Hitler Comedy / Hitlerhoff By Thomas James Doig # 120773 Submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements Of the degree of Master of Arts December 2009 School of Culture and Communication Faculty of Arts The University of Melbourne 1 Table of Contents 1. Abstract page 3 2. Declaration page 4 3. Acknowledgements page 5 4. Dissertation: Hitler Comedy Introduction The laughing-about-Hitler problem page 7 Chapter One Comedy theory: correction, forgiveness, pleasure, disruption page 15 Chapter Two Laughing at Hitler: Arturo Ui as comedy of correction page 22 Chapter Three Laughing with Hitler: Mein Führer as comedy of forgiveness page 42 Conclusion Arturo Ui and Mein Führer as comedies of disruption page 60 Coda Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds page 63 5. Author Statement From Hitler comedy to Hitlerhoff page 65 6. Creative component: Hitlerhoff script page 75 7. Works Cited page 107 8. Appendices i) notes to Hitlerhoff page 122 ii) media coverage and reviews of Hitlerhoff page 129 iii) Publicity material for Hitlerhoff (provided) iv) videorecording of Hitlerhoff – DVD (provided) 2 Abstract The critical component of this thesis, “Hitler Comedy”, is a dissertation on the intersection between comedy theory in general, and the specific practice of Hitler comedy. Focusing on Bertolt Brecht’s play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941; directed by Heiner Müller in 1995), and Dani Levy’s film Mein Führer: the Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler (2007), my argument critiques existing “instrumentalist” theories of comedy as didactic and morally reductive. Moving beyond prevailing conceptualisations of comedy as corrective and/or forgiving, my dissertation emphasises the centrality of pleasure, displeasure and disruption for audience members in the process of experiencing Hitler comedies. The creative component of this thesis is a script and a DVD recording of Hitlerhoff , a theatre and multimedia work that combines the characters of Adolf Hitler and David Hasselhoff into a single hybrid figure. Hitlerhoff is a spectacular black comedy that uses comedy to entertain and unsettle, and to disrupt audience members’ expectations. Hitlerhoff is a practical demonstration of the ability of “irresponsible” comedy to act as a potent catalyst for “responsible”, ethically engaged discussions. 3 Declaration This is to certify that: 1. the thesis comprises only my original work except where indicated in the preface; 2. due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used; 3. the thesis is 30,000 words in length, inclusive of footnotes but exclusive of tables, maps, appendices and bibliography. Thomas James Doig December 2009 4 Acknowledgements Alison Bicknell, Kevin Brophy, Tony Barta, Denise Varney, Peter Van Der Merwe, Nicolas Low, Ben Gook, Leo Kretzenbacher, Gideon Reuveni, Nadiya Chusak, Rory Wood-Ingram, Dan O’ Meara, Jessica Rose, Henry Feltham, Kelly Chandler, Alex Finkle, Sebastian Plappert, Alice Swing, Erin Kelly, Sam Hoffmann, Tobias Manderson-Galvin, Simone Pages Jones, Ezra Bix, Georgina Andrews, Joel Davey, Anto Skene, Puck Murphy, Eloise Hinkley, Thomas Henning, Declan Greene, Marcel Dorney, David Mence, Tom Rigby, David Blumenstein, Kelly Chandler, Laura Jean Mckay, Michelle Ferris, Phil Smith, Conor Galacher, Amelia Roper, Tom Davies. Elise Jones, Ronnie Scott. Thank you all for help and support too varied and interrelated to list here! 5 Dissertation: Hitler Comedy 6 I I ntroduction The laughing-about-Hitler problem In 1953, eight years after Hitler’s death, political philosopher Leo Strauss coined the term reductio ad Hitlerum . This term described the increasing prevalence of arguments that sought to discredit one’s opponents by associating them with Germany’s former Führer, who “has become the face of 20th-century evil in the same way that Marilyn Monroe has come to symbolize 20th-century sex” (Morris). At the same time, Strauss’s witticism reveals (perhaps unwittingly) another infectious equivalence: between Hitler and absurdity. The simplest and most common means of committing comic reductio ad Hitlerum is to draw a toothbrush moustache on an image of someone’s face; within seconds, the unfortunate visage is contaminated with an absurd Hitler-ness. When examined closely, however, the ultimate effect/affect of this act is almost impossible to define. Is it a political statement; a harmless joke; an unforgivable outrage; or something else entirely? Before reductio ad Hitlerum After reductio ad Hitlerum This dissertation is concerned with the problematic relationship between theories of comedy and instances of comedic practice, in the particular case of comedy about Adolf Hitler. My research question, broadly phrased, is this: What are the implications of using comedy to represent