In this article in the International Journal of Drug Policy, Stanton details the story of American "social hygiene" films - movies shown to teenagers to make them into better people. Including their treatment of drugs and alcohol, these films describe a well-meaning American moralism that is both bereft of reality and, at the same time, stultifies genuine thinking about social problems and their causes.

Prepublication version of article appearing in the International Journal of Drug Policy, 11:245-250, 2000.
© Copyright 2000 Stanton Peele. All rights reserved.

Review of Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films - 1945-1970, by Ken Smith, Blast Books, NY 1999

Ken Smith was working for The Comedy Channel, excerpting industrial and classroom films for programming laughs, when he became addicted to what he terms "hygiene" movies. These were a few thousand short subjects - 10 minutes in length and called "social guidance" films - created by a small number of specialty studios (mainly in the Midwest) for classroom viewing. Their topics were driving, dating, sex, drugs, hygiene, and - generally - getting along in life and with others. As he screened the films for humorous moments, Smith became aware that they shared distinctive themes and techniques. Smith came to see the genre as "a uniquely American experiment in social engineering." Although today we find the themes ultraconservative, in fact the filmmakers represented a liberal-thinking progressive streak of American striving for self-betterment.

Begun after World War II - when young people, freed from the depression and the War, were creating their own culture - the films educated adolescents about "correct" behavior, including good grooming, manners, and citizenship. The films grew from war time "attitude-building" works (some produced by leading Hollywood directors) meant to inspire both military personnel and those on the home front. For young people in the late 1940s and the 1950s, the chief message was to fit in. The films disdained independence and bohemianism, or looking or acting different in any way. That someone might simply not fit the mold of well-groomed, attractive adolescent (not to mention that someone would reject this image!) was simply not conceivable. Teens who were not able to fit in were portrayed as frankly deviant and deeply troubled, often ending up in tears or worse.

With boys, the message was to avoid delinquency and impulsive and dangerous behavior, to practice good manners, and to achieve. For girls, the message was to get a man; films told teenage girls to downplay their intelligence and independent thinking in order to curry dates and eventual marriage. Today, The Way to a Man's Heart (1945) and More Dates for Kay (1952) would be shown as object examples of the oppression of women. But, while the girl in More Dates for Kay throws herself at every man she meets, she was of course not to let her desperation push her into offering sexual favors. The 1947 Coronet film, Are You Popular, made clear "Girls who park in cars are not really popular." Thus, the industry periodical Educational Screen recommended More Dates along with How to Say No and Shy Guy for church youth meetings.

Progressing from the late 1940s through the 1950s and into the 1960s, the films encountered a difficult social reality as they encouraged conformity. As Smith describes this paradox in terms of the film Shy Guy (1947) - which featured a young Dick York, who went on to television fame as the straight-edged husband and foil in Bewitched - "what makes school kids popular with each other is often not what makes school kids popular with moms and dads." In the film, a dad who very much resembles the father in the TV series Leave It to Beaver helps his nerdy son to fit in. After the York character gains popularity by fixing the gang's record player, the narrator intones, "He's not really different."

Smith points out that conformity was encouraged as a political and social tranquilizer at a time when segregation was still law in many states. Today many could question the goal expressed in Manners at School (1956), "If we mind our own business, people will like us better." A number of films explored democracy, including a few red scare films. The most famous of these, Duck and Cover (which described how to avoid nuclear holocaust by ducking under school desks and covering up with whatever is convenient - including newspapers and blankets) achieved a second life in the 1982 documentary, The Atomic Café. Duck and Cover (which was produced on contract for the Federal Civil Defense Administration in 1951) portrayed scenes of everyday life being interrupted by blinding flashes and atomic mushrooms. Even if young viewers were unaware of radioactive fallout and the scorching heat that slaughtered those near ground zero at Hiroshima, the film seemed more likely to produce nightmares than to reassure.

While many of the films were unremittingly upbeat, a strong sadistic streak pervades others. That is, suspecting young people of the worst, the films warn of dire consequences for those who step out of line. Perhaps the strangest example of a scare film is the hard-to-catalogue What's on Your Mind, produced for the National Film Board of Canada in 1946. Smith summarizes the film's content:

"This man is a catatonic schizophrenic," says the film's bombastic narrator, Lorne Greene, as an obviously staged scene shows a guy in black leotards, his eyes turned upwards, wondering around a tile-lined room. "In a world changing overnight, men long to escape the fear of atomic destruction, of everyday living!"