So You Think You Can Propagandize?

So You Think You Can Dance? subjects viewers to synchronized defeatism. It has a good beat I can surrender to it.

“So You Think You Can Dance” took its audience for granted, tried to force feed it pirouette propaganda, and it paid a price.

There was a time when such shows were tailor-made for men fighting overseas, not made for bringing them down. Glenn Miller did his radio show three times a week between 1938 and 1942 before joining the Army himself and forming the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band.

Miller insisted the band be as close to the troops in theater as possible and had them shipped to England in 1943. While there, the band did over 800 performances in less than a year.

A General reportedly once told Miller, "Next to a letter from home, Capt. Miller, your organization is the greatest morale builder in the ETO.” His art made a statement.

In December of ’44, Miller flew ahead of his band from England to France to entertain troops who had liberated Paris. His plane disappeared over the English Channel. Neither the wreckage nor any signs of Miller were ever found. His death remains a mystery, Miller a casualty of the war he went so far to support.

My, these days are different, aren’t they?

The producers and choreographers defend their decision by saying no one could be pro-war, so what's the harm? Well, no one is pro-war as an optimum choice, but sometimes the pro-war position is the best of a bad lot.

Furthermore, during WWII, few actually liked the war either. What precisely was there to like? A world burning with darkness on the march? Soldiers being killed by the thousands? The deprivations and rationing on the home front?

No one was exactly dancing with joy at the fact that history had compelled them to fight a great evil at tremendous personal cost.

And yet they did it anyway. Without mounting absurd pageants about fantasy worlds in which Hitler could be negotiated with by simply appealing to his sense of compassion and his sense of equality.

Okay, I think I'm stopping the Rich "Psycho" Giamboni schtick. It's tedious.

In case you didn't notice, Dave in Texas is going to throw some posts up every once in a while. Glad to have him posting.

posted by Ace at 01:44 PM

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