This Movie Offends You? Good.

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this

series I talked about the dangerous role that Chinese government censorship has increasingly played in American-made entertainment media, and look, it's easy to understand that censorship is bad when we're talking about restricting speech that is critical. with repressive governments like China, Venezuela or North Korea we can even laugh or perhaps cry at some of the more ridiculous examples of thin-skinned despots stifling the creativity of their people and access to a wider world of art and ideas ; Unfortunately, freedom of speech is also under attack in the United States, in our case, it is not. As much as our government is trying to silence people, we are lucky to live in a country with fairly strong legal protections for free speech, but we are faced with the virulent aspect of our culture that wants to cancel people for saying something. that they don't say. like you're not listening and now I want your job taken away, it's very common now to see people trying to preemptively shut down anyone they don't agree with or even anyone they just assume they don't agree with most of the people who pressure to silence one.

One person after another genuinely believes their intentions are

good

, so they feel completely justified in yelling at speakers on platforms and even criticizing their perceived enemies online, but maintaining a strong legal and cultural environment that supports free speech. It is not only essential for the expression of ideas. and values ​​that we all think are

good

, it is even more important the basis for debate and criticism of the ideas and values ​​that we believe are bad. Fortunately, one of the best ways to start those kinds of discussions is the comedy Joe Joe Rabbit, Tycho's Oscar-winning film ITD. is one of my favorite

movie

s of recent years and is an absolutely perfect example of what I mean, welcome to out of frame Joe Joe Rabbit is the story of a ten year old boy growing up in Germany at the height of the World War . two her father is gone her mother is usually at work and she doesn't have many friends like most of us she wants to feel like she belongs unfortunately JoJo's entire life has been steeped in Nazi propaganda and her young, impressionable line fell for everything Hitler False information about the war effort and insane anti-Semitic rhetoric from young people once Jojo is so convinced that everything the government has told him since he was born is true that he even makes Adolf Hitler his imaginary best friend, yoky, you're my second -best friend first place is reserved for the field look the thing is underneath blind bigotry Jojo is really just a sweet kid who doesn't understand that everything he's been conditioned to believe is a lie and anyone who told him the truth is either hiding in jail or dead, if all that sounds like a really serious

movie

, well, it is, except it's also a comedic satire and, in my opinion, one of the funniest movies of the last decade, it's Well, Jojo Rabbit is an incredible mix of the most absurd offensive.

Slapstick elements of a Mel Brooks film combined with the innocence and sincerity of something like Roberto Benigni. Life is beautiful and that is precisely what makes it an excellent vehicle for criticizing Nazi ideology. Still, it's a movie that took a long time to make. In fact, they could have been made in many countries, possibly including Germany, are full of offensive symbolic scenes and dialogue that would fit most people's definition of hate speech outside of its satirical context, but laws against

this

type speech often do not and cannot do so. make an effective distinction between comedy and serious expressions of ideology As a result, publishers and social media companies that need to comply with those laws frequently block satirical posts and lump criticism of an idea together with support, making it difficult for people to discuss and debate publicly.

In some cases, people are being fined or arrested just for making offensive jokes, as if it were still the 1960s. There is a level of irony in all of this: free speech is the cornerstone of a free society and is It tries to prevent the emergence of authoritarian ideologies. like national or international socialism, engaging in our own authoritarian politics doesn't make any sense, but it's not just about politics, it's also about culture, as someone who has often wondered aloud if great satirical films could still be made. in today's easily offended times. culture Joe the rabbit Joe gives me a lot of hope.

Film as an art form has a long and incredible history of using comedy to address tragedy and find holes in horrible ideas, from Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers to Trey Parker and the Coen Brothers. There are so many. Examples to turn to We're not even talking about money, we're talking about economics, but there is perhaps no one better than Mel Brooks at using comedy as a form of intellectual debate. Brooks' movie becomes a show and becomes a movie. The Producers is about a charlatan and his accomplice. who intentionally tried to create a flop on Broadway so they could cash in on oversold investments that will never return the show within the movie they created is called Springtime for Hitler it's written by a delusional Nazi soldier directed by an idiot I mean it's drenched in stuff historical stories like that and starring a jester literally named LSD, that means we can't attack Germany.

