Purpose: To dehumanize the Japanese to the American public as well as motivate them to do their part at home to help the war effort by donating scrap metal, driving well, and working hard.
These posters depict a Japanese man with buck teeth, sharp fang-like teeth, pointed ears, sits for eyes, glasses, and a knife dripping blood, accompanied by a thank you note written in broken English. The overwhelming number of accentuated stereotypes as well as very animalistic features such as the fang like teeth, pointed ears, and what could be either venom or drool dripping from his mouth all play into the idea that the Japanese were less people than the Americans. The dehumanization of an enemy is a common wartime practice done through propaganda, the Germans were depicted as brutish apelike people but it was pushed especially far with the Japanese due to the greater difference in culture. This poster and the series of posters that it belongs to represent a dual-pronged approach the US government took in trying to simultaneously dehumanize the Japanese and motivate the American people.
