Propoganda Techniques

573 Words2 Pages

In the movie The Music Man con man Harold Hill, adeptly tricks the townspeople of River City, a small town in Iowa, into believing that they are need of a boy’s band. In the song “You Got Trouble,” he uses three types of propaganda to achieve this end: faulty cause and effect, exigency, and name-calling.

Faulty cause and effect is a propaganda technique where one thing is presented, without proof, as if it caused another. Hill uses a pool table that was just put into one of the shops as the cause of a fall in morality among the youth of River City. He says to the townsfolk that gather around him, “Youth’ll be frittering away. I say your young men’ll be frittering! Frittering away their noontime, suppertime, chore time to! Get the ball in the pocket, never mind getting dandelions pulled, or the screen door patched, or the beefsteak pounded.” He shows the parents of River City the possible outcome of the pool table’s influence on their children, and consequently instils in them a scepticism of the pool table’s security and merit. Later on he asks the parents of River City, “Would yo...

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