The Oscar winning film Jojo Rabbit opens with a young 10-year-old boy, Jojo, running through the streets of World-War-2-Germany enthusiastically yelling a loud ‘Heil Hitler’ to every who passes by. He raises both his tiny arms with blithe, innocence, and excitement, elated at the opportunity of chanting glory upon his idol. This intercuts with Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary Triumph of the Will, while the German version of The Beatles’ iconic music number I Want To Hold Your Hand plays in the background. Nazis raise their hands at the sight of their führer, women are crying tears of joy and revelling the sight of Hitler. It is amusing how the visuals are very similar to the crowd at the Ed Sullivan Show where The Beatles performed the same song in 1964. The breakthrough Beatles track, signifying fraternity between all Americans is compared to the terrifying solidarity that the Germans showed through the Third Reich. Through this unique opening credit sequence, Waititi presents familiar concepts with dissonance, spectacular visuals with surprise, and distress with warmth.
The child-protagonist Johannes “Jojo” Betzler (an extremely talented Roman Griffith Davis) begins conversing with his imaginary friend and constant companion, Adolf. Yes, Adolf Hitler. This Adolf (played by the writer-director Taika Waititi himself, who claims to have done zero research for the role) is the creation of Jojo’s 10-year-old mind—he is a loopy, unintelligent man who eats unicorns. Jojo’s journey begins when he discovers a young Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin Mckenzie), who has been secretly seeking refuge in his attic. Based on Christine Leunen’s Caging Skies, this achingly beautiful, humorous and deeply impactful story of the little Hitler fanatic makes an emotionally-moving anti-hate satirical drama.
Filmmakers have previously constructed stories around the naivety of childhood and the Holocaust. The 1997 film La Vita E Bella (Life Is Beautiful), directed by Roberto Benigni, focused on a fictitious world that a Jewish father creates to help his son reason out the reality of the Holocaust. Benigni’s character uses fiction (within the ‘fiction’ of the film) to subdue the realness of the war. Waititi, on the other hand, creates a fictional narrative to highlight the absurd ideology that created the war. Owing to this dynamic, the audience experiences the dual realities. The child’s guileless sensibilities trying to make sense of the horrifying truth of the Holocaust vis-à-vis the reality that the audience is aware of.
Jojo Rabbit elucidates what political propaganda does to young minds; it is a meditation on how propaganda creates a rigid system which holds the power to corrupt entire generations. While Jojo’s father is away at war, his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), fuels her own silent revolution by hiding Elsa in her attic. She is aware of her hyper-national son’s anti-semitic views and obsession with Adolf Hitler—he wishes to use the graves of the Jews as toilets. When Jojo sees her distribute anti-nazi pamphlets on the streets, it becomes evident to him what ‘side’ his mother is on. Yet, we don’t see Rosie explicitly teaching or propagating her views to Jojo. However, there are instances where she strongly advocates peace. In a specific scene, she encourages keeping politics away from the dinner table because “the dinner table is Switzerland.”
Rosie chooses to not curb his sense of exploration—they spend time dancing and cycling, discussing abstract worldly ideas of love, peace and harmony. Her parenting was focused on nurturing Jojo’s means of expression, which becomes evident through the way he deals with Elsa’s presence. Instead of creating violence or hateful speech, he chooses to write an illustrated book on Jews, by documenting his observations and experiences with a Jew under the same roof. Jojo’s friend Yorki questions why everyone is creating a ruckus around Jews when they seem to be “normal.” Camps and schools have taught the children that Jews smell like Brussels sprouts and have horns on their heads, but their inherent curiosity (often encouraged by parents) prompts them to learn the truth.
Political psychologists Jan W van Deth, Simone Abendschon and Meike Vollmar from the University of Mannheim conducted a study on 700 students studying in the first year of their primary school. They showed that these children had already begun to display structured political orientation that was consistent. Their findings showed that children who belonged to ethnic minorities and the lower socio-economic residence areas showed relatively less developed political orientations. This directs me to one of the most important and obvious learning from the film: the need for civic education. Another study by psychologists from the University of Pennsylvania focused on a supplementary civic education programme, the Student Voices Program. They reported that students who had studied the program for two semesters showed greater self-efficacy for political participation. This effect was even carried over to show greater political attentiveness, specifically to the candidate position in the presidential elections.
The current political context of the country is bringing words like fascism, exploitation and detention camps out of history textbooks into everyday speech. Following the recent anti-CAA protests around the country, the police in Bidar, Karnataka interrogated 85 school students who participated in a critical play regarding the new Citizenship Amendment Act. These students were interrogated five times over nine days, including the students who did not participate in the play. Child rights groups have strongly condemned these actions since they are a “blatant violation of the juvenile justice act 2005.” A single mother (whose daughter was also part of this play) along with the school principal have also been arrested.
Similarly, a private school in Ahmedabad, Gujarat instructed students to send postcards to the Prime Minister, which contained pre-written messages in support of the CAA. The parents of these students protested to the trustees, owing to which they asserted that the postcards were just an exercise to improve their writing skills. These incidents suggest the significance of developing a critical political faculty in young children, instead of brainwashing them with disinformation.
World around, young voices like Greta’s and Malala’s are leading revolutions, bringing attention to issues that adults choose to overlook. A film like Jojo Rabbit, within this context, becomes a pertinent study to understand the relationship between politics and children. It simultaneously indicates how parents can handle the brewing political propaganda in their own households.
Sanika Govekar
