I've been looking at alot of animation sites recently, reading about my favorite animated films and I've noticed that people seem to have a bias against stuff like "When the Wind
Blows" and "The Plague Dogs" because they're propaganda films. Apparently it's a bad thing to be against nuclear war or animal cruelty, which I find odd. I find it even odder that films like "Grave of the Fireflies" are praised for not being propaganda. Personally, I think the Grave of the Fireflies IS propaganda and that is what makes it a great movie.

First of all, people seem to be confusing Plague Dogs the book with Plague Dogs the movie. The book demonized the doctors to the point of making them unrealistic, but the movie did not do the same thing. Martin Rosen has said that the film was not intended as an anti-vivisection piece, but an adventure story. I feel it's neither, it's more of docudrama about what would happen if two dogs did escape a research lab. It doesn't show anything that couldn't really have happened to the animals, and even eliminates the happy ending. It doesn't have the book's overlong scenes of an ex-Nazi doctor delighting in torturing little animals, and it doesn't have a reporter who tells lies in his newspaper articles to make things even worse for the dogs. In the film the humans are all portrayed as average people. Any anti-vivisection message that comes out is a result of the viewer being confronted with the film's honesty, but the it doesn't promote any particular viewpoint. The Plague Dogs doesn't attempt to change the way you think about vivisection, it tries to make you think about it and come to your own conclusions. It is a propaganda film, but it promotes thinking about world issues such as vivisection, it doesn't promote disapproving of them.

Everyone seems to think of propaganda like it's a negative thing. I don't think that's true, virtually anything that tries to be more than just mere entertainment is propaganda. Propaganda is the promotion of a message, and I think that can be a good thing. In "Comic Book Confidential" Sue Cole says that her comics have been critiqued as propaganda. She responds by saying that she does not consider this criticism and that "when bad propaganda is spread, it must be fought with good propaganda."

Look at Grave of the Fireflies, it may not be an anti-war propaganda film but it is nonetheless a propaganda film. It tries to show that pride can be destructive. If the children had just done what they were told and pulled their own weight they would have lived. But no, they had to remain stubborn to the bitter end and they died for it. They had countless opportunities to go back to live with their aunt, but they were too proud to do so. The boy would rather watch his sister die than admit he was wrong.

Even cartoons with "kiddy" morals like "The Fox and the Hound" are propaganda. The thing I liked about the Fox and the Hound is that it's essentially the story of this guy who doesn't understand that he has to grow up. Tod doesn't get the fact that he and Copper are adults now and that their roles in society have changed. They can't go back to what they used to have. Tod's forced to leave home , get a girl and raise a family just like in real life. But it also shows that the memory old friendships and old values are still important even when their time has passed. All friendships die, no matter how much you think someone cares about you, the world will reprogram them. It might be a girl who kicks in some biological illusions, or a new job. But even when that happens, the memories of what you once had are still there. The Fox and the Hound encourages the viewer to break free from society's programming and stand for what they believe in, even if it's only for a moment. It's actually a lot more intelligent and bittersweet than most people give it credit for.

If Grave of the Fireflies is not propaganda, then it's just cheap entertainment. If it has no message, than it manipulates the viewer's emotions for no purpose, and I think that's wrong. Films like the Plague Dogs, Grave of the Fireflies, The Fox and the Hound and When the Wind Blows don't just make us cry, they teach us. And in the end, that's what makes them great films. If you want to cry, you can just stub your toe or something. If you want to learn, you can watch a propaganda cartoon.