6 Films That Skewer Famous Dictators (Including Kim Jung Il, Duh)

Penn Collins — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:19:25 +0000

It is with a heavy heart that I join the world in saying goodbye, Dear Leader. May your now superhuman existence carry you past the need for a mortal body, and may your glory continue to shine on People’s Glorious Repobulic of The Glory of North Korea. Glory.

The word in Koreatown is that Kim Jun Il will be succeeded by his son ~~Lil’ Kim~~ Kim Jung Un. May he be as batshit crazy as his father, creating a cult of personality that would make Ron Artest blush.

Glory.

Lest you feel that Jung Il isn’t getting a fair shake in the media (who would really argue that?), compare him to these tyrannical depictions and see how he stacks up.

I heart dictators.

The Great Dictator – Adolf Hitler

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It was probably a lot easier to satirize Hitler in 1940, when this film came out, than it was in 1945, when the full extent of his crimes was still being realized. Considering Adolf had, until recently, been held in high esteem by much of the world, Charlie Chaplin played a character named Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomainia. Not exactly a mystery as to he was really portraying. Despite being very slapsticky-y (most of the names are groan-worthy puns you would find in dated children’s cartoon) the film skewers the dictator on a number of fronts, insisting that the man is a machine, as are his subjects.

Naked Gun – All Of Them

There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to the “dictators” that appear at the beginning of the original Naked Gun film. We have Qadaffi, the Ayatollah, Yasir Arafat, and…Mikhail Gorbechav? Perhaps I didn’t give enough weight to the cold war in the late 80’s. Oh well.

Frank Drebin, for reasons indeterminate and unimportant, simply beats up all of these leaders in an unspecified middle eastern location. And after that ass-whoopin’, we never again found any of those men in America. Nice work, Police Squad.

Screen Junkies » inglorious basterds

6 Films That Skewer Famous Dictators (Including Kim Jung Il, Duh)

The Great Dictator – Adolf Hitler

Naked Gun – All Of Them