this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
32 points (100.0% liked)
Chapotraphouse
14306 readers
557 users here now
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There is no satire on the nose enough that its targets won't unironically adopt it
While I think you are 99% correct, there are one or two pieces of satire I have not seen fascists adopt.
"Springtime for Hitler", the musical number in "History of the World part 1" - both seem to effectively satirize the third Reich in a way that is unpalatable to fascists. I think in both cases, it's because they are made to look silly.
Normally, satire of fascism tries to keep them dangerous and scary. Your typical fascist wants to be likened to a rabid dog, because a rabid dog demands respect, they want to be feared. They do not want to be the subject of ridicule. They want you to see their intricately choreographed marches and think that it is intimidating, not campy.
Then again maybe I'm completely off base, and Nick Fuentes is actually a huge fan of both.
IMO all of these kinds of satire fail because they revel in the fascist power fantasy, but if you portray the fascists in your story as the lonely insecure dorks that they often are in real life I don't think they'd be so quick to appropriate the imagery.
The depictions of lonely sad dorks in teen romcoms helped the formation of the incel movement.
How do you feel about the film Jojo Rabbit? It used the more silly characterization you describe, but that exact thing is what many criticize it for. I think some found it too humanizing of the Nazis it portrayed.
Oh yeah, the effeminate gay nazi in that movie was definitely played for laughs but also sympathy because of course the Soviets are portrayed as monstrous for executing him
When, newsflash, he was eagerly participating in THE FUCKIN HOLOCAUST
This is why Disco Elysium did fascism so well.
There's a reason fascists don't love The Great Dictator.
Right
I like the game because it's chaotic, one second you're pouring napalm into a bug nest and the next you're being slammed into a brick wall at 60mph by a charger
The problem is, it's a product designed to make money, so despite the inherent satire, Arrowhead appeases the reactionary parts of the fanbase
The moment I knew they were never really going to make it as biting as they could was the whole "Save the Children's Hospital" MO
I thought it was funny at first because why was there a children's hospital on the frontline of a war zone in the first place?
But they played it completely straight and convinced the loudest worst chunk of the fanbase that even if Super Earth was bad, Helldivers themselves can be good people
Even when they made fun of that with the MO to save the hospital for spindly 20-something men, it was cooked
Well, There's that and the fact that i'm convinced that most of the people who play the game can't/won't read
It's a cool action game and as a antifascist I enjoy the satire but it's not going to educate the chuds.
Definitely
Arrowhead is selling a product and their behavior in doing so definitely defangs the satire
but I am glad they refuse to put cowboy hats into the game
Nothing froths up the chuds more than being denied their western wear
My friends didn't even remember element 710 smh.
The number of people who have never picked up on the fact that Super Earth seeds planets with Terminids so that they can later kill them and harvest E-710 is astonishing
They explain it in the game too. But I guess it's easy to miss especially if you miss the MO.
The average gamer is not what we would call literate
The gamers are not intellectual, to put it mildly.
You say that but I've met people who think Ignatius J. Reilly is supposed to be relatable and cool
True for some anticommunist satire too.
not satire but this bit of anticommunist propaganda (political officer shooting deserters, one man gets rifle one gets ammo etc) from early CoD kinda goes hard
mfw
COD did some unironically good portrayals of communists in WaW, especially compared to every other piece of American propaganda. Yeah they eventually go “killing nazi prisoners is bad”, but that moral stance rings hollow when you started out in a fountain filled with the corpses of your comrades as the fascists execute the wounded and dying. Plus ending the campaign blasting the Soviet anthem and planting the flag is incredible
Is my most frequently used emoji for a reason.