2: THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940)

DIRECTOR: CHARLIE CHAPLIN

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

(TW: Light mentions of child marriage, sex abuse, pedophilia, and anti-semitism)

As a person named Charlie, I am fascinated by the famous people with my name. Charlie Bucket, Charlie Puth, Charli D’Amelio, and of course, Charlie BitMyFinger (that’s his full legal name right?) But I’d argue, that the most important Charlie out of all of these Charlie’s is Charlie Chaplin.

Now I don’t know if you know this but Charlie Chaplin…is funny. He knows the funny. But the thing he also knows is political subtext. The Great Dictator is highly regarded for being a wacky and gripping satire of World War 2. But because it’s Chaplin, it’s a lot more childish, and it’s PERFECT. Having names like General Garbitsch, Adenoid Hynkel, Benzino Napolini and Hermann Epstein is very very childish and sooo funny.

However, I do have one slight criticism. I wish there was more of a connection between Hynkel and The Barber. Obviously with both characters being played by the same actor, I thought there would be some sort of bigger connection other than Hynkel knowing that Schultz knew and protected The Barber. I do think there’s some comedy to be had for a guy to play both a person with the most importance and another person who has little significance to the other guy, but when The Barber dresses up as Hynkel in the last 15 minutes it feels…Out of nowhere?

The connection doesn’t have to be big, It’s the 40s, I’m not expecting them to show up in the same place, editing wasn’t that clever yet. But maybe Hynkel purposefully seeks out The Barber, or their both related, or they could’ve actually pulled a Prince and The Pauper scenario and there could be a dialogue of “what if Hitler dealt with his consequences from the people he wanted to genocide?” I feel like Hynkel and The Barber being too separate doesn’t give the film a good back-and-forth through-line.

Small nitpicks aside, of course this movie is Chaplin levels of insanity and I love it. The two best moments in the film are Hynkel playing with his globe, such massively funny symbolism brought in a way that only Chaplin could, and of course The Barber’s based monologue at the end. The one thing that I do like about how Hynkel and The Barber have a very loose connection to each other, is how they use power. We see Hynkel throughout this movie use his power over everyone; he has a motorcade, he tells everyone what to do, he has a personal envelope licker, etc. he abuses his power over people on the daily.

However, The Barber is the complete opposite. He’s always the helper, he has affection for people, he is incredibly soft spoken. So when the time comes where he has complete control over everyone on stage, he doesn’t project a monolithic strength. He wishes to unite the world in science and progress, instead of greed and hatred. That’s an incredibly powerful message.

However, with messages in mind, I think it’s important to recognize celebrity status and how much of an impact it brings…and how much that can suck. There’s a lot of talk nowadays that involves separating the art from the artist, and for me personally, I don’t see it as this cut-and-dry thing. Everybody that makes art is making a statement, and that statement comes from somebody, whether it’s shit or not is for you to decide. But, nowadays, I think it’s to kind of act as a defense mechanism because a lot of our favorite things get ruined because everyone’s got receipts. Current examples include Drake, Sean Combs, Matt Healey of The 1975, Kanye West, Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Jake and Logan Paul, a lot of those stories involve the collapsing of their images either because of their rising fame or because their image is not real.

To bring this back to our main subject, there is a lot that revolves around Chaplin’s history that gets quite murky. Did you know that he married a 16-year-old, divorced her, and then married another 16-year-old? This guy does not pass any sort of social barrier in the modern day, nor would a lot of movies or albums or what have you that we’re probably gonna come across.

But, what I will say, this is why I like learning about history. This media that we love is a part of our cultural histories because of its pros AND it’s cons. You can’t choose which one comes up. To sum this all up, here’s a quote from legendary YouTuber, F.D Signifier.

“You know what I hate? When you bring up someone or something significant done by one of those historical figures, for whatever reason (trying to make a point about an argument or, you know, illustrate something important) and instead of someone opposing you on the merits of what was being said or even refuting it with their own debate or argument, they just bring up the bad thing that someone did once. As if that and what you’re talking about is related, and most of the time it’s not. Like it’ll be like “Y’know [Karl] Marx’s dialectical materialism really does a great job at explaining so many of the problems we have with capitalism today.” and then the response’ll be “Well, he slept on [Frederich] Engles’ couch and didn’t pay any bills” and that is true! It just didn’t make the first thing I said any less relevant or significant as an arguement”

-F.D Signifier from his video “All your faves are trash and that’s ok…”

Of course that doesn’t mean that people aren’t subject to criticism, it just means that we have to take people in as a whole and not view them as good OR bad, they are human. A lot of women in the current sphere of Hip-Hop can trace their roots to Nicki Minaj, a person that is married and related to sex offenders and went off on Megan Thee Stallion because Nicki roots for the person that shot Megan in the foot, and Megan barely mentioned her in a song. Kanye West is one of the most prolific producers and his influences spread to not just Hip-Hop but music production in general…he also is an Anti-Semite, and can barely keep a consistent train of thought, and Charlie Chaplin has had loads of affairs and married two underage women, but without him we wouldn’t have Francois Truffaut, Jacques Tati, Andrei Tarkovsky, and FUCKING MICKEY MOUSE. Two things can truly be true at once.

To sum up this long-as-hell tirade, Charlie Chaplin is a flawed individual, and the many scandals he’s been involved in range from “Oh cool he’s a leftist.” to “Holy shit man what were you thinking?!”. It’s also super important to recognize that idolization doesn’t hurt the person you put on a pedestal, but it can hurt you. However, that doesn’t mean that the achievements that people have done can be thrown to the wayside. The good and the bad (to a point of course) must be held right next to each other. I don’t think it can be understated that Charlie Chaplin, in 1940 mind you, told people in his movie that people who always have power are going to be selfish, where people who have none will share it with everybody. Fantastic message from a genuinely fantastic movie.

9.5/10

-Charlie :)