VOICES
Jo Jo Rabbit: When Satire Falls Flat
literal child; a sickeningly sentimental state of mind that absolves people of the responsibility they have for their own prejudices. Centering an adolescent in a film about overcoming internal prejudices is simply too easy—as a child, it’s hard to blame Jojo for his bigoted A rant that will most beliefs, but audiences are eager to applaud the ways he worked to overcome them. definitely contain spoilers And as the presumed viewers of the PG-13 rated flick are people who already see the BY SYLVIA RANI issues with Nazi ideology (hence the satire), why beat on a dead horse? The film feeds Get in, readers, we’re going deconstructing. audiences a comforting thought: through individual resistance and shared empathy, As a reminder that mass audiences lack critical people can deconstruct their own learned thought and conflate self-congratulatory hate and take down an entire regime. And politicism with quality filmmaking, Taika Waititi’s while uplifting, this idea is naive, crowdNazi satire “Jojo Rabbit” recently claimed the pleasing, and surface-level. Satire should Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s be critical, not comforting. It should force Choice award. The film follows a little boy, audiences to question their beliefs rather than Johannes Betzler (played by Roman Griffin Davis), affirm their self-righteousness. during World War II as he pursues his dream of becoming a Nazi. Johannes, or “Jojo” idolizes The Nazis in the movie are ridiculous Hitler so strongly that his imaginary friend is slapstick caricatures, and their goofy stupidity none other than the fürher himself. Played by Taika Waititi, the imaginary Hitler is a self-parody, combined with their inability to see the wrongness of their ideology enables the materializing to comfort Jojo in times of need audience to see through them. Again, however, with gleeful childlike lines such as, “That was we must ask: is this necessary? This portrayal intense!” He accompanies Jojo as he attends a is a vastly inaccurate oversimplification of Moonrise Kingdom-esque Nazi summer camp what actual Nazis were like. These were run by two cartoonish generals (played by Sam normal, even smart people, who were Rockwell and Rebel Wilson) where young boys operating within a system that threatened burn books, throw grenades, and learn how to their lives and reputations if they were to step become “real” Nazis. outside of it. Many were simply complacent, using their power to enforce bigotry because After an accident with a grenade leaves his precious porcelain face with a web of scars and they could. While their ideology may have been founded on a set of logic-defying he fails to kill a rabbit on command (hence the principles, Nazis themselves were regular, nickname Jojo Rabbit), Jojo is disgracefully sent everyday people, not vastly different from the home from Nazi camp. Back in his childhood people in our communities today. home, Jojo discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl within his walls. At this point in the film, things begin to get very predictable. Through their conversations and his eventual attraction to this mysterious girl, Jojo realizes that Jews are people too and understands the error of his past ways. His imaginary friend’s visits become less frequent and more intense, and the confused young Jojo begins to see through the lies he’s been fed his whole life. It’s a feel-good tale of oppressor-turned-hero thanks to the beautiful girl who brought out his inner compassion, with a side of shock-factor irony and random bouts of violence. But is this a narrative that we even need right now? The film urges the audience to identify with Jojo. In doing so, the audience is put in the position of seeing Jews as lesser, even with the full knowledge that he will come around in the end. It also places the audience in the eyes of a
THE WAKE
The forced humor in the film also asks audiences to divide themselves into those who “get it” and those who don’t. Those who “get it” are so above prejudice, so very woke, that this ironic display of hate is laughable. Those who don’t get it are oversensitive, or even worse, are Nazis themselves. The film positions itself so that a rejection of this humor is to not understand it. The issue isn’t that the satirical image of Nazis is offensive, it’s that satire must be done with intent. The Nazis in Mel Brooks’s “The Producers” were satire but markedly different than Waititi’s shallow, crowdpleasing portrayal. At this point in time, a film about the issues with World War II-era Nazism is redundant and categorically safe. Which is why, despite its provocative marketing and heavy themes, the Disney-approved “Jojo Rabbit” is actually quite tame—a crowdpleaser disguised as a controversy.
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