---
title: '''"Honorable thanks" ABSENTEE'' (Australian silkscreen poster, General Motors Holden)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/honourable-thanks-absentee-australia-1942/
description: A bowing, bespectacled caricature of a Japanese man in tailcoat and top hat tips his hat with one hand while a dagger drips blood from the other behind…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Racial caricature of a Japanese man holding a bloodied dagger, with mock-pidgin speech. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[!['"Honorable thanks" ABSENTEE' (Australian silkscreen poster, General Motors Holden)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/honourable-thanks-absentee-australia-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/honourable-thanks-absentee-australia-1942.jpg)

# '"Honorable thanks" ABSENTEE' (Australian silkscreen poster, General Motors Holden)

A bowing, bespectacled caricature of a Japanese man in tailcoat and top hat tips his hat with one hand while a dagger drips blood from the other behind his back. The mock-courteous pidgin 'Honorable thanks' addressed to 'ABSENTEE' casts a worker's missed shift as a favour to the enemy.

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
"Honorable
thanks"
ABSENTEE
S E F / 3  6 / SCREEN
```

Printer's mark at the foot ('SEF/3 6/SCREEN') is partly legible. The caption bar 'AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL' and the accession number at the foot are the museum's; AWM's title spells the word 'Honourable', the poster 'Honorable'.

[← Hit 'Em with Copper, Zinc, Lead](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hit-em-with-copper-zinc-lead-kirby-army-1942/) [Carved stone: 'Az nem lehet, hogy annyi szív, hiába onta vért!!' (Vörösmarty, Szózat) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hungary-szozat-stone-az-nem-lehet-1942/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (Electoral Saxony · 1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (Dutch Republic · 1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (Great Britain · 1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The North Briton, No. XLV, 23 April 1763 (John Wilkes), opening page](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/north-briton-no-45-wilkes-1763/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Apr 23, 1763 · Name-calling)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Province of Massachusetts Bay · Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Hand-coloured engraving of bloodied dead and wounded colonists after soldiers fired on a crowd.
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (France · 1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)