9. Dr. Seuss also wrote a film entitled Our Job in Japan
Throughout the war, Dr. Seuss produced cartoons and posters which presented the Japanese in the racist caricatures common for the day and the war. The same caricatures were presented in film and other works. They presented the Japanese as being buck toothed, with slitted, slanting eyes, often with a thin beard or mustache, and usually grinning. Goggles were a frequent feature of the portrayal. But in the film Our Job in Japan, which was written by Dr. Seuss to prepare American troops of the occupation of Japan with a presentation of their duties and the difficulties they would face, he was considerably less judgmental. The Japanese were presented in the film in a more sympathetic light.
Instead of condemnation of the Japanese in a manner similar to that of the Germans in Your Job in Germany, Dr. Seuss condemned the military leaders who had corrupted the educational system of Japan and the ancient traditions of the Shinto religion to essentially brainwash the entire population. The film was suppressed by American military authorities, according to some sources by MacArthur himself. The film was later adapted and lengthened into the film Design for Death in 1947, winning an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Dr. Seuss wrote the expanded film, working with his wife Helen, though the RKO production received mixed reviews from critics. The script for the expanded film is in the archives of Geisel’s papers and other work at the University of San Diego.