New podcast episode takes a deep dive into the storied legacy of “Plantation Pedagogy” with Dr. Bayley Marquez
Podcast highlights how "Plantation Pedagogy" shaped U.S. Imperialism
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'We Feel the Wound Is Closed': Red Ball Express (1952), the Department of Defense Pictorial Division, and the Reluctant Embrace of Postwar Integration
This article examines the postwar relationship of Hollywood and the Department of Defense Pictorial Division by tracing the military's cooperation with and attempts to influence the representation of wartime racism in the 1952 film Red Ball Express
Author/Lead: Robert K. Chester
Dates:
Publisher: University of Maryland, College Park
Publisher: University of Maryland, College Park
Drawing from the archives of the Department of Defense Pictorial Division, this article reveals how the postwar DOD attempted to ameliorate the image of wartime racism in postwar films set in World War II. Despite affording relative prominence to black GIs, the production history and textual politics of Universal Studios' 1952 film Red Ball Express expose the DoD’s and Hollywood’s contingent embrace of integration. The state endeavored to remove almost all instances of racism from the story of an integrated group of supply drivers, presenting the “problem” of race as superficial, easily transcended, and as much the product of black paranoia as white bigotry.