
In the movie To Be or Not to Be (1942), art’s perception during times of war and tension is questioned. The play shut down in To Be or Not to Be ironically enabled the characters to escape from Poland. The reason as to why the play was shut down can be explained by Stuart Hall’s “Encoding/Decoding” essay. In Stuart Hall’s essay, he creates an open cycle process for how we as an audience perceive media. The way that the essay and the movie tie into each other can be used as a very strong argument toward why art should not be hindered in times of war. Hall believes that there is a more complex flow between the sender and receiver than simply “sender—message—receiver.” Complex meaning that a linear flow of communication is not what happens within this current day society and Hall states that this simple flow needs to be updated. This concept can be shown using To Be or Not to Be because the flow of communication between the actors and the Nazis is the main reason why the escape from Poland was feasible. It is the irony in the situation that proves to the audience that hindering art in war is not beneficial in any way. How others perceive what they receive from others is what can make or break meaning and this movie is a prime example of that concept Hall creates. 

During times of tension, many particular aspects of life are taken away involuntarily. Art being one of the most important things in life is unfortunately one of those aspects. People get anxious and paranoid about what is and what is not acceptable to display in times of war. Consequently, most forms of art are hindered during these tough times. Howard Zinn quotes on page three of his essay “Art in Times of War”, “It is the job of the artist to transcend that -- to think outside the boundaries of permissible thought and dare to say things that no one else will say” (Zinn). Artists are in fact supposed to go against mainstream ideas and values. So, why is it that their talents are hindered in these certain times? During the Spanish American War, Mark Twain was one of the only voices speaking out against war and as a result, his patriotism for the United States was brought into question (Zinn). Twain getting discriminated against for simply expressing an opinion was something that was extremely prominent in times like this. 

Many other different artistic figures spoke out against war through their pieces as well. According to Zinn, “E.E. Cummings and other writers were reacting to World War I, to that great marital spirit that was summoned up in 1917 to get the United States into the war” (Zinn). When he says “great marital spirit”, he is mocking the overly excited attitude America had about war when we should have been thinking about the consequences of our actions. When millions of people died, many authors then came out with antiwar pieces, including John Dos Passos, Ford Madox Ford, and Ernest Hemmingway (Zinn). All of these authors clearly had different views on war than most of America. The majority of the country was more than patriotic and supportive of these wars. Coming out with contradictory pieces like these authors did was very risky especially during World War I. Tension and intensity was going on all over the world and country during this time. Challenging popular ideas was very dangerous during these times, however it had to be done in order to get important messages out into the public. 

Many different types of art during World War II were censored for what was thought to be appropriate for the time. More specifically, many movies and productions were created. However, what seemed strange about these movies was how no anti-Nazi films came out until 1939. For example, To Be or Not to Be was not even made until 1942. They only ever started to come out when the Holocaust became relevant. According to Ben Urwand in Alexander Kafka’s article “When Hollywood Holds Hands with Hitler”, he found evidence to believe that movie companies did not self-censor in order to keep their shareholders and audiences happy. Rather, he discovered that these movie studios were actually working in coordination with Nazis to save their own reputations (Kafka). Urwand states, “Largely through the Third Reich's vice consul in Los Angeles, Georg Gyssling, the Nazi-Hollywood relationship gave Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, effectual power over what films got made, what scenes got cut, which stars and filmmakers were blacklisted, and which Jewish studio employees in Germany were fired” (Kafka). Realizing how much Nazi Germany had control over such little matters is quite overwhelming. Germany would not even let these movie studios take their profits out of the country (Kafka). They controlled virtually every single part of the movie-making process during World War II. 

The fact that the Nazis cared so much about what was being released simply shows how fragile the art and war situation was at the time. Hollywood was most definitely putting their own industry ahead of their morals. They were much more concerned with what was best for them than what was best for our country. On the other hand, America was simply trying to stay out of this war because of all the damage done to the country in World War I. So they were just obliging to Germany’s requests in order to stay on good terms with such a powerful country. Even so, this Nazi-Hollywood relationship is another prime example of how art was so strictly monitored and hindered during times of war. Hollywood decided to hold hands with Hitler during a time where expression was needed most. 

When it comes down to why art is hindered during times of war, Stuart Hall and his work in cultural studies is a great way to analyze the various reasons. Stuart Hall is a known cultural theorist and leftist. He started a foundation dedicated to the field of cultural studies called the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies. He was also a professor of sociology at the Open University and is currently president of the British Sociological Association (Wood). In Brennon Wood’s essay “Stuart Hall's Cultural Studies and the Problem of Hegemony”, he argues that many of Hall’s works are lacking sociological dimension. He quotes, “I believe that Hall himself must accept some responsibility for the ‘slack pluralism’ and ‘textualization’ he deplores in contemporary Cultural Studies” (Wood). Wood seems to believe that Hall does not portray in his essays what he argues in real life. He also thinks that the problem of hegemony calls for a change in cultural and group formation, hegemony being the relationship between meaning and power. 

The hindrance of art during times of tension and intensity is still relevant to this day. For instance, after 9/11, the United States was in a very vulnerable state and had to take so many extra precautions to make sure the country was safe. It was very hard for people to speak out about the declaration of war on Iraq at first because of how traumatized the country was as a whole after the event. Art is such an essential part of everyday life and attempting to shut it down is close to useless. There are too many creative souls with the desire to think and make something of themselves. Restricting creativity is not the answer to the larger issue of war. Simply expressing an opinion is a right that everyone is given as humans and hindering that right will not resolve war. 

In the film To Be or Not to Be, a group of actors get together and use their artistic talents in order to escape from Poland. It all starts with the original play, which depicts Hitler and Nazi Germany negatively, getting shut down by the Nazis. Then when Hitler invades, the actors get together to go behind enemy lines and perform their way out of Poland. The paradox of this situation is that the art that was hindered was what became the actors’ one-way ticket to safety. Also, the way that the actors fool the Nazis makes those certain officers look very weak and powerless. As the audience, we obviously know that the actors are not really the positions of power that they claim to be and that makes the film that much more humorous for us. Making fun of Nazi officials was what made the movie lighthearted fun to watch. It also made the actors’ successful escape much more recognized and respected by the audience. This point brings me back to my original argument of why art should not be hindered during times of war. The whole entire reason those actors finagled their way out of a situation that millions of other people unfortunately could not escape from was because of their artistic ability. This proves that restricting art during war is not necessary and that it only happens because people are intimidated by it’s impact on others. 

Lubitsch was very bold in the making of this film seeing as though the date of release (1942) was during the height of Hitler an Nazi Germany’s reign. He outwardly turned an actor (Jack Benny) against Hitler, set the movie in occupied Warsaw, made jokes about concentrations camps, and made the Gestapo be tricked which would usually be seen as impossible (O’Brien). It was a very risky move to even suggest this movie during this time, but many people saw it as a major success. He took intense realities and made them into a satirical script, which made the film so controversial.  Geoffrey O’Brien quotes in his article "To Be or Not to Be: The Play’s the Thing”, “But To Be or Not to Be did something rare, then or at any time, by interweaving farce and disaster in such a rigorously structured fashion as to elicit, in the very same scenes, genuine anxiety and a hilarity so acute that it has something like an ecstatic kick” (O’Brien). He points out that as an audience, watching this movie is quite strange. We have no choice but to laugh at certain parts even though we know they are not necessarily something that is supposed to be humerous. 

Stuart Hall is a very well known scholar who writes based on cultural differences. He was a born Jamaican, so he naturally grew up being oppressed and discriminated against.  A number of authors influenced Hall, such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and Max Horkheimer. They were all a part of the Frankfurt School, which was an institution of social research dedicated to bringing Marxist studies and theory to Germany (Corradetti). Hall, identifying as a Marxist and Leftist, mainly focused on Cultural Studies. He particularly studied “low culture” which dealt with power, culture, and politics. Hall was also the first editor and chief of the Universities and Left Review (now called the New Left Review Journal). This journal is an academic journal covering world politics, economy, and culture. Stuart Hall is respected by many in the academic world and very knowledgeable on topics of culture, politics, and society. As a young reader, I can say with confidence that his essays are very relevant to current situations and issues. 

