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"Patriotic? We start out our clip with George M. Cohen making a quiet walk through the the nation's home: the White House. What could be more nostalgic, more comforting, more thematically American, than a friendly escort, by the kindly butler who recalls the Cohen song \"You're a Grand Old Flag,\" through the house of the national leader? We walk up the carpeted stairs, past portraits of our Founding Fathers. We get to the Oval office and look past Roosevelt's shoulder's to see the American Flag, and (accurately) sailing ships - because we remember Roosevelt started as Secretary of the Navy - and a busy covered desk.\n \n\n\n\tThe dialogue supports qualities that are patriotic and militaristic: to paraphrase Roosevelt: \"You do me better than me\" and \"I admire you Irish Americans, you wave the flag openly\" - making these features admirable. Cohen recalls his father running off to join the civil war, and checking on his mother who was giving birth between theatre acts, making his father's desire to fight at a young age, and strong work ethic while in the theatre, equally laudable.\n \n\n\n\t\"Yankee Doodle Dandy\" is purely a biographical film, but using the White House as the introduction, with the look backwards, gives the opportunity to underscore certain desirable behaviors. Had the film begun at the parade, or just with a date and the tap dance with Walter Huston, that message would have been lost. The film would have been just as fine, moving forward without that brief retrospective, but no opportunity for enforcement of patriotism. It''s subtle, yet once you're looking for it, incredibly powerful, messaging.\n "
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