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Animal Farm 1.10 Obey Propaganda… a la Shmoop.

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If you want to get people on your side, you need two things – [Stalin standing in a room]

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you need to put a message out there, and you need to control where it goes.

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Having a cool mustache doesn't hurt, either…

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Stalin did this with the Russian newspaper, Pravda, and with posters and messages spread [Pravda newspaper]

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throughout the country.

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Corporations do it with ad agencies and PR firms.

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Napoleon did it with Squealer. All of this… is propaganda. [Examples of propaganda]

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Propaganda is communication of any kind that appeals to emotions to spread a desired message.

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For instance, “All animals are equal” was a message approved by the pigs…

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until it wasn’t. No problem. Just re-write it and re-sell it to the masses.

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They might question it at first, but eventually they’ll forget about rule changes [Animals staring at a message]

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and that first version, especially when they see what happens to their comrades

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for doubting their self-appointed leader.

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Okay, so propaganda 101.

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Some methods include:

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* Bully your enemies. If you don’t like their message, attack them personally and [Pig bullying the animals]

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make the public believe they’re awful. Napoleon/Stalin did this to Snowball/Trotsky with great success.

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* Choose your words carefully. Napoleon doesn’t reduce rations, he “adjusts” them.

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Stalin’s last name was Dzhugashvili until he changed it to Stalin, which means “man of steel.” Super. [Stalin thinking about a name change]

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* Get famous people to represent your product.

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How many cover girls does Cover Girl have again? [Magazine cover of cover girl]

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Stalin depicted himself as a baby-hugging demigod. He made himself famous.

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Napoleon didn’t hug babies, but he did take puppies home. [Napoleon pointing to puppies]

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* Shout it out! Type your message in big, bold letters. If you absolutely must include

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some facts, put them in really tiny fine print buried in a footnote.

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Or better yet, just make the whole thing up and say you have supporting documents even [Napoleon holding a supporting document]

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though you don’t. This worked for Napoleon when he said he found documents that proved

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Snowball was a traitor. Since the animals couldn’t read, why bother showing them?

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Stalin always included bold headlines and excluded inconvenient truths. [Stalin giving a speech]

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* Endorsements from the common folk.

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The sheep do it when they casually mention, within Whymper’s earshot, the great amount [Sheep whispering]

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of food the animals have.

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Stalin did it with his adoring supporters who believed the propaganda and talked of

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him as divine. * Put a bandwagon out there and people – or

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animals - won’t be able to resist jumping on it.

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In Animal Farm, it worked on most of the animals except Mollie, Benjamin, Moses and the cat. [Animals together on a bandwagon]

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In Russia it worked on everyone who didn’t want to die or be sent to the Gulag…

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yeah, the Gulag, fun camps where Stalin’s enemies were sent to be slave laborers. [Slaves in Gulag]

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* Create a false dichotomy. As in, “You’re either with us or you’re against us”.

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Napoleon makes sure the animals don’t have any trouble deciding between himself and Snowball.

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Stalin purged everybody he even thought might be against him. [Hand takes a man away]

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* Get all emotional. While you’re using words and pictures to get your well-formed

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message out, you can throw in some good old-fashioned fear to keep the crowd in line. [Zombies in a group and a spray of zombie buster appears]

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Napoleon reigns with terror, killing the subversives violently and grotesquely, as did Stalin.

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And there’s always that fear of Jones coming back if the animals don’t follow Napoleon’s orders. [Mr Jones crying for his farm back]

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Add a little hatred of the enemy (Snowball and Trotsky) and a little guilt (how dare

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those hens protest!) and you’ve got a killer appeal to the masses.

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* Repeat after me…endlessly. Beasts of England was propaganda, repeated daily. [Animals screaming beasts of England]

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So was “Four legs good, two legs bad,” repeated annoyingly.

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Stalin had himself glorified on posters, in the newspaper, in statues, speeches. He was [Stalin in newspapers and statues]

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all over the place. Heck, if he were alive today he’d have his own action figure.

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We think Squealer deserves a round of applause.

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He was the equivalent of the whole Russian propaganda machine all by himself - [A mass group of Squealers]

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a one-pig army of misinformation.

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From the pigs’ special food and housing to vilifying Snowball, from the betrayal of

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Boxer, to re-writing history and the Seven Commandments…

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…Squealer was so convincing that the animals came to believe they remembered things just [Squealer on stage and roses thrown at him]

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the way he described them. Some pig!

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