Upsetting Shorts: Despotism

An alarmingly grim, occasionally offensive short from 1946 that helps you figure out whether or not you live under a despot. Bonus unpleasant cameos by Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan!

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• mst3k
• tvsadam
• riff
• short
• film

[gunder01]

This is actually a really daring progressive short.  I bet Senator MacCarthy didn't like this one.

[TVsAdam]

True; encouraging the questioning of authority and existing ideas isn't exactly what one might expect from 1946 USA.

[pezdrake]

Interesting to see how ideas of "what is patriotic" changes over time and according to the country's political and military situation. At 1946 in light of emerging communist oppression in Europe and the revelations of the Holocaust it was easy to say our differences are what makes this country great, conveniently forgetting about oh, say Japanese-American internment camps and the crackdown on perceived anti-Americanism by some newspapers during WWII.

[MisterSynyster]

Despotism, from the makers of Nazism & Scientology!

[tomservo56954]

Those educators...he clearly wasn't Socrates, and even in a democracy you wouldn't want to question THAT schoolmarm.

[tomservo56954]

"Despotisms are run by shirtless cartoonists"

"Our plucky little friend Despotism might just make it after all"

"Against Democracy State in this year's Despotism Bowl"

"Does your community weigh as much as the Nazis?"

"You can also rate your community to see if it's your ideal lover"

"But it's still likely to do great on the Applause-O-Meter"

[tomservo56954]

@daken000 The swastika (or the symbol under a different name) actually represented good fortune in numerous cultures, including Native American ones. Undoubtedly that's why the Nazis appropriated it.

[tomservo56954]

@TVsAdam 1946 was when things began to change...Stalin called America her greatest enemy, Churchill declared that Eastern Europe was behind an "Iron Curtain", along with the "Had Enough?" political campaign that won control of Congress for the Republicans in the off-year elections. These began the movement of the American temperament to the anti-Communist, conformist, Cold War mentality that would result in McCarthyism, blacklisting, and the like.

[1990ribs]

yes, becasue they economic distribution in our democracy is SOOO equal

[randy95023]

This short is similar to F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom", love the riffs!! Now with the TSA and the Patriot Act we are well on our way to despotism...

[VincentOroscoe]

Loving the Fugitive Alien reference you put in there. =D

[thefaboloussob]

8:29 "Is this because I said 'booger'?" "No, no. 'Booger"s perfectly OK. So is '%&¶♂♠.' What gets my goat, really, is this hogwash that the earth revolves around the sun."

[HParker001]

Ah yes, clearly this is the path Obama is sending us down...

Something about those Tea Party views just don't add up...

[Zeronightshade14]

Ironic, according to this america is currently a despot, HOORAY