Careless Talk Costs Lives (propaganda)

Britain's campaign against loose talk ran in several tones at once, which is what makes it worth studying. It began in February 1940 with the Punch cartoonist Fougasse, who drew the Ministry of Information's warnings for free and made them funny, so readers could recognize themselves without feeling accused. Later designs took another line. In the 1942 "Keep mum, she's not so dumb!" a glamorous woman lounges among officers in uniform, and the danger is cast as female and seductive rather than as anyone's careless chatter. Comparing the two shows a government choosing between a joke and a stereotype to change the same behavior, and the suspicion of women in the second is as revealing as its official message.