Bryan D. Brown

I recommend heading over to Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org), and spend some time in their Prelinger Archives. The Prelinger Archives is filled with classic propaganda films, like Destination Earth (1956), a short film about martians who are held under a facist dictator, come to earth, discover oil, and overthrow their facist leader with the capitalist principles that oil consumption facilitates. Yeah, I wish I was making this stuff up.

All of the films available at the Prelinger Archives fell into the public domain, and thus are available for free.

Prelinger Archives also contain a set of social guidance films from the 1950’s-1970’s explaining to teens and young adults socially acceptable behavior. If you can get around the subtle racism (everyone in the films is white), underlying sexism (girls who park in cars with boys are outcasts, while the boys who park with them are not), and the blatant homophobia (see Boys Beware, which directly associates homosexuality with pedophilia), the films are pretty funny. Let me make it clear that I don’t find racism, sexism, or homophobia at all humorous - but the films are so reactionary that they can almost come across as a parody of 1950’s traditionalism.

My personal favorite, however, is a little conformity piece called Are You Popular? (1947).

I don’t know about you, but here my are favorite quotes:

Now, why do they invite Carolynn to join their group when Ginny wasn’t welcome? Is it because they like the way she looks and dresses? Because she seems as interested in girls as in boys?

Even in 1947, I imagine that would make a young woman very popular. Or this gem:

Carolyn and her mother have found one way a girl can repay a boy for entertaining her. A bite to eat at her house will save him money. Perhaps they’ll bring another couple home. Won’t that be fun?

There’s nothing funnier than a complete lack of understanding of concepts like innuendo and double entendre. Did they have that kind of humor back in the 1940’s and 1950’s?