Keep mum, she's not so dumb
1
2
3
4
Imperial War Museum · File:Keep Mum - She's Not so Dumb! - Careless Talk Costs Lives Art.IWMPST4095.jpg · Public domain · Catalog record
The pins
Context
For discussion
-
1
Stereotyping The woman Blonde, bare-shouldered, reclining, listening. The spy is drawn as the glamorous woman at the party; the poster's only evidence that she is one is that she is glamorous.
-
2
Appeal to fear The officers Three officers of three services lean over her, talking. The viewer in uniform is meant to recognize himself and feel watched.
-
3
Slogan "Keep mum" A pun: "mum" as silence and as a woman. The joke made the line memorable; its meaning, that women are the leak, rode along with it.
-
4
Repetition "Careless talk costs lives" The campaign line, printed on every sheet of the series. By 1942 it needed no picture; the picture was there to make it worth looking at again.
A Ministry of Information poster of 1942, attributed to Harold Forster. A woman in an evening gown reclines on a sofa while three officers of the three services talk over her head. The title puns on "mum" as silence, and the picture tells officers that the glamorous woman at the party may be a spy. It drew complaints at the time for its view of women, and the Imperial War Museum's copy is now among its most requested.
- Who is the poster addressed to, and who is it about?
- Compare this with "Wanted for murder." Both make the woman the danger. In what different ways?
- What does the pun do that a plain warning would not?
See also
Same era, or the same techniques.
