To me, the more and more I read on Maureen Honey’s “Creation of the Myth” on 
Rosie the Riveter, the more I began to question Rosie as a true American Icon and more of an American Farce. Defining an American Icon in the beginning of the semester we learned that an iconic image is “wholly exceptional and has levels of widespread recognizability; moved beyond its original purpose; is in fact original and moved to a point of celebrity; and has the attraction of a cult following”. While I think that most may agree that Rosie possesses these types of characteristics, I believe she does so in the sense that she was specifically made TO BECOME an icon, which to me breaks the #1 rule of iconicity- she isn’t original or authentic. Rosie the Riveter, in my opinion, was just a successful advertising campaign.
In “Creation of the Myth,” we obtain a very detailed understanding of how Rosie came to be. During WWII, we see that the Office of War Information (OWI), the Bureau of Campaigns, and War Advertising Council (WAC) work to create a “Women in the War” campaign in 1944 that encourages women to enter the work force in an array of different jobs. A man instrumental in pushing government officials to this idea was Chester La Roche, the chair of the WAC. Now, La Roche isn’t your typical Don Draper; his intent was to get the rest of the government on board to wage psychological warfare via all media outlets and “threaten the public with the loss of loss of political freedoms”. (I know sounds American right? ) He truly believed that if the government didn’t use these types of methods that the American public wouldn’t cooperate. From here we then see the launch of a nation wide advertising campaign set with a manipulative manual War Guide for Advertisers that outlines where and how to advertise. In 1942 the campaign took off and La Roche’s plan of utilizing all media outlets really set sail with the addition of Magazine Bureau. Propaganda in magazines was present in the photos, the storylines, and articles on women in different industries and basically the whole magazine. Fiction writers were a huge addition into the OWI campaign efforts in order to make “war work sound attractive to women readers.” For years, media industries worked solely to convince women in every way that working during the war was a glamorous and fun thing to do through these magazines.
When government and fiction align is when we should start to realize there is a problem. La Roche and the WAC probably created one of histories most strategic, elaborate, and effective advertising campaigns. And Rosie was all a part of that manipulative plan.
As an advertising student, I see Rosie the Riveter as successful art direction. I don’t see her as an American Icon because she is based off of a propaganda media blast in order for the government to control citizens. America is supposed to be land of the free and home of the brave, where citizens work hard because they want to not because they are manipulated to. Everything about this ad campaign points to a dictatorship of citizens through media rather than a democracy. To me, she is no truer than those tabloids you see about celebrities in the grocery store. Yes, her image was made famous but not in an honest or American way. She doesn’t truly represent the feminist women either because she was enacted as a plan to control women psychologically. Iconicity lends itself to being formed through a societal need, but Rosie was created to be an icon in order to sell the government’s product (the workforce) during that time.
the essence of achieving, and in World War II’s case upholding, the American Dream. Your ability as a person or collectively as a country to overcome and succeed allows you to achieve that Dream; when it’s smashed, there is nothing to do but try to survive again. American culture, based on the survival efforts of man was thrown upside down when all of our men were sent to the front lines. Who would help the country pick up the broken pieces of its white picket fence?
Women, like Mary Cohen, were encouraged by the Office of War Information’s magazine campaigns run by Dorothy Dorcas and the Magazine Bureau (Honey) to take up the jobs of men to fulfill their patriotic duty to their country and help the country survive in its time of need. The propaganda campaigns of the OWI achieved the goal of their “psychological” war in drawing women into taking up the duty of survival previously left to men. No doubt the achievement of these women, their dedication and patriotism to our country is commendable; but how do women like Mary Cohen survive in our male dominated historical narrative? How do these women’s stories become a huge part of World War II’s historical narrative?
5 days a week to rivet in New Jersey in 1942. After fulfilling what she felt was her American duty to help support the men over-seas and “rebuild the fence,” she joined the United States Army and worked on airplanes in Tucson. She later married, had children, and worked for the State of California to help place veterans in jobs. In one of her stories she tells of giving up her seat on a plane to a young man returning home from Iraq. Clearly Cohen represents the ideal woman of American society that history has presented us; patriotic, willing to serve her country, a mother and wife, a supportive role model. Her profile fit into the narrative of World War II without disturbing the accomplishments of man- She “[could] do it!” She, like all Rosie’s, achieved iconic status because of a supporting role- much like Betsy Ross did for the American Revolution.
rolling a higher number increases the chances of success. On a 20-sided dice, rolling a natural 20 (a 20 is displayed on the die) means instant success! Not only success, but really awesome things happen. On the other hand, rolling a natural 1 means instant failure. And not only failure, but bad things happen to your character, too. Reading about Wonder Woman, her origins, and her evolution made me think about the role that women play in comics and the Fantasy genre, and how it so often feels like we are constantly rolling a natural one.
William Moulton Marston himself. What interested me in “Why 100,000,000 Americans Read Comics” was where Marston discusses how comics help students improve in school, more specifically in English. In his research he explains how “Excerpts from superman have been used successfully in teaching English in public schools” (Marston 42). This interests me because I have used graphic novels and comic books to help my sister.
My little sister was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was in first grade. People don’t really understand what it means to have dyslexia. Even today it’s kind of hard trying to wrap my head around the difficulties that she has to go through. Dyslexia itself is such a fluid concept and it means something different for every person that has it. For my sister, it means that the she confuses her d’s, p’s and b’s, w’s and m’s. It also means that when she reads, words will flip and letters will move around when they aren’t supposed to. She’s had moments in her life were people, especially kids, have made fun of the way she spells or reads. When she was in middle school, her teacher belittled her in front of her entire class because of her disability.
As I was preparing for this blog, I asked her how she felt about Wonder Woman and her reply was that she really liked Wonder Woman in Injustice, despite thinking she would hate her. She like her because she would try to talk things out with the bad guys before fighting, and only resulted in fighting as a last resort. My sister also felt as though she could be equal to anyone, despite being dyslexic and being female, because Wonder Woman is in a team full of guys and she was still considered their equal.
of superheroes in general. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are D.C. Comic’s major superheroes who emerged in late 1930s and early 1940s. At that same time, the U.S. is coming out of the Great Depression under the leadership of Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt. President Roosevelt enacted a number of different reforms to help relieve the economic depression in the New Deal. Living through this kind of drastic change to American lifestyles clearly influenced the creators of early superheroes. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman appear to be representations of the desire many Americans had for a type of “safety net” for the people, just as the New Deal programming was doing prior to the creation of superheroes
Early Superheroes represent an individual who is protecting the people, generally within one city, but they usually put the well-being of the people before their own. These heroes could even go as far as being described as a safety net for humankind, just as those who lived through the Great Depression wanted a safety net after falling on hard times. Superheroes were beginning to be made in as vehicles of liberal American desires, or even borderline socialist desires. Their actions towards for betterment of Americans clearly have some liberal undertones, especially when you look into some of the villain counterparts to major heroes.
