Imperial Newsreels

US Media and the Imperial Project

At the time the US secured the Philippine islands from Spain in 1898, most of the American population had little knowledge about the Philippine archipelago. Those who were familiar with the Philippines and the Filipino people were mainly academics who travelled to the islands for their research. These were specialists such as Dean Conant Worcester, a zoologist from the University of Michigan and later a colonial official, who wrote books about the Philippine natural environment and Philippine culture.[1] Pictures and government reports, many from University of Michigan affiliates, also appeared in various US articles and newspapers discussing the Philippine-American war, or the “Philippine insurgency” as they called it.[2] Aside from these few sources, Americans did not have much exposure at all to the diversity that encompasses the Philippines and its peoples.

This completely changed, however, at the turn of the twentieth century. With the invention of film and newsreel, knowledge about US imperial endeavors thousands of miles away became much more accessible to the average American. While newspapers already circulated stories and reports of the war, the addition of visual and interactive media had the power to garner the attention of an even wider audience. Most Americans received their narratives of the war through the novel medium of film. The advance in visual technologies put the Philippines at the center of American political thought and debate.[3]

The Edison Manufacturing Company was the premiere source of newsreel footage during the Philippine-American War.[4] Throughout the war, Edison’s company produced reenactments of battles and other military actions taken in the Philippines to construct an image of US bravery, heroism, and service in “saving” the Filipino people. Silent films such as Advance of Kansas soldiers at Caloocan (1899) often featured the defeat of Filipino “insurgents” as a heroic action, which encouraged US support of the war. The film, and more information about its production, is available through the Library of Congress.[5]   

While Edison’s documentary-style footage attempted to portray an unaltered vision of one of the war’s battles, it produced a one-sided narrative. The Filipino revolutionaries wave a blank flag, lending to their facelessness in the eyes of the audience. They also aggressively face towards the camera, firing first upon the audience. The American soldiers step in front to act as protectors. Furthermore, the soldier waving the American flag is shot and drops the flag, convincing an audience that the Filipinos are indeed a threat. Lastly, another soldier heroically steps in to continue flying the flag.

The Edison Manufacturing Company produced several silent films with similar themes throughout the Philippine-American War with titles such as Capture of trenches at Candaba, US troops and Red Cross in the trenches before Caloocan, and Filipinos retreat from trenches. These films have been digitized and are available to the public through the Library of Congress website.[6]

Owing to their novelty, the popularity of film and newsreels grew across the nation. Demand prompted the production of more newsreels, which in turn shaped the narrative of a victorious conquest of the Philippines. But how accurately did these films depict what was actually taking place on the ground, thousands of miles away from where the films were shown and even produced?

Despite the Philippine-American War’s official end in 1902, Filipinos continued to fight against the American occupation of their islands for the next decade.[7] The lack of documentation of military conflict after 1902 through film and newsreel supported the US government’s claim that the Philippines had been pacified. In other words, film and media played a significant role in shaping how Americans understood the state of affairs in the Philippines, whether the representations were accurate or not.

Citations

[1] For more on the work of Dean C. Worcester, especially his photography, see Mark Rice, Dean Worcester’s Fantasy Islands: Photography, Film, and the Colonial Philippines (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2014).

[2] There are many secondary sources on the Philippine-American war and the US role in shaping American opinion. See, for example, Paul Kramer, “Race-Making and Colonial Violence in the U.S. Empire: The Philippine-American War as Race War,” Diplomatic History 30, no. 2 (2006): 169–210; Phillip Ablett, “Colonialism in Denial: Us Propaganda in the Philippine-American War,” Social Alternatives 23, no. 3 (Third Quarter 2004): 22–28.

[3] See David Brody, Visualizing American Empire: Orientalism and Imperialism in the Philippines, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).

[4] José B. Capino discusses the role of documentaries in shaping US empire. See José B. Capino, “Figures of Empire: American Documentaries in the Philippines,” The Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia, (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 81.

[5] Library of Congress online collection.

[6] Ibid.

[7] For Philippine perspectives on the war, see Angel Velasco Shaw et al., Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999 (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2002).