Wanted for murder: her careless talk costs lives
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National Archives · File:"WANTED FOR MURDER - HER CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES" - NARA - 513599.jpg · Public domain · Catalog record
The pins
Context
For discussion
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Transfer "Wanted!" The format of a police wanted poster. The viewer knows how to read one before reading it, and what to feel about the face.
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Staged photography The face A well-dressed woman, photographed like a mugshot. The careless talker is given a sex and a class, neither of which matched who actually held military information.
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Hyperbole "For murder" A conversation is a capital crime. The exaggeration is the argument: if talk is murder, silence is the least you can do.
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Loaded language "Her" "Her careless talk costs lives." The pronoun does the blaming; the sentence would work the same with "your," and the campaign chose not to use it.
Victor Keppler's photographic poster for the Office of War Information, 1944. A well-dressed woman in a hat, photographed like a police mugshot, under "Wanted for murder." The security campaign leaned on women as the imagined gossips, in posters, radio spots, and films, though the people with military information to leak were overwhelmingly men.
- Why a woman?
- "Murder" is a legal term. What does using it for a conversation do?
- The format is a wanted poster. What does the viewer already know about how to read one?
See also
Same era, or the same techniques.
![Catalog record](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:"WANTED_FOR_MURDER_-_HER_CARELESS_TALK_COSTS_LIVES"_-_NARA_-_513599.jpg){kind=link}