. Foucault posits that the soldier’s military body, who serves the government, is both “a docile body and works to produce other docile bodies as an instrument of the state” (ibid., 98). This description is applicable to Snafu in both the animated reality and the spectator’s reality. in Going Home, Snafu himself becomes a docile body, and his purpose is to mobilize soldiers (docile bodies) in the real world (Fig. 4). His body has impact in both the imagined space of the animation and real world itself; he is “a character who seems to have one foot in a cartoon and one foot in reality” (2018, 110). The use of Snafu’s body to mobilize other military bodies can be read through the lens of biopower, a mechanism that “focuses on bodies and what they do,” and which aims to ‘generat[e] forces, mak[e] them grow, and order them” (2018, 97). Thus, Snafu’s docile body is powerful and effectively mobilizes other docile bodies as the short “educate[s] and acculturate[s] new enlistees’’ (2018, 94).

To conclude, the Private Snafu series elucidates precisely how and why animation is a highly effective medium for producing propagandist materials. Animation’s ability to articulate the intangible, and the childlike aesthetic of the medium, means that fears can be explored in this fantasy world of Snafu, and in particular in a film like Going Home. The tension between form and content in the Snafu series - and in this short - works to its advantage, and only enhances its effectiveness as a type of propaganda. Lastly, animation draws attention to and exaggerates the “docile” nature of Snafu’s body, and the manipulation of his body throughout this sequence is successful in mobilizing military bodies in the real world.

**Article published: January 27, 2023**

References

Benjamin, Walter. 2002. “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version [1936]” In Selected Writings, Volume 3, 1935–1938, edited by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, 101-133. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Fischer, Meredith. 2018. “Capturing the Animated Soldier: Private Snafu and the Docile Body Assemblage.” Studies in Popular Culture 41, no. 1 (2018): 94–127.

Harrington, Seán. “World War II and Propaganda.” In The Disney Fetish, 169–92. Indiana University Press, 2015.

Whitley, David. 2013. “Learning with Disney: Children’s Animation and the Politics of Innocence.” Journal of Educational Media, Memory & Society, vol. 5, no. 2: 75–91.

Biography

Sarena Dubignon holds a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts with a major in English at King’s College London. Throughout her degree, she pursued several areas of Film Studies with a particular interest in the philosophy of film and animation. She is currently pursuing an MA in Film Studies at King’s College London in 2022.