52