The main character's goal is to be so offensive that people leave the play and never return. Don't be stupid, be smarter, come and join. the party of not seeing and instead the audience thinks it's hilarious and it becomes an unintentional hit oh, I was very careful, I chose the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast, where did I get it right in so many ways? Jo Jo Rabbit it's spring for Hitler without the framing device takes something very serious like World War II and exposes the absolute ridiculousness of Hitler's ideas and Hitler himself people used to say a lot of nasty things about me oh this guy is a lunatic oh look at that psycho he's going to get, they killed us all, but to do this, Joe-Joe Rabbit has to use the same kind of symbolism and rhetoric that the Nazis used.

This is a hugely underrated part of why freedom of speech is so important. How can you really understand your own worldview if you're not? I'm not actually allowed to engage with ideas that might contradict it, even if something someone else says is completely absurd or offensive, only by listening to it and wrestling with it can we begin to seriously defend ourselves against it and I know some of you will. Saying that there are ideas that are so bad that they don't need to be debated, but that's just a cop-out, especially if what you care about is stopping the spread of a dangerous ideology.

Not understanding or confronting your arguments will not convince anyone to give in. If there are people above who believe that the Holocaust was not real, how do we know that they are not right? Because we are free to examine the evidence, listen to survivors' stories and talk about what that story was really like and we can take that knowledge into evidence and defend ourselves against the denier with the truth. Confronting our opposition forces us to examine what we know and form better arguments for our own rulers, that's a good thing, we need to be able to deal with bad ideas head on, satire can help us.

Mel Brooks made a 70-year career out of this, his film Blazing Saddles co-written with Richard Pryor might be my favorite comedy of all time. It deals with the ridiculousness of racism by giving a desperate frontier town in the Wild West an intelligent and competent vision. The black sheriff Blazing Saddles is a perfect counterpoint to racism precisely because he shows it for what it is, as it is funnier. What did you expect? Welcome Sunny Make yourself at home Marry my daughter You have to remember that these are simple farmers These are people of the soil, the common clay of the new West, you know, no rabbit Jo Jo does the same with bigotry against the Jewish people.

He probably features the words Heil Hitler more times than any film in history. He also shows tons of realistic Nazi propaganda about Jewish people, but he does all this not to promote anti-Semitism or National Socialism, but to make an ironic point that challenges those ideas. Obviously, it's a huge distinction, but it's also very subtle. Human expression is complicated. The same words can mean completely. different things depending on our tone of voice or the surrounding context thank you very much and thank you very much are the same on paper but I bet you know that when I changed my tone I meant the opposite of the literal meaning of the words for and Really consider how crazy that is, Even a phrase that we consider irredeemable in any context, like Heil Hitler, could be a serious salute to a reprehensible historical figure or it could be a sarcastic way of showing disdain and disrespect, it could even just be a bad joke.

Largely devoid of a broader meaning in Jo Jo Rabbit, the way that phrase is used repeatedly is even more complex because it is used by characters who use it as a genuine greeting, but it is set within a meta-context provided by both the film itself as incorporated into the film. - audience experience that makes it absurd as viewers, we understand that Jo Jo Rabbit is a comedy and we understand that the trajectory of the story is about johannes bet defames enlightenment and the realization that the ideas he has believed in throughout his life were in reality. wrong, we also incorporate our accumulated knowledge and our own view of Adolf Hitler as one of the greatest monsters in history, so instead of getting angry when we see a child say Heil Hitler a dozen times in a row, we laugh like filmmakers and writers like Taika.

