It takes courage, imagination, and skill to satirize evil. Cutting evildoers down to size by showing them as stupid, inept, and self-defeating gives people the satisfaction of seeing evildoers not at their ferocious worst, but in the smallness of their souls.
Many artistic creators in film and television have demonstrated this courage, imagination and skill in parodying Adolph Hitler. Charlie Chaplain was the first with his 1940 film, The Great Dictator, which Chaplain wrote, directed, produced, scored, and starred in. The long-running television show Hogan’s Heroes (1967-1971), set during World War II, lampooned an inept and bumbling German colonel in charge of Stalag 13, filled with American resistance fighters in a POW camp who always got the better of the colonel.
Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator
Nazi-spoofing continued with Mel Brooks’ 1967 film, The Producers, in which a pair of down-and-out theater producers concoct a wild scheme to make money out of a “sure-fire” Broadway failure. They decide on a musical comedy about the Third Reich, but their show, “Springtime for Hitler,” turns out to be a hit. After the initial shock of the premise, audiences loved laughing at Nazis. Who knew? More recently, the 1997 Italian film Life Is Beautiful poignantly illustrated a Jewish father’s efforts to shield his young son from the brutal realities of life in a concentration camp by pretending that everything was just a joke.
Now, Taika Waititi, director of the Oscar-nominated short film Two Cars, One Night, (2004), as well as Thor: Ragnarok (2017), has made his own contribution to the genre with Jojo Rabbit. The film focuses on ten-year-old Jojo, fanatically pro-Hitler and itching to join older Germans fighting the war. However, Jojo (played to perfection by Roman Griffin Davis) quickly discovers in a Hitler youth camp that the work of real soldiers involves a real-world cruelty that makes him recoil. Earnest and sweet, he earns the nickname “Jojo Rabbit” after he runs away from the challenge of killing a live rabbit. The youth camp’s leaders humiliate him for his weakness.
Waititi, a Polynesian Jew, wrote, produced, directed, and co-stars in this film, playing Jojo’s imaginary best friend – Adolph Hitler.
Waititi wrote, produced, directed, and co-stars in this film, playing Jojo’s imaginary best friend – Adolph Hitler. Waititi, who also goes by the surname of Cohen, considers himself to be a Polynesian Jew; his father is Maori and his mother is Jewish. He plays Hitler with great comic effect: mindlessly venomous, thin-skinned, oafish, easily rattled yet also easily derailed from his rants by Jojo’s common-sense logic.
While reviews of the movie are mixed, I watched it with great enjoyment and admiration, not only for the outstanding acting and directing, but also for the pointed parody of the Nazi regime, of Hitler himself, and the ironic laugh lines that arrive in the most unlikely situations.
Jojo lives with his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson, who gives a superb performance). His older sister has died, and his father has been away under mysterious circumstances related to the war effort. Sidelined at home by an accident at the youth camp, Jojo hears unexplained noises upstairs, and to his shock, discovers that his mother is hiding a teenaged Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), in the attic. His enemy is in his very own house! And his mother complicit!
Expecting to meet some hideous horned creature that is the stuff of Nazi propaganda, Jojo at first tries to hurt Elsa, but he cannot overpower her either physically or psychologically. Elsa is no shy and quivering captive. Waititi has written her character as bold, beautiful, dignified, almost fearless. When Jojo asks her, “Tell me about your kind,” she answers tartly, “We’re just like you. Only human. We’re people who have wrestled with the angels!” Realizing her humanity and her strength, Jojo decides to try to understand her instead.
This movie is not about moral and ethical shades of gray; it’s about the stark divide between good and evil.
If at first Jojo is naively “in love” with Hitler, he soon learns where good and evil truly live. This movie is not about moral and ethical shades of gray; it’s about the stark divide between good and evil. The audience realizes from the beginning that Jojo will eventually learn that Jews were never his enemy; Hitler was. He will also learn to appreciate the risks his mother took, at her extreme peril, to hide Elsa.
The promotional materials for this film announce that it is “an anti-hate satire.” This is so obvious that it’s absurd to have to say so. From the first frame to the last, it is clear that Taika Waititi’s intent is to lampoon the mob mentality that can turn a “cultured” society into one that embraces lockstep bigotry, tyranny, and violence. Today, this labeling is a defensive measure, because the easily “triggered” have such a hard time making distinctions between authentic vitriol and parody. Thus, the label: It’s a parody, folks!
Waititi has infused satire at almost every turn. At the Nazi youth camp, Fraulein Rahn gleefully shouts to the youth, “It’s time to burn some books!” and the children cheer wildly. After Jojo first meets Elsa, his “friend” Hitler appears and sympathizes with the boy’s confusion, saying, “Jeez, that was intense.” Jojo asks him, “What am I going to do?” Hitler shrugs and says, “No idea.” And when the Allies pummel Germany with a final round of bombs, leaving the country in utter ruin, Jojo’s friend Yorki, the pudgy eleven-year-old who was conscripted into the army by the flailing Third Reich, looks at the rubble around them and says, “It’s definitely not a good time to be a Nazi.”
For all the spoofing going on, Jojo Rabbit is also a serious film. It shows – modestly and not overly graphically – the horrific cost of one of history’s most savage and tragic periods. The humor here also will not work for everyone; some people cannot abide any joking about the Nazi era. But I believe that for most people, this clever take-down of blind hatred and the mob mentality will be reassuring. Because even during our darkest hours when nothing else makes sense, finding a reason to laugh helps us feel that we, at least, are still in our right minds.
(8) Nancy, January 28, 2020 12:49 AM
I saw the film a few days ago.....
And my husband and I thought it was terrific. Initially I was afraid but then my curiosity got the better of me. The acting was flawless. With that said, you mentioned Hogan's Heroes which I always found repulsive,
(7) Judy R, October 29, 2019 11:30 PM
Lampooning pure evil/ Anti Hate Satire
I don't understand why this organization is writing about this movie. Being a child of a Holocaust Survivor my mother(obm)was one, I don't understand satire that has to do with Hitler(may his name be erased)and that time period, I don't find it funny but offensive, is this picture trying to trivialize the Holocaust or not, these type of movies are confusing in what direction the movie is going, when I watch a movie I want the plot, to be more or less straight forward not wondering what is really going on, what will the person that is seeing the movie feel at the end of the movie, did people give feedback what they thought of the movie, will it give the right message or the wrong message, so what is the bottom line, to the question I hope people get the right message instead of the opposite one.
(6) Raymond, October 29, 2019 9:40 PM
Partial to Bunnies
It sounds like a movie I would have been interested in seeing, except for one important detail, and that is the part about torturing adorable little bunnies. For several years, I had pet bunnies, which frankly made me fall in love with them because they are just so cute, sweet, and adorable, as if they are G-d's little angels. So to see them being so ruthlessly tortured, even if it is just in a movie, would be pure torture for me. Still, the overall premise of the movie sounds quite excellent.
(5) Anonymous, October 29, 2019 2:30 PM
There is nothing funny about this
There is nothing funny about this. Sick!
(4) Anonymous, October 29, 2019 12:48 AM
A useful tool.
I haven't seen the movie, only know what I just read. I can truly understand why it wouldn't be acceptable to those who lived through the horror of that terrible time, or had family & friends that did. With the rise of antisemetism , especially with the younger folks this could be a very useful tool in educating people of the problem with prejudice & hate. That it has no place in a civilized society. Comedy is easier to take-and still teach a very valuable lesson. I pray that this is what the movie archives! May G-D prosper it!
(3) Chaya, October 28, 2019 12:13 AM
Not to be insensitive to the unspeakable pain of the Holocaust
What an intriguing idea. Depicting the Nazis as evil makes them seem formidable. Painting them as the idiots that they are cuts them down to size.
Annie, October 29, 2019 12:28 AM
It may do that, but it runs the risk of trivialising the Holocaust and the other appalling things that happened. There's nothing funny about the deaths of 10,000,000 people in Europe and the social and financial harm done by these 'idiots'. Making them seem like clowns is an insult to all who suffered in the Nazi era;
(2) Joyce Mills, October 27, 2019 8:09 PM
Not funny
I guess I have a different take. I don't think there's anything funny about Hitler, the brain-washing of children, or anything about the atrocities. Charlie Chaplin was bringing the horrific events to the forefront of our consciousness. Most of the world, including our own country was in denial.
Annie, October 27, 2019 11:31 PM
Not funny indeed,
I haven't seen it, and don't want to see it. We should, I suppose, see it before we pass judgement, but I've seen enough of it and read about it.
There's nothing funny about Hitler or the Holocaust. Hogan's Heroes didn't present Hitler as funny. Charlie Chaplin didn't make the Nazi regime seem amusing, as far as I know.
(1) Nate Leipciger, October 27, 2019 3:44 PM
Humour is human.
How does one fight antisemitism, vicious propaganda, false narratives ? The simple answer and the most powerfully weapon one would think is “truth” but Unfortunately counter propaganda retorts that what one considers “truth” is only another opinion. Lampooning, sarcasm, ridicule and humour are disarming and make the point. Of course when you are dealing with an evil person who was the author and perpetrator of the devastating Shoah one must be very sensitive and respectful of the feelings of the victims and from your review, Judy, it appears that this film is such. Ridicule is a powerful weapon if used properly. You are quite right in your suggestion that even in our darkest time we joked about the ridiculousness of our situation in the ghetto and in concentration camps. Your last paragraph said it very well. Thank you.