DON'T BE STUPID, BE A SMARTY [247]

"I hope you've got a sense of humour," advises the writer, director and animator Bill Plympton, introducing his film "Hitler's Folly." The 67-minute mockumentary, presenting an alternate history about Adolf Hitler's career as an animator, has been presented, for free, at www.plymptoons.com since its release in 2016, because Plympton surmised it was not the sort of film that Hollywood would wish to make.

However, even this film recognises that Hollywood already put the boot in to Hitler. When the director of the "documentary," relating the story provided by a conspiracy theorist murdered at the beginning of the film, says, "is this the biggest pile of horse crap you've ever heard," as if you needed reminding, rationalising its existence with "Mel Brooks did this kind of thing with 'The Producers,' and he is perfectly fine... to this day, perfectly fine." 

"Springtime for Hitler" is a complete piss-take that keeps its subject at arm's length, but "Hitler's Folly" invites you to identify with Hitler from the start, beginning with how, as a child, the saving an injured duck inspired Hitler to create "Downy Duck," a cartoon character that would become the flagship character of Hitlertoons, and the star of a four-hour animated retelling of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungen. The evidence is presented as film fragments, drawings and photographs kept in a hoarded box by the conspiracy theorist, but in real life is Plympton's work, aping 1920s and 30s animation style, particularly Disney, of which Hitler is depicted as a fan, and doctoring photographs.

When I first heard about "Hitler's Folly," I thought Plympton would set up Downy Duck as being part of the Nazi Party’s propaganda campaign. What I was not prepared for, and what will test what people define as a joke, is how Downy Duck was Hitler's main plan all along. Hitler is depicted as setting up a film club, where the Nazi salute was a sign of community, and goose-stepping came from trying to walk on sticky cinema carpets. This led to the formation of "NACI," the National Animation Cinema Institute. Hitler then became Chancellor of Germany in order to secure funding for his Ring Cycle film, the deal hinging on President Hindenburg securing a drawing of Mickey Mouse from "Steamboat Willie." The mooted plans for a "Nazi Land," making too close a comparison with Disney, was where this film started to lose me, as the film tests when you will get fed up with it.

The conceit that the Second World War was to secure the rights to "territories" in which to release the film was bad enough, but the concentration camps are then described as artists' communes, where people "concentrated" on their work, and where people whose work wasn't good enough were taken away. A picture of the gate into Auschwitz was doctored to read "Arbeit Macht Frei - Ink & Paint Dept." Somehow, I watched this film to the end.

I guess Bill Plympton was relying on the absurdity of his tale bringing people through to the end - that it is so outrageous, it cannot possibly be taken seriously. Much about the Second World War that can be laughed at, but there remains much that cannot be, and those boundaries are maintained as a reminder to us all, with good reason. If "Hitler's Folly" was maintained as just that, a folly on the side, it would have been more palatable - to joke that a world war was waged to make a film, "conspiracy theory" or not, will remain in bad taste for a very long time.

WHEN I WAS YOUNG P.C. MEANT POLICE CONSTABLE [72]

Straight away, I can tell you I am not interested in exploring whether “political correctness,” from the name to the concepts involved, is a good thing or not. I predict that you may have already made your judgement upon hearing those words, in that order, based on the information, experience and opinions you have personally.

Instead, I am more intrigued about how the definition of “political correctness,” originally meant to signify something positive, has turned sour, both over time, and when anyone has reason to use it. For a term that tends to mean what the user wants it to mean, no wonder “political correctness” needs inverted commas around it.

There is no surprise that “political correctness” was born in the home of culture wars, the United States. Originally entering common usage to reflect how Communists were viewed as thinking their ideology was, politically, the correct one, it became co-opted sarcastically in the 1970s by the “New Left,” who looked at sexism, racism and so on with a reply like, “that’s not politically correct,” in opposition to more inclusive opportunities that can be viewed as ideologically sound. However, from the 1990s, “political correctness” was turned against even this by the political right, with the avoiding of expressing anything that could exclude or insult groups of people became viewed as another way of creating prejudices elsewhere. This is a very generalised version of the way the term has turned, but any more than this will risk switching myself off from my own writing.

In short, the battleground of “political correctness” is how to integrate groups of people that have, in various ways, have been socially excluded or discriminated against – women, black people, LGBT people, the disabled, and so on, all small groups that, ironically, would make a majority if taken together. However, acts of “affirmative action” will be at the expense of someone, somewhere, at some point, interpreted as someone at no risk of exclusion before, but now seeing their view of a fair and equitable situation change – no wonder it might rub some up the wrong way.

Inevitably, the search for new ways of describing a shifting society throws up descriptions of “political correctness gone mad,” the “thought police,” references to inflexible people as “Nazis,” society descending into “anarchy,” and accusations that “free speech” is being infringed. These are all terms that can be used, and defined, by both sides of the debate, to their own ends, usually by trying to exclude the other group. It feels like political debate in general run by the principles of Godwin’s law – the longer the debate goes on, the more likely someone will reference Hitler or, in this case, any of the above, in order to cut off, or win, the debate.

I have this, possibly misplaced, hope that people will wear of the debate, and just learn to get on instead. There is little worse than saying you are offended by something, without giving a reason why. The act of “political correctness” is only offensive if it is used to exclude people from a fair society, no matter what other terms are then bolted on to it. Good debate needs everyone to speak the same language to each other, and good society allows everyone to participate without pissing about over using language to exclude people.