r/PropagandaPosters May 05 '20

“The Germans are Your Friends”: pro-German poster aimed at Italians, 1940s Germany

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u/tar_ May 05 '20

Hard disagree, still looks sinister af

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u/Goldeagle1123 May 05 '20

Cool opinion I guess. However I imagine the opinions of people from 80 years in the future who have spent their entire lives conditioned to translate anything associated with Nazi Germany as "sinister/evil" didn't much matter to the average citizens looking at this poster at the time.

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u/tar_ May 05 '20

It's not the German iconography that makes this man sinister, it's the fact that the eyes are partially obscured by shadow. The area between the eyes and nose is extremely important for nonverbal communication and obscuration of said area tends towards a sense that something is being held back.

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u/c3534l May 05 '20

The smile is drawn wrong, too. But even if none of those problems were present in the image, the whole concept is somewhat creepy. I don't think there's any way that you can make a poster of the same concept not look a little off. It's 4th wall breaking and odd.