Social guidance film
Social guidance filmsconstitute a genre of propagandafilmsattempting to influence children and adults to behave in certain ways. Originally produced by the U.S. government as "attitude-building films" duringWorld War II,[1]the genre grew to be a common source of indoctrination in elementary and highschoolclassrooms in theUnited Statesfrom the late 1940s to the early 1970s. The films covered topics includingcourtesy,grammar, social etiquette and dating, personal hygiene and grooming, health and fitness,civic and moral responsibility,sexuality,child safety,national loyalty, racial and social prejudice, juvenile delinquency,drug use,anddriver safety;the genre also includes films for adults, covering topics such asmarriage,business etiquette, general safety, home economics, career counseling and how to balance budgets.[2]A subset is known ashygiene filmsaddressing mental hygiene and sexual hygiene.[3]
History[edit]
Social guidance films were produced by corporations such asCoronet Instructional Films,Centron Corporation for Young America Films,Encyclopædia Britannica Films,and occasionally by better-known companies such asFord Motor CompanyandCrawley FilmsforMcGraw-Hill Book Company.Many were made by independent producers, most notably the prolific maverick independent filmmakerSid Davis.Few of these films featured notable actors, and only a few were produced by a major Hollywood studio, such as the films made by Walt Disney Productions and Warner Bros. In rare instances, the films were sponsored by a major company such asKotexorGeneral Motors.Ken Smith, in his seminal 1999 book on the genre,Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945 - 1970,estimates that there were "around three thousand" films made that fall into the "social guidance" film genre.[2]
While many of the films were merely instructional (like 1941'sPosture and Exercise,1949'sPosture and Personalityand 1952'sDuck and Cover), others ended with an invitation for a classroom discussion of the topic (1956'sWhat About Alcoholism?;1959'sWhat About Prejudice?), whereas others were presented as strikingcautionary tales(1959'sSignal 30;1961'sSeduction of the Innocent;1967'sNarcotics: Pit of Despair).
Although sometimes viewed as conservative or reactionary by today's standards, Smith points out that these films were not made byconservativesorreactionariesbut instead "by some of the mostliberaland progressive-minded people of their time. "[2]
Appearances in other media[edit]
As films in this genre are largely inpublic domain,they have been used in modern productions outside of their intended purpose, usually as a means of unintentional comedy. A number of short social guidance films, such asPosture Pals(1952) andAre You Ready for Marriage?(1950), were featured and lampooned on the television comedy seriesMystery Science Theater 3000to providepaddingfor episodes in which the featured movie segments did not fill out the program's roughly 90-minute running time. OnThe Weird Al Show,clips from still other films were taken and edited together with new voiceovers to make parodies.
The 1999 feature filmThe Iron Giant,set in 1957, features a social guidance film-within-a-film titledAtomic Holocaust,the style and tone of which emulate 1952'sDuck and Cover.[citation needed]
A fifth season episode of theAMCseriesMad Men,which takes place between July 1966 and August 1966, uses the title of 1959'sSignal 30as the episode title.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Cripps, Thomas (1993).Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era.USA:Oxford University Press.pp.161.ISBN0195076699.
- ^abcSmith, Ken (1999).Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945 - 1970.New York City:Blast Books.p. 238.ISBN0-922233-21-7.
- ^"'Mental Hygiene': The Dos and Don'ts of the Doo-Wop Age ".
- Our Secret Century,a collection of 12CD-ROMscompiled by film archivistRick Prelinger
External links[edit]
