Satire and Authoritarian Ideologies

Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, directed by Charlie Chaplin (United Artists, 1940).

This module offers a chance to explore how satire can function as a form of anti-authoritarian resistance.

The setting is the onset of World War II in Europe. The primary source is a pivotal scene in Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 film The Great Dictator, widely acknowledged as among the most powerful and successful authoritarian satires. The film centers on a case of mistaken identity involving an amnesiac Jewish barber and his identical double the fascist dictator Adenoid Hynkel, modeled on Adolf Hitler.  In the film’s iconic four-minute “globe scene” that anchors this module, the dictator Hynkel dances around his office with comic grace, bouncing an inflated world globe which finally and dramatically bursts.  Professor Scott Spector provides the World War II era historical context for understanding this scene and the larger issues raised in the film.  Chaplin wrote and produced the film out of conviction and at considerable personal risk.  The major Hollywood studies were hesitant to support a film that could be controversial in a country with substantial isolationist sentiments. The teaching plan offers a set of guided questions that allow students to unpack the “globe scene” as a way into examining authoritarian fantasies, the role of the media in projecting authoritarian ideologies and how comedy can subvert authoritarian authority. As part of Authoritarianism 101, this module enables teachers to explore the themes of authoritarian practice, visual cultures of authoritarianism and challenges to authoritarianism.