Education exploitation
Related: exploitation - education - sex education
Drivers ed films
Hell's Highway - The True Story of Highway Safety Films (2002) - Various [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
An Underground Education (1999) - Richard Zacks
An Underground Education : The Unauthorized and Outrageous Supplement to Everything You Thought You Knew About Art, Sex, Business, Crime, Science, Medicine, and Other Fields of Human Knowledge
Forget the history you were taught in school; Richard Zacks's version is crueler and funnier than anything you might have learned in seventh-grade civics--and much more of a gross-out, too. Described on the book jacket as an "autodidact extraordinaire," Zacks is also the author of History Laid Bare, making him something of an expert guide through history's back alleys and side streets. There's no fact too seamy or perverse for Zacks to drag out into the light of day, from matters scatological and sexual to some of history's most truly bizarre episodes. Curious about ancient nose-blowing etiquette? What about the sexual proclivities of Catherine the Great? Throughout chapters such as "The Evolution of Underwear" and "Dentistry Before Novocaine," Zacks proves a tireless debunker of popular myths as well as a muckraker par excellence.--Amazon.com
Educational Archives, Vol. 1: Sex and Drugs (2001) - Various
Hell's Highway - The True Story of Highway Safety Films (2002) - Various [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Description
Generations of American children sat in dark classrooms and absorbed wisdom in the form of 16mm educational and social guidance films. Through the flicker of dim projector bulbs and the warble of optical soundtracks a blueprint for better living in the Atomic Age was spelled out in no uncertain terms. Now just as you remember them, Fantoma presents these collections of sex education & drug prevention films. Learn all about the dangers of marijuana, the perils of heavy petting, the difference between boys and girls and the joys of menstruation. Films include: LSD: Insight or Insanity, It's Wonderful Being a Girl, Narcotics: Pit of Despair, The ABC's of Sex Ed. for Trainables, & Marijuana (with Sonny Bono).
Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970 (1999) - Ken Smith
Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945-1970 (1999) - Ken Smith [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon.com
In Mental Hygiene, Ken Smith takes a look at the endearingly gooney safety and "social guidance" films produced for classroom use between World War II and the early 1970s. Everything from dating to drugs to auto safety is covered in this lovingly compiled book. Smith even takes the time to discuss the stylistic differences of the various studios and analyze the peculiar obsessions of their auteurs. Though its subjects are bizarre ("Healthy Feet"), corny ("Teen Togs"), and often ineptly made ("Red Nightmare"), Mental Hygiene is no mere excuse to mock these films. Smith is careful to note bursts of good (or at least interesting) filmmaking and makes a convincing case that in their day these classroom movies were considered the new wave of liberal education. The films, catalogued at the end of the book, teeter between unintentionally hilarious ("More Dates for Kay") and just flat-out disturbing ("Boys Beware"). Most take the stance that teens who drive too fast or don't mind their manners deserve their horrific fates. For example, the auto safety films tend toward subtly titled epics like "Mechanized Death" and "Wheels of Tragedy," while the "image building" shorts mercilessly taunt their misfit protagonists. ("It's a little late for tears, isn't it, Barbara?") A thoroughly enjoyable read, Mental Hygiene is both funny and informative, but not so informative that it will put you to sleep in class. --Ali Davis via Amazon.com
From Booklist
Among the most pervasive and pernicious forms of 1950s cultural indoctrination was the mental hygiene film, extolling proper behavior to captive audiences of schoolchildren. Blatantly and crudely designed, the genre's products instilled proper dating practices and showed the consequences of failing to avoid drugs and of car wrecks. No social problem was too big for them, not even juvenile delinquency and the atom bomb. Mostly, as Smith shows, they aimed to maintain conformity. Evolved from World War II training films, they flourished from 1945 to the early 1960s, when the growing sophistication of their target audience rendered them ineffective. Smith synopsizes well more than a hundred leading examples, from Act Your Age (1949), which offered tips on emotional development, to the seminal Youth in Crisis (1944), which exposed "the grim story of what the war is doing to America's youth!" Most mental hygiene films have vanished, discarded when their message grew dated, but they live again through Smith's diligent research and witty write-ups, more fun to read than watching them ever was. Gordon Flagg via Amazon.com
Mental Hygiene: Classroom Films 1945 - 1970 is a 1999 book by former Comedy Channel writer Ken Smith, about a large genre of social guidance films on topics ranging from driver safety to dating to sexual relations and drug use.
In addition to giving a brief historical overview of educational films in the U.S., Smith devotes chapters to common themes within the works (conformity, cautionary tales, dating, menstruation, drugs, sex education, driver safety, and product placement) and to large producers such as Encyclopędia Britannica, Coronet, Centron, and independent producer Sid Davis. The last 120 pages of the book are devoted to thumbnails and synopses of 250 of the films Smith considers most notable. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Hygiene:_Classroom_Films_1945_-_1970 [Aug 2005]
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