Waititi and Mel Brooks constantly walk a tightrope and often use hateful rhetoric as a way to highlight their own stupidity in acquiring, let's start looking outside, we have a mission to convert the Jews, but they can only do it in a world where they are allowed. speak and write freely using the words they need to use without fear of being arrested or canceled and it's not that there aren't critics who think Jojo Rabbit shouldn't have been made, many people have totally different opinions on what kind of speech is okay and that is what defines what is or is not acceptable speech is incredibly difficult, but are you willing to put another person in charge of what you can hear?

No, it's especially not something I'd want to leave to humorless, perpetually offended nags or worse algorithms. Facebook and YouTube are notoriously terrible at capturing subtle differences in the meaning of human communication. They can filter out bad words and phrases very well, but what they cannot do is judge the person's intention. when using them nor can they accurately understand the point of conveying those words, as a result, most of these types of automated systems and the people who oversee them have become blunt instruments responsible for silencing tons of people who are trying to have important conversations and difficult. in the name of locking up some bad people with terrible ideas, but we need to have important, difficult conversations.

Safe spaces can be comfortable, but we only grow and learn new things about ourselves and the world around us if we step really deeply out of our comfort zone. Engaging with ideas isn't intellectually or emotionally safe and you can't debate an idea if you're not allowed to talk about it, which is also what makes a taiko TD's acceptance speech at the Oscars so sad at the end of the wall. there is a very clear rule if they don't see you they will take you to jail now the rules have changed a little if they don't see you feel free to have a demonstration in the town square you will borrow your companions so something has changed and something is not there OK I know this seems reasonable to a lot of people, but sending people to prison for expressing ideas you don't like doesn't stop the spread of those ideas, it just stops people from openly debating them.

Aryans are 1000 times more civilized and advanced. Let any other race, now get your shit together kids, it's time to burn some boots, the truth is that we allow Nazis freedom of speech in part because that freedom is essential for us all to defend ourselves from Nazi ideology, without that right we couldn't do it. openly discuss these ideas and state them for what they are or use your own language and images to satirize them like a Jewish soldier who fought in World War II. Mel Brooks understands this better than anyone. Get on a platform when you're going to lose that way.

He's a great speaker, but if you can make fun of him, if you can make people laugh at him, you win and that's my job, to make terrible things entertaining. If Taika Waititi lived in the world he vaguely proposed in his Oscar speech, he might not evenI would have done it. I was able to make the film without breaking the law. Joe Joe Rabbit is a wonderful film, but in addition to internalizing its overt message of cultural tolerance, I think we should also be aware that a lesson about freedom of expression is learned here in the world as well. where even people who make brilliant satires about repressive regimes don't understand that calling for legal restrictions on speech is exactly the kind of thing that makes a regime repressive in the first place, we have a difficult battle ahead of us, but it's not too late .

We can all defend a strong culture of free speech and fight against state censorship at the same time. The next time you are offended by something someone else says, instead of blocking or reporting, consider simply closing your browser tab or changing the channel when you think someone else's ideas are horrible try having a conversation with them to change your mind instead of yelling at him for acting violently or trying to ruin your life when some celebrity or politician says the world would be a better place if no one was allowed to do that. Say the things they don't like.

Remind them that they cannot decide what others can decide. You decide for yourself. The more we champion the value of free speech and open debate, the stronger our society will become and the easier it will be to prevent hateful authoritarian ideologies from taking over the world again. Hello everyone, thanks for watching this episode of Out of Frame. The best thing about freedom of speech is how it allows everyone a chance to explore their own views and challenge the perspectives of others, the more involved we get the sharper our minds and arguments become, so I'm really looking forward to mixing it up with you in the comments of this video if you love this video.

Don't forget to like, subscribe and hit the bell icon to make sure you're the first to know when a new episode drops and if you want to see more of Pete, we just radically updated our website at feed org and I think it'll really give you You're going to like what you see. Lastly, be sure to follow us on all of our social media channels on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, thanks for watching.