Want to be a Hollywood villain? Try hoarding during the pandemic.

And yet, spectacular photos of empty shelves in grocery and retail stores, and shameful signs for the amount of toilet paper they bought, indicate that the Hoarding Brothers may just be An exaggerated version of general American behavior. Hoarding is so common that President Trump has addressed the issue. You don't need to buy as much, advised the president. Take it easy. Relax. Vice President Pence also urged Americans to buy only the groceries they need for the coming week in their efforts to manage the health and social effects of the new coronavirus.

These pleas reveal that in times of national emergency, few national actors were the subject of more contempt than hoarders and black market traders by the government . During the Second World War, when the rationing of essential supplies came into effect, wartime propaganda inserted morality into the market to ensure the effectiveness of the program. It worked. Hoarders took center stage because the vile villains, something the Hoarding Brothers called everything from swear words to unprintable delicacies, felt all too good.

During World War II, the Office of the Federal Price Administration ruled that gas, rubber, sugar, meat, coffee, butter, canned goods and other items were essential to 39; war effort. Saying to do with less so that they (American soldiers and American allies) have enough, the OPA said that rationing would allow consumers to have a fair share at a fair price. Of course, this system only worked if consumers complied and those who disobeyed were liable to heavy fines and even prison terms.

However, enforcement was difficult as the system relied on volunteer officials from the rationing board and the honesty of traders and consumers. And so the American government exerted intense social pressure to show the hoarders the error of their ways.

President Franklin Roosevelt has asked the Office of War Information, the federal government's main propaganda agency, to explain the rationing to the public in a positive, stimulating but non-threatening way. Indeed, OWI's educational campaigns often appealed to citizenship and patriotism in its efforts to explain why hoarding or black market trade contributed to inflation, caused shortages and undermined War effort. A blow to the black market is a blow to victory, a poster proclaimed as Uncle Sam rolled up his sleeves in the background.

But the OWI also used techniques of guilt and shame against the selfish hoarder and the greedy black market trader. Government posters The hoarder has often been described as an old kid with a pinched face, literally taking food from the hands of a pretty young woman. Movies like the Ministry of Agriculture It's up to you, depicts a buyer who was struck by his conscience head on after having asked a dishonest and dishonest butcher for a black market steak. Some of these scenarios have taken place with Hitler images, the ultimate beneficiary of the ration violations, lurking in the background.

Hollywood studios have followed suit. Bataan's letter, a short victory film produced by Paramount Pictures, dramatized the results of the hoarding through a letter from a soldier named Johnny to his family. The film begins with Johnnys' neighbor who brags that the authorities didn't catch me when she managed to amass 28 pounds of canned food and 200 pounds of sugar.

But the elderly woman fled in shame after Johnny described the death of her boyfriend, who died when Johnnys' night blindness, due to a lack of fresh vegetables, prevented him from shooting with precision on Japanese planes. It was not the Japanese who beat us, but the lack of food and equipment, intoned Johnny. In functionality Since you've been Gone, Agnes Moorehead has embodied an acerbic socialite who has amassed sugar and wasted goods by opposing the film's resilient protagonist, the charming Claudette Colbert.

Even Popeye the Sailor got into action in an animated short film called Ration for the duration. In a dream sequence reminiscent of Jack and the magic bean, Popeye fought the giant who not only held the golden goose in captivity, but also stored sugar, rubber tires, silk stockings, cola, petrol and empty toothpaste tubes. Popeye exclaimed that Uncle Sam could use all of these things before slaughtering spinach (ironically, also rationed) and releasing the items from the Giants' pantry.

This propaganda has not always worked. When the government announced new rations, consumers often invaded stores and caused new shortages. Black market trade persisted. Between 1941 and 1947, the OPA published 259,966 citations, and the agency estimated that in 1943 alone, consumers bought $ 1 billion worth of goods illegally.

But social pressure remained and appeals to morality proved effective in unifying the country, controlling inflation and easing shortages during a national emergency. Consumers have signed pledges not to buy restricted products without ration coupons, traders have limited sales to individual buyers, and authorities have targeted black market operators.

Complying with rationing, resisting hoarding and avoiding the black market have complemented many other activities undertaken by the Americans, including planting victory gardens, participating in salvage campaigns and donating their services in canteens. soldiers and veterans hospitals. This volunteerism has made Americans proud to know that individual actions contribute to the public good and show that, even if the temptation to hoard persists during our current crisis, social and political pressure plays an important role in controlling these impulses.