 I would like to address the issue of art in war, and censorship in the film To Be or Not to Be and compare how it is different in the twentieth century.  In the film To Be or Not to Be, art and war are put into tension, raising the question of art’s place in war. This is where censorship comes into play to decide what type of art can be expressed and what can not be. By looking for examples of different types of art such as plays, movies, propaganda that was used in the film along with the censorship code, I will be able to argue about the ments of  a humorous film to be shown in a time of war. I will look at the censorship code and see what is actually guided film production. Since there has been an explosion of technology, and most people have access to the internet recently I will also compare the how censorship is now and what it has been in the past. 

In the film, To Be or Not to Be , an original play about Hitler performed in Poland gets censored by the Polish government because it would have offended Hitler, himself. This raises the question of whether or not art is good to have while in a time of war. One common piece of art that comes during a wartime is the posters that construct propaganda. During the occupation of France, Paris was covered with propaganda; and any taking down of this art was prosecuted as vandalism (Weitz 1).  Propaganda was a good way to fly under the censor radar because putting anything in the newspaper would have censored by the government. Since propaganda was considered art you could really put it anywhere. This method of controlling big populations does not only affect our country, but also other people in different countries. The biggest user of propaganda is the governments trying to sell the idea of war. Even regular citizens of  the United States are liable to some type of propaganda everyday. This is due to the vastness of the internet and it’s speedy accessibility to anything you can image. 

Now that most people now have access to the internet, more and more things have to be censored. One current issue in the United States is the rise of ISIS propaganda due to the internet. ISIS uses many forms of social media to help their cause.  Even simple hashtags were trending on twitter at one point.  For example, “#accomplishmentsofISIS” that was translated from Arabic trended for a while according to The Atlantic. ISIS uses social media  to target young people to join their cause. This is important because it shows how the internet has changed the game in the use of propaganda. The internet has changed propaganda in the way that you can see other nations propaganda. On the other hand back in the World War II times, propaganda was usually produced by your own government. A good example of how the internet makes it possible to see other nation’s propaganda is an article from The New York Times. In this article, a girl named Alex stumbled upon a  beheading video from ISIS. Because of pure  curiosity, she began to talk with a follower of these ideas. After bribes of money she converted her religion from Christianity to Islam. Alex is one of at least one hundred Americans that have followed this propaganda, and have even moved to these Islamic countries. The internet opens many doors for propaganda since videos, picture, etc spread so fast, and the government is unable to take it down before something has been seen by millions.  

The use of censorship has been a practice by governments for years. Consider the censorship of  newspapers, but even letters from soldiers in World War I and II were censored. The government did this by getting a person like a dentist or chaplain to read the soldiers’ letters. They were looking for any information that gave away that person’s position in the world or any negative comments about the war because they had to keep the morale up for the war. Also, any letters written in a different language was immediately discarded since the censors do not know how to read another language (PBS 1-3).  Overall it was easy for the government to censor things in this time period. 

Since the internet is so vast, censorship is difficult. Countries around the world have trouble to censor many things because how how fast things spread. So if you censor something on one site you may have to do the same for many other sites. In this internet age, the rapid spread of information is a nightmare for governments trying to censor certain things. For example, in China the government has made alternates to popular sites such as Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter. These alternates are enforced heavily, but are similar to the popular platforms just censored heavily by the chinese government (Ma 47-48). According to this article titled "Propaganda And Censorship", governments are having a very huge issue when trying to censor things because anyone who knows how to use a computer well can break down their firewalls. The government think they can quickly censor something, but the damage has already been done because in seconds the information that was censored has been recreated in another way somewhere else. You can see how the internet has changed censorship because of the instant access to information that would never been seen in both World War I and II with the use of posters. 

The power of art has been shown in various ways such as propaganda. This form of art has been used in many wars, and has been effective in many ways. Propaganda now and back in the 1940’s is very different due to the instant access to information that you can receive from the internet. The forms of propaganda move from simple posters and pictures that are posted around the city to videos and pictures that can be seen by millions in seconds.  The internet also brings different forms of propaganda such as videos, picture, and of course words. Some of these pictures and videos can actually be quite comical but also quite gruesome in nature. Since the government has a hard time of censoring these picture and videos currently because of how fast information travels. Should art be allowed during a wartime especially if the content is comical and relieves some pressure from the public? Through the use of the film,  To Be or Not to Be by Ernst Lubitsch, I will argue that it is appropriate to show a humorous film in a wartime because it will benefit the people’s needs.   

In the movie, To Be or Not to Be ,the idea is it appropriate to have a comedy play during  a wartime is challenged.  One would think it would be appropriate because it will help to lighten the mood, and let the government focus on other important matters. However, there are two sides to the argument. In To Be or Not to Be, both sides of the argument are presented when a play was going to be performed; but the government censored it because it would have offended Hitler.  By using the the film and Stuart Hall’s “Encoding /Decoding,” I will be able to argue that humorous art, like in To Be or Not to Be, should be allowed in a wartime. 

The film, To Be or Not to Be,  there are three viewpoints on censorship. First, there is the actor's view. Their view and reactions to censorship is the most immediate one. Through the use of the actor’s words and the wide camera angle that include many of the actor’s actions, one can tell that they decoded the message of censorship differently. On the other hand, you have the second point of view which is the government’s view. Their view has  complete control over the actor’s views. The government encoded the censorship message, but the actors decoded the message differently than what the government wanted. Lastly, the last view is the audience's viewpoint. Even though the audience still has to wait and see what happens in the movie. They still get messages sent to them throughout the movie that can be encoded in many different ways.

To decipher these words of “encoding” and “decoding” we will have to use Stuart Hall’s “Encoding/ Decoding.” One of the main points in Hall’s work is to understand that when the media or someone is sending a message to you it is not linear. The message does not go from sender- message-receiver, it is much more complicated than that. Hall suggests that the message instead goes through many trials. The first trial is the sender of the message and method of how they create a message also known as encoding a message. On one hand, you have how the sender wants the message to be received and decoded. On the other hand, you have how the receiver of the message decodes the message.  Both the sender and receiver of the message have these frameworks of knowledge, which are what people know through life experiences, cultural differences, and even religion. Hall described frameworks of knowledge as “Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed - the effect of an articulation between sign and referent - but to be 'naturally' given.”These frameworks of knowledge can cause the sender and receiver of a message to not be on the same page in terms of what the sender wants the receiver to decode (Hall 128 -130).  The Polish government or the sender of the message has their own frameworks of knowledge. When they sent the message of censoring the play about Hitler, their frameworks of knowledge involved prior knowledge of Hitler’s behaviors. The government decoded Hitler’s messages about invading neighboring countries, and as a result they censored a play that would have offended Hitler. Another framework of knowledge that the Polish government used is militarism. This framework of knowledge was used to encode a message to the civilians to show that the government is in charge and the people should trust that they are doing the right thing by censoring the play. 

The second view or the first receiver of the message from the Polish government is the actors that wanted to perform the play. While the government’s framework of knowledge involved understanding Hitler’s messages, the actor’s framework include understanding of what the people need during a time in war that is humor. The actors know that humor will help the anxieties of the Polish citizens.  An additional framework that the actors hold is nationalism. They hold this framework by the play itself mocking what the Nazis and Hitler do daily. If the actors would have been able to perform the play they would have been able to provide humor and give a sense of nationalism to the citizens that watch it.    

The last and second receiver of the government’s message is the audience that is watching the movie. Their frameworks include all sorts of different ones because they have knowledge of what happens in history and censorship plus their own frameworks. The audience knows how effective art can be to a person. Also, they have knowledge of censorship and how much it is used today. Since the audience has so many frameworks of knowledge, they are the main deciding factor in whether art should be used during war. I believe art should be allowed  in war because of my frameworks of knowledge, but mostly because having art benefits the citizens more than harming them. 

As art has been used as a timeless way of communication, it can have many different messages and interpretations. These interpretations are built upon frameworks of knowledge, 

that differ from person to person. Varying time periods can also be a framework of knowledge since new discoveries happen. For example, art in the 40s was mostly composed of posters and pictures. Today, we have the internet that brings on more mediums and platforms of art  and the instant access of information. This brings on even more ways to encode or decode a message that people in 40s could not even imagine. So, should these messages of art be censored? To answer that question one must look at two viewpoints, the government's or people who censored the message, and the people who decode the art.  Since, both the government and the people use two frameworks of knowledge, it creates two sides of the argument. The government has the framework of knowledge of prior knowledge and they can use their force with militarism. While on the other hand, the people have the framework of knowing people’s needs and creating a bit of nationalism with it. I believe that humorous art such as the film To Be or Not to Be should be allowed in a wartime because it will benefit the people more and the government can then focus on more important things.     