Stuart Hall’s “Encoding/Decoding” essay is an extremely smart way to explain exactly how the actors in To Be or Not to Be were able to escape. As I previously summarized, Hall describes a new form of communication that is much more complex than “sender—message—receiver”. He believes that different people in various ways can receive different messages. No one is the same, and therefore not everyone has the same opinions as someone else. In his essay, Hall says that the meaning of text us located between the producer and the audience. “Encoding” being the production of the message/text and “decoding” being the time of reception of the message. I am arguing that, because of the encoding/decoding duo, messages are many times misinterpreted unintentionally. 


The image above represents the exact cycle that Hall discusses in his essay. For the purpose of this paper, I am mainly focused on the section “programme as ‘meaningful’ discourse”. This part of the cycle is where a message can get misinterpreted and, therefore, decoded differently than the sender intended. Hall quotes, “The process thus requires, at the production end, its material instruments—its ‘means’—as well as its own sets of social (production) relations—the organization and combination of practices within media apparatuses” (Hall 231). In this quote, Hall points out that in order for messages to be received correctly, it needs to be expressed in away that is straightforward and clear. If a message is not expressed this way, then that is when confusion and miscommunication occur. Another interesting quote that stood out to me while reading this essay was: “What are called ‘distortions’ and ‘misunderstandings’ arise precisely from the lack of equivalence between the two sides in the communicative exchange” (Hall 234). Hall says that if each side of a conversation is not equal, then that is where the miscommunication arises. Each person has to be on the same page when it comes to what the other is talking about in order to have a meaningful conversation. 

The cycle of communication that Hall creates is new and relevant for many reasons. One being that we as a society are now very different from what we used to be. We cannot have a simple conversation anymore because many different opinions and thoughts have formed throughout the years. What Hall’s cycle does is it makes the flow of communication more accustomed to our quickly evolving society. We no longer can rely solely on someone’s words because we are now used to overthinking and having an opinion for every little thing nowadays. That is why Hall’s model is also an open cycle; it is very difficult to solidify a closed cycle when it comes to modern communication. The openness of the cycle allows for multiple different messages and multiple different responses. One difference between Hall’s essay and mine is that he specifically refers to television media while I am specifically focusing on communication and how encoding and decoding is found in multiple other places. Even though he only refers to television, the points he makes can be used to describe communication in movies and many other types of artistic expression. 

For example, in To Be or Not to Be, Josef Tura (Jack Benny) pretended to be Professor Siletski (Stanley Ridges) in order to get information from Col. Sig Ruman, a Nazi general. Josef Tura is one of the actors that was working to escape Poland, so he used his theatrical ability to pretend to be a Nazi spy. The way that Tura wooed the Col. Sig Ruman and made him believe that he really was the professor is a prime instance where encoding and decoding come into play. Effective communication is how Josef Tura managed to fool someone of such high power. Because the general received the lies that Tura fed him, the actors became one step closer to escaping to freedom. 

Another example from the movie that displayed encoding and decoding was when Maria Tura (Carole Lombard) singlehandedly deceived Professor Siletski, a top secret Nazi spy. The professor originally wants to corrupt Maria and turn her into a Nazi spy. However Maria, who knows the situation that her country is in, knows that she will not oblige to the professors requests. Instead, she “agrees” to work with him but only in order to get essential information from him and help her husband and friends to get out of Poland. Maria Tura was able to fool the professor because he takes her willingness to be corrupted as a sign of approval. This situation is a perfect example of encoding vs. decoding. Even though Maria knew that she was tricking Professor Siletski, she also knew she had to make it seem like she was really on his side. So, she sends messages to Siletski that make him believe that she is really willing to become a Nazi spy and he receives them exactly how she wants him to. How Professor Siletski decoded what Maria Tura encoded is a prime example of how the flow of communication between people is not as simple as “sender—message—receiver”. 

Art is, in fact, incredibly important to everyday life, and to survival. It needs to be instilled into every person how beneficial and educational art is and how everyone can grow from it.  Reading and analyzing “Encoding/Decoding” before watching To Be or Not to Be really helped me further understand the relationship between art and war. It is a very complicated relationship and one that has been going on for centuries. In the end, it comes down to politics. Art that portrays a certain country or political power in a negative light will more than likely be censored. Being able to see the concepts of encoding and decoding acted out and displayed made the significance of them much more clear. It also made me realize that actors use encoding and decoding within their careers. How each person in an audience perceives something that is said in a play or movie can be different be each person. These different perceptions can also lead to conflict, as the did in To Be or Not to Be.