Hitler, sixty-four years after Hitler’s death? More specifically, what 7 are the implications of representing Hitler comically as a performer, who consciously acts as “ Der Führer ”? My thesis is that many prevailing interpretations of Hitler comedy, which identify corrective or forgiving moral justifications for outrageous comic performances (Wood, 4), miss the more ethically complex and more richly comic experiences that actually occur as audiences laugh. There is a tendency among commentators to focus on the socially responsible motives for comedy; in the process, theories of comedy are constantly at risk of overlooking the fundamental pleasure that comedy produces in audiences, which is essential to its operation. This tendency is exacerbated when the subject matter is as serious as Adolf Hitler. As a result, readings of Hitler comedy are often overly serious, quick to moralise, and – ironically – humourless. These interpretations are also instrumentalist , in that they only see humour as a means to an end. Such approaches fail to engage with the indirect, coded nature of jokes (see Trahair, Horton); the ambivalence these jokes generate; and the presence of an irresponsible, even transgressive pleasure. As a remedy to this, I wish to advance a less didactic, more process-based model of how comedy affects audience members, and by extension, society. I wish to acknowledge comedy’s intrinsic interest in pleasure, which manifests itself most blatantly in slapstick, and show how this pleasure is central to any coherent account of the ethical function of comedy. Jokes that succeed in producing pleasure out of unpleasant and distressing subject matter have a cathartic effect (Freud, 222-8). At the same time, I argue, comedians can use pleasure to produce anti-cathartic effects, by generating enjoyment then purposefully disrupting it with elements of discomfort and displeasure, creating conflicted audience responses. In this way, Hitler comedies can raise questions about the limits of what we find funny, as individuals and as a society; these questions have important political and moral implications. This is therefore still an ethically engaged conception of how Hitler comedies function, but it sees the humour as the starting point – the catalyst – of ethical discussions, rather than as their conclusion. Hitler prepares: the Führer as ham actor I am particularly concerned with comedic representations of Hitler in theatre and film, as these have most directly influenced Hitlerhoff , the creative component of this thesis. Film and theatre are both able to produce a sense of live-ness, and can parallel Hitler’s own manipulation of the media of film (via propaganda reels) and live performance (via his political rallies). In my analysis, I will be examining the work of three of the most influential German-speaking figures of the twentieth century: Adolf Hitler, Bertolt 8 Brecht, and Sigmund Freud. I will also be examining two more contemporary German- speaking figures: Heiner Müller and Dani Levy. I have chosen to compare and contrast Heiner Müller’s 1995 production of Bertolt Brecht’s play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1942; henceforth referred to as Arturo Ui ) and Dani Levy’s film Mein Führer: the Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler (2007; henceforth referred to as Mein Führer ). Both Arturo Ui and Mein Führer use humour to undermine the Nazi myth of Hitler as a godlike figure by revealing and emphasising the performative nature of Hitler’s public speeches; more specifically, they show him to be an actor, reliant on banal rhetorical techniques. Furthermore, Arturo Ui and Mein Führer are both Hitler comedies that establish an ambivalent relationship between Hitler’s ridiculous onstage/onscreen presence, and the decidedly non-humorous historical reality of the Nazi regime. There are also important differences between the ways that Arturo Ui and Mein Führer have been critically received as comedies. Brecht’s play is generally considered to be an unsympathetic – or consciously anti-sympathetic – corrective comedy; whereas Levy’s film has been criticised for being overly forgiving of Hitler. This dissertation will problematise these reductive, polarised readings, arguing that the practical experience of witnessing comedy produces more pleasurable, ambivalent and disturbing affects than the critical consensus suggests, and that it is more productive to think of both works as comedies of disruption . Mein Führer and Arturo Ui are particularly important to my argument because they are the two Hitler comedies that most influenced my composition of Hitlerhoff , a hybrid theatre-film performance work, which represents a Hitler-figure as an aspiring actor in a purposefully baffling way. This dissertation is more exploratory than