You forget, but she remembers
1
2
3
National Archives · File:INF3-271 Anti-rumour and careless talk You forget - but she remembers.jpg · Public domain · Catalog record
The pins
Context
For discussion
-
1
Stereotyping The woman A pin-up in red on a bar stool, drawn to be looked at. The viewer is told that the woman he is looking at is the danger, and the drawing makes sure he looks.
-
2
Appeal to fear "Remembers" The threat is memory. What the viewer said after a drink, somebody wrote down, and the somebody is drawn as desire.
-
3
Repetition "Careless talk costs lives" The campaign line, set small in red. Its job on this sheet is to tell the viewer which campaign the pin-up belongs to.
A Ministry of Information careless-talk poster from the National Archives series INF 3, signed "Whitear." A blonde in a red dress and red heels sits on a bar stool, drawn as a pin-up, and the warning is that the detail you let slip is the detail she will pass on. The British campaign ran from 1940 and produced hundreds of designs, from Fougasse's cartoons of Hitler under the table to sober sheets like this one.
- "She" is never identified. Who is the viewer meant to think she is?
- The woman is drawn to be looked at. What does the poster assume about the man looking?
- How would you test whether a campaign like this worked?
See also
Same era, or the same techniques.
