American Propaganda Photography

The movie that we watched last week about the history of American Photography focused upon how photography has been used not only as an art form, but also, to serve practical purposes. The documentary discussed how photography and propaganda can be used to engender both support and disapproval of wars. Propaganda has been used during World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War, to name a few. I found this part of the video most interesting and decided to focus upon the Vietnam War propaganda for this blog post. A majority of Americans did not support the Vietnam War and believed that we were fighting an unworthy cause. As a result, a lot of anti-war propaganda was produced. The example below is a photograph of an American soldier entering combat in Vietnam. The soldier appears to be a young, teenaged boy with a frightened expression on his face who appears to be uncertain as to why he is fighting. This photograph encapsulates the anti-war sentiment prevalent during this time and proves to be very powerful.