Hollywood and tyrants: How filmmakers take on the powerful
In film lore, movie moguls are nearly always pictured as tyrants, directors as dictators, producers as despots, so you’d think I’d be used to the notion of authoritarianism by now.
But this era of political autocrats has me rattled, not least because it will inevitably result in a raft of strongman movies in a couple of years.
Apparently, it has Jon Stewart rattled, too, at least judging from the speech he gave at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts when he was presented with the 2022 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
The banana peel in the coal mine
“Comedy doesn’t change the world,” he told the audience, “but it’s a bellwether. We’re the banana peel in the coal mine. When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first. It’s just a reminder to people that democracy is under threat. Authoritarians are the threat to comedy, to art, to music, to thought, to poetry, to progress, to all those things.”
True enough, and it has me pondering how the arts have dealt with authoritarians through the years.
In Shakespeare’s day, you had to be a fool to speak truth to power. King Lear’s Fool, for instance, mocked the king’s decision to give away his kingdom to his daughters. He’d been granted a dispensation to say what he wanted because no one took him seriously. He served at the pleasure of the crown.
Offstage, of course, so did Elizabethan playwrights. The spiritual descendants of those playwrights now work in the film industry, and at least in Hollywood, they don’t have to worry much about catering to tyrants (unless you count studio bosses).
Casting a jaundiced eye on those who wield power
For the most part, depicting authoritarians as monsters is so axiomatic, it’s become Hollywood’s default position, whether absolute power is being wielded by Ian McDiarmid as a Sith lord, by Donald Sutherland as a despot who stages Hunger Games, or by Meryl Streep as a fashion editor whose iron fist comes sheathed in a velvet glove.
Casting a jaundiced eye on those who wield power has a long history in Hollywood, dating back at least to the 1930s when Charlie Chaplin caught a screening of the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will.
The film’s effectiveness at portraying Adolph Hitler as almost God-like terrified most observers, but Chaplin reportedly cracked up at director Leni Riefenstahl’s excesses. As his Little Tramp already had the toothbrush mustache, he figured two could play at this game, and in his satirical 1940 comedy, The Great Dictator, he mocked the German Fuhrer by speaking German-accented gibberish as Adenoid Hynkel, the “Phooey” of Tomania. (He also played a lowly barber who was the Phooey’s virtual twin.)
Mocking strongmen in an era of strongmen
Chaplin said in his autobiography that he couldn’t have made the film funny if he’d known, then, the full extent of Nazi evil. But ridiculing Hitler as a clown, worked for audiences.
Chaplin wasn’t the first comic to mock strongmen in an era noted for the likes of Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The Three Stooges had just released a short called You Nazty Spy. And seven years earlier, in 1933, the Marx Brothers comedy Duck Soup had cast Groucho as goofy tyrant Rufus T. Firefly in a satirical look at how nations were dealing with the Great Depression.
And astonishingly, that same year the entirely serious drama Gabriel Over the White House offered an approving look at a president played by Walter Huston (John Huston’s father, Anjelica Huston’s grandfather) who thought tyranny was the ideal way to lift the U.S. economy.
The film was financed by right-wing newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and admired by no less a progressive than President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And though, under the guise of wanting the greatest good for the greatest number, it was essentially preaching fascism, it made a tidy little profit at the box office.
Taming despots while Nero fiddled and Rome burned
After World War II, this notion of a benign dictatorship couldn’t play anymore for most audiences. And Hollywood fell back on time-honored notions. None more time-honored than that of Roman emperors persecuting Christians. For instance, Peter Ustinov’s vainglorious Nero in 1951’s Quo Vadis.
In the 1950s when Hollywood needed a despot tamed, it called on Deborah Kerr. Ustinov’s ridiculous Nero was a lost cause, so while he fiddled and Rome burned, Kerr set about taming Robert Taylor’s jerk of a Roman general, just as she would, a few years later, do her best to tame Yul Brynner’s petulant Siamese monarch in The King and I.
Darkness and real-life dystopias
These were hardly realistic portrayals, but over the next few decades, filmmakers increasingly gave us films about the ousting of tyrants that were realistic: the struggle against Greece’s military Junta in the film “Z,” the wrenching last months of Argentina’s military dictatorship in the Oscar-winning The Official Story, and a feel-good film called No about the Chilean campaign to oust Augusto Pinochet.
But perhaps no film about a despot hit harder than one set in the east-African nation of Uganda. In The Last King of Scotland, Forest Whitaker won a Best Actor Oscar playing the corrupt general turned brutal dictator Idi Amin, taking audiences from his populist early days all the way to the paranoid reign of terror that earned him the moniker “the Butcher of Uganda.”
Can comedy survive this new moment?
What nearly all these films have in common is a conviction that authoritarians must ultimately fail. In fact, way back in 1940, that’s the sentiment that Charlie Chaplin used to end The Great Dictator. After clowning for two hours, and even dancing a world domination pas de deux with a balloon globe, he addressed the camera as the lowly barber who had, in an unlikely plot twist, switched places with the “Phooey.”
And in his own voice, without any comic flourishes at all, Chaplin spoke for several minutes from the heart, about shared humanity, holding fast to ideals, and uniting in the name of democracy.
It’s hard to imagine today how audiences received this speech in the run-up to World War II. Critics wrote that its lack of comedy broke the film’s spell, but it’s undeniably arresting as a capper to what became Chaplin’s biggest commercial success.
And it’s something I thought about when I heard Jon Stewart’s acceptance speech for the Mark Twain prize — which you’ll be able to watch for yourself on PBS on June 21st.
Stewart has built his career on directly and sincerely addressing his audience, leaving jokes aside at times, and posing queries like the one he posed — and answered — early in his remarks:
“Is comedy gonna survive in this new moment. I’ve got news for you. Comedy survives every moment.”
Even, we all have to hope, moments where madmen run the show, and laughs catch in your throat.
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Transcript :
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
When comedian Jon Stewart accepted the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday, he affirmed the point of the award – to honor those who use humor to shine a light on truth and justice.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JON STEWART: Comedy doesn’t change the world, but it’s a bellwether. We’re the banana peel in the coal mine. When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first. It’s just a reminder to people that democracy is under threat. Authoritarians are the threat to comedy, to art, to music, to thought, to poetry…
(APPLAUSE)
STEWART: …To progress, to all those things.
SCHMITZ: Critic Bob Mondello says that speech set him to thinking about how the arts, especially how the movies, have dealt with authoritarians.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: In Shakespeare’s day, only fools could speak truth to power. King Lear’s fool, for instance, after the king gave away his kingdom to his daughters.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As King Lear) Thou art too much of late in the frown.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As fool) Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou had’st no need to care for her frowning. I am better than thou art now. I am a fool, but thou art nothing.
MONDELLO: On-stage tyrants granted fools special dispensation. They could say what they wanted because, as jokesters, no one took them seriously. They served at the pleasure of the crown. And offstage, so did playwrights. The spiritual descendants of those playwrights now work in the film industry, and at least in Hollywood, they don’t have to worry much about catering to tyrants – unless you count studio bosses. For the most part, depicting authoritarians as monsters is so not a problem. It’s become Hollywood’s default position, whether absolute power is being wielded by a Sith lord…
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “STAR WARS: EPISODE III – REVENGE OF THE SITH”)
IAN MCDIARMID: (As Supreme Chancellor Palpatine) Your arrogance blinds you, Master Yoda. Now you will experience the full power of the dark side.
MONDELLO: …Or by a despot who stages Hunger Games…
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE HUNGER GAMES”)
DONALD SUTHERLAND: (As President Coriolanus Snow) Why do we have a winner? Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear.
MONDELLO: …Or by a fashion designer whose iron fist comes sheathed in a velvet glove.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA”)
MERYL STREEP: (As Miranda Priestly) I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to confirm an appointment.
EMILY BLUNT: (As Emily Charlton) I know. I’m so sorry, Miranda. I actually did confirm the…
STREEP: (As Miranda Priestly) Details of your incompetence do not interest me.
MONDELLO: Casting a jaundiced eye on those who wield power has a long history in Hollywood, dating back at least to the 1930s, when Charlie Chaplin caught a screening of the Nazi propaganda film “Triumph Of The Will.” The film’s effectiveness at portraying Adolf Hitler as almost godlike terrified most observers. But Chaplin reportedly cracked up at director Leni Riefenstahl’s excesses. As his little tramp already had the toothbrush mustache, he figured two could play at this game. And in his satirical 1940 comedy “The Great Dictator,” he mocked the German fuhrer by playing Adenoid Hynkel, the Phooey of Tomainia.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE GREAT DICTATOR”)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) The dictator ruled the nation with an iron fist under the new emblem of the double cross. Liberty was banished. Free speech was suppressed. And only the voice of Hynkel was heard.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN: (As Adenoid Hynkel, non-English language spoken).
MONDELLO: Chaplin said in his autobiography that he couldn’t have made the film funny if he’d known then the full extent of Nazi evil. But ridiculing Hitler as a clown worked for audiences.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE GREAT DICTATOR”)
CHAPLIN: (As Adenoid Hynkel, non-English language spoken).
MONDELLO: Chaplin wasn’t the first comic to mock strongmen in an era noted for a strongmen. In 1933, “Duck Soup” cast Groucho Marx as a goofy tyrant, Rufus T. Firefly, in a satirical look at how nations were dealing with the Great Depression.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “DUCK SOUP”)
GROUCHO MARX: (As Rufus T. Firefly) We’ve got to start looking for a new treasurer.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As Minister of Labor) But you appointed one last week.
MARX: (As Rufus T. Firefly) That’s the one I’m looking for.
MONDELLO: And astonishingly, that same year, the entirely serious drama “Gabriel Over The White” House offered an approving look at a president who thought tyranny was the ideal way to lift the U.S. economy.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE”)
WALTER HUSTON: (As Judson Hammond) I shall assume full responsibility for the government.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As Senator Langham) Mr. President, this is dictatorship.
HUSTON: (As Judson Hammond) Senator Langham, words do not frighten me.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As Senator Langham) But the United States of America is a democracy.
MONDELLO: “Gabriel Over The White House” was financed by right-wing newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and admired by no less a progressive than President Franklin Roosevelt. And it made a tidy little profit at the box office preaching fascism.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE”)
HUSTON: (As Judson Hammond) If what I plan to do in the name of the people makes me a dictator, then it is a dictatorship based on Jefferson’s definition of democracy, a government for the greatest good, of the greatest number.
MONDELLO: After World War II, this notion of a benign dictatorship couldn’t play anymore for most audiences, and Hollywood fell back on time-honored notions, none more time-honored than Roman emperors persecuting Christians, Peter Ustinov’s vain Nero, for instance, in the Oscar winner “Quo Vadis.”
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “QUO VADIS”)
PETER USTINOV: (As Nero) You are right, Petronius – how they love me.
MONDELLO: In the 1950s, when Hollywood needed a despot tamed, it called on Deborah Kerr. Nero was a lost cause. So while he fiddled and Rome burned, Kerr set about taming Robert Taylor’s jerk of a Roman general.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “QUO VADIS”)
ROBERT TAYLOR: (As Vinicius) Uniting and civilizing the world under one power – have to spill a little blood to do it.
DEBORAH KERR: (As Lygia) No. There’s a gentler and more powerful way of doing that without bloodshed and war.
MONDELLO: A few years later, she did her best to tame Yul Brynner’s petulant Siamese monarch in “The King And I.”
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE KING AND I”)
YUL BRYNNER: (As King Mongkut of Siam) You are a very difficult woman.
KERR: (As Anna Leonowens) Perhaps so, Your Majesty.
BRYNNER: (As King Mongkut of Siam) But you’ll observe care that a head shall to be higher than mine. When I shall sit, you shall sit. When I shall kneel, you shall kneel, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
MONDELLO: It took more to bring him around than whistling a happy tune, but she did it. These were hardly realistic portrayals. But over the next few decades, filmmakers increasingly gave us films about the ousting of tyrants that were realistic, the struggle against Greece’s military junta in the film “Z”…
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “Z”)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #6: (As character) Revolution.
MONDELLO: …The wrenching last months of Argentina’s military dictatorship in the Oscar-winning “The Official Story”…
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE OFFICIAL STORY”)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #7: (As character, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: …A feel-good film about the Chilean campaign to oust Augusto Pinochet in “No.”
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “NO”)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (As characters) No.
MONDELLO: But perhaps no film about a despot hit harder than one set in the East African nation of Uganda. In “The Last King Of Scotland,” Forest Whitaker played the corrupt general turned brutal dictator Idi Amin, taking audiences from his populist early days…
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND”)
FOREST WHITAKER: (As Idi Amin) In my heart, I am a simple man.
MONDELLO: …All the way to the paranoid reign of terror that earned him the moniker The Butcher of Uganda.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND”)
WHITAKER: (As Idi Amin) I am surrounded by traitors. The British say I am a madman. To Americans, I am a cannibal. These are lies.
MONDELLO: What nearly all these films have in common is a conviction that authoritarians must ultimately fail. In fact, way back in 1940, that’s the sentiment that Charlie Chaplin used to end “The Great Dictator.” After clowning for 2 hours, he addressed the camera as a lowly barber who had, in an unlikely plot twist, switched places with the Phooey. And in his own voice, without any comic flourishes at all, he spoke for several minutes from the heart.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE GREAT DICTATOR”)
CHAPLIN: (As barber) I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible – Jew, gentile, Black man, white. We all want to help one another.
MONDELLO: It’s hard to imagine today how audiences received this speech in the run-up to World War II. Critics thought its lack of comedy broke the film’s spell, but it’s undeniably arresting as a capper to what would become Chaplin’s biggest commercial success, something I thought about when I heard Jon Stewart’s acceptance speech for the Mark Twain Prize, which you’ll be able to watch for yourself on PBS on June 21. Stewart has built his career on directly and sincerely addressing his audience, leaving jokes aside at times, saying things like this…
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STEWART: Is comedy going to survive in this new moment? I’ve got news for you. Comedy survives every moment.
MONDELLO: Even ones where madmen run the show and laughs catch in your throat. I’m Bob Mondello. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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