“Like any other tyranny, National Socialism was completely humourless”
In January of 1939, through the means of a public opinion sample survey, American citizens were asked; should a war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany break out, who would they want to win? In a result that would surprise every President prior to Franklin D. Roosevelt; 83% were in favour of the Russian communists, whilst a measly 17% supported the German regime. In 1933, the United States officially recognised the USSR on the world stage and from then until 1947 when the Iron Curtain was drawn, existed an American preference for the motherland of world revolution over a fiercely anti-communist nation with a recognisably capitalist economy. In describing this unlikely alliance, Eric Hobsbawm writes ‘it was determined by the rise and fall of Hitler Germany, against which both the USA and USSR made common cause, because they saw it as a greater danger than each of the two saw the other’. Surprise is often referenced in pieces on The Great Dictator (1940), having been released a year prior to America’s entry into the war and somehow still receiving a positive reception - as if the yankees wore armbands and embraced the Roman salute prior to Pearl Harbour. Rather, concern in the States surrounding Chaplin’s first talkie came only from the diplomatic perspective, a fear of upsetting the fascist European powers that America was not yet at war with. Meanwhile, audiences loved it and soon, particularly in Britain - despite the Chamberlain administration announcing whilst it was in pre-production that it would prohibit the film in order to align with the policy of appeasement - it became an avenue of anti-fascist dissemination.
The British bulldog is no stranger to satire as propaganda. During the Falklands War, there is great contrast in the way Thatcher stirred up war support using colourless, inky drawings with witty captions underneath that resembled what one would find in an edition of Private Eye, as opposed to the more dated efforts of the eventually ousted Galtieri - as well as, of course, that one was in English and the other Spanish. Though the forty years between the two wars has outlined a shift in exactly how we laugh; the overarching British attitude towards propaganda itself has remained the very same since the Second World War. Whilst the Kaiser was portrayed as a ‘great brute’ with a spiked helmet, Hitler by comparison was instead mocked, impersonated and most crucially, emasculated. Rumour has it, the toothbrush-stachioed Austrian only had one ball. But before Mel Brooks could make Adolf sassy and camp, it was Chaplin who broke the mold in finding the funny in fuhrer.
The true genius of The Great Dictator is stated rather bluntly in an inter title that follows the opening credits, it reads - ‘Any resemblance between Hynkel the dictator and the Jewish barber is purely co-incidental'. In the same way that Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana share a likeness. This however draws our attention to the informed casting decision which immediately bridges the gap between utter lunatic and esteemed joker. For audiences in the 1930s, the idea of Chaplin playing Hitler is akin to Sasha Baren Cohen finally playing Gadaffi, as he eventually pretty much did, today. American critic Ron Rosenbaum argues that the presence of Chaplin's 'stache on Hitler's face encouraged Western leaders to underestimate the Nazi leader. "Chaplin's mustache became a lens through which to look at Hitler," he writes. "A glass in which Hitler became merely Chaplinesque: a figure to be mocked more than feared, a comic villain whose pretensions would collapse of his own disproportionate weight like the Little Tramp collapsing on his cane. Someone to be ridiculed rather than resisted."
However, with the credentials of fascism being more of a revolutionary aesthetic quality rather than actual political nous - which crucially, ultimately separates the European Axis powers, with Imperial Japan and Francoist Spain - surely there’s logic in attempting to subvert the dangerous, organised militaristic depiction through comedy and absurdity? In Cabaret, the leitmotif of ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me’, sang by a Hitler Youth and intended to haunt an audience with its foreboding lyrics, has since been adopted by the fascists of today as a hijacked anthem. Would Neo-Nazis similarly adopt Adenoid Hynkel’s vaudeville leap into the curtain draping? Or the way Chaplin so elegantly poses with a floating globe whilst alone in his office? I can’t see such being part of their doctrine of ‘Übermensch’ (the Nazi's word for a biologically superior Aryan or Germanic master race) and hence, it is an effective depiction to use against fascism. Rosenbaum’s argument about Chaplin’s likeness, especially in tangent with the policy of appeasement, is a compelling thought but cannot be taken as serious reasoning to why the Second World War began, as I’m sure the novelist himself would agree. Instead, as aforementioned, to present the Nazi regime or Mussolini’s Repubblica Sociale Italiana as a silly and childish political alternative - with the equivalent of toy soldiers and diplomacy turned to food fights - is the only way to truly represent the childish and silly reactionary ideology that is fascism.
Goebbels is Garbitsch, Göring is Herring and Jack Oakie’s Benzino Napaloni is the Dictator of Bacteria. However, it’s the incongruity of the totalitarian and antisemitic, with speeches of German gibberish intersected with screeches of ‘Juden!’, Adenoid Hynkel - a name resembling a worn handkerchief - eventually being mistaken for an earnest Jewish barber that is The Great Dictator’s most hilarious and potent irony; for Hitler himself who was often mistook for Chaplin, a man he described as ‘ekelhafter juden acrobat’, could probably think of little worse. Of course, Chaplin’s final speech is rightfully heralded as amongst the greatest of anything ever captured on celluloid. It is the pinnacle of Chaplin as an actor, which out of his many talents this essay has focused on, but also in cementing his inseparable persona. In 1925, Chaplin spoke of ‘The Little Tramp’ with the entire point being, ‘is that no matter how down on his ass he is, no matter how well the jackals succeed in tearing him apart, he’s still a man of dignity.”
There is no dignity in dictatorship.
Written By Harry J. Wormald | IG: @harryjwormald
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