Seven Oaks Magazine.

Micah Ian Wright’s book ‘remixes’ the original American propaganda art of the “good” or “noble” war against fascism, World War II. Wright, an artist, modifies these original pieces and uses their original propagandistic power to illustrate the absurdity of George Bush’s War on Terror. The author has some left wing star power to his book with forewords by Kurt Vonnegut and Howard Zinn. The briefness of their contributions, however, leaves much to be desired for those not solely interested in the images.

Wright’s poster art works are quite powerful; their clear anti-war standpoint reveals the importance of using popular culture, and art in particular, as a form of exercising dissent and questioning the direction of the now re-elected American administration. From examining Wright’s personal website, though, his contribution to the dialogue around the war is not appreciated by the Right, as his posting of the death threats he has received proves. But I guess those cowardly threats are evidence of the power that art and popular culture have in generating emotion and discussion, whether positive and progressive or negative and homicidal.

One of Wright’s most powerful ‘remixed’ images is of a soldier with the words “The more gas your SUV uses the more foreigners I have to Kill!” This image originally was used to encourage American citizens to car pool in order to conserve energy for the fight against Japanese and German fascism. Building on its original meaning, Wright’s use of the image forces the viewer to understand the links between the war and occupation of Iraq and our everyday lives as consumers. It seems that we have reached a point in society where we are not willing to do simple things such as carpooling to conserve energy or to protect the environment. The resistance to such an idea is overwhelming, as understood by all commuters, as we wait in rush hour traffic while those carpool lanes remain idle. The revamped poster illustrates how self-centered we as a society have really become; not only are we unwilling to carpool, but we demand to drive gas-wasting SUVs no matter how many Iraqis or US soldiers have to die. Driving virtual tanks like Hummers has become cool – unless, that is, you are the solider forced to drive it in the Iraqi desert.

Wright’s anti-war propaganda posters are very clever and powerful, but I think that says as much about the original artists who first created the emotional appeal of these posters. The new artist’s take on these old works of propaganda, however, shows the need for the Left and the anti-war movement to use popular culture as a tool to illustrate the consequences of the current American imperial agenda.