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| Telling a Friend May Mean Telling the Enemy Britain, 1942 The Victoria & Albert Museum |
The work of an unknown artist, this World War II-era poster from 1942 relies on the then-popular stereotype of the gossiping woman to make an important wartime propaganda point. Let’s see how it works. A sailor tells a secret to his girl, who tells her friend, and the information eventually gets passed on to a suspicious character. I prefer to look at it this way, Joel McCrea tells a secret to Barbara Stanwyck who tells it to Joan Crawford who tells it to Vivien Leigh who goes straight to evil Conrad Veidt.
Curiously, though the messengers are women, the source and ultimate recipient of the secret are both men. So, it’s not just men who gossip despite what Ricky Ricardo or Fred Flintstone might have you believe.
This poster is in keeping with the similar propaganda slogan of “Keep Mum She's not so Dumb,” which also implies that women cannot be trusted to keep secrets, regardless of whether her revelation is innocent chat or espionage. In short, your friend's friend may be your enemy or, as the poster states, "Telling a friend may mean telling the enemy."
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