Jojo Rabbit's Superstar
/Adolph Hitler had a cult of personality, one Jojo Rabbit reminds us of.
Adoplh hitler at a parade.
This post contains spoilers for Jojo Rabbit.
Content Warning: Nazis, Fascism
There is a sequence within the movie Jojo Rabbit, not 15 minutes in, that radically changed my vision of the infamous man Adolf Hitler.
Jojo, a 10-year-old German boy, runs out into the streets of his hometown within Nazi Germany. He’s plucked up his courage to go to a Hitler Youth weekend getaway, thanks to his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler giving him a pep talk in the mirror. Jojo goes skipping along through the city, cheerfully giving people the Nazi salute and running into an open field joyfully. He leaps into the air, Hitler beside him (just as filled with joy) and things slow down as Jojo reaches midair, a moment now suspended in time.
The next few minutes are not of the little boy, but of grainy black-and-white war propaganda. – not of tanks, not of planes, not of soldiers. And the music isn’t military music – it’s The Beatles.
The footage is of Hitler, the real Hitler, exercising his star power. He looks like he showed up to a Justin Bieber concert in uniform. He reaches down from above to extend his hand to a sea of eager fangirls reaching up to touch him, like a chosen messiah appearing in all his glory to the faithful or a music star standing onstage and meeting scores of his cheering fans.
Hitler was a charismatic man. Everyone knows that. It’s an oft-repeated point when the question of how Hitler’s rise to power happened arises.
But Jojo Rabbit is not content to say that Hitler was charismatic and leave it at that. The movie reminds you that he was not merely charismatic. Hitler was a star, as much of a pop celebrity as a strong leader. A mythology was built around him as a genius strategist who was the peak of his “race,” somewhat like a pro wrestler has a story and special moves and may even be considered to have a supernatural spirit.
Jojo, the main character, is emblematic of this. His room is plastered with enough posters of the Führer and Hitler paraphernalia that even the exhausted, seen-it-all Gestapo that visit his house on a routine inspection seem genuinely cheerful when they see how much merchandise little Jojo has. They even praise aloud his blind patriotism and hold him up as an example for good German boys everywhere.
For much of the movie, Jojo is not married to the ideals of the Nazi Party, even if he spits their political talking points of the war at his more moderate mother during a tense moment at dinnertime. He wants to become a soldier… not out of a sense of justice, but because he feels he should.
Why does he feel he should?
Why, Hitler wants him to.
The same way sports stars sponsor food and drink.
Now, I feel it’s necessary to say I don’t think that sports stars, pro wrestlers, music artists, or celebrities are all “literally Hitler” or contributing to fascism and/or the rise of the troubling American (and Canadian) trend of neo-Nazis and hate speech.
I find Jojo Rabbit’s subtext that Hitler was a celebrity with a cult of personality to be chilling. United States President Donald Trump rose to office in the White House based entirely on popularity and saying a lot of racist, homophobic things while having a fanbase that has spent who-even-knows how much money in merchandise sales. It’s hard to look at the vision of the Hitler within Jojo Rabbit, both mockery and reality, and not see a parallel and a personality that could just as easily inspire the right things as the wrong things in people if it’s not reigned in.
This is what sufficiently powerful movies can do. In a single scene of less than five minutes, with no dialogue whatsoever, they can change your worldview of a single thing in history.
That is powerful. I hope more movies seek to use that power for good.
Jean-Michel Vaillancourt
Jean-Michel Vaillancourt is a D&D fanatic, a video game enthusiast, a book-lover, and an eternal seeker for the art of storycraft in modern TV pop culture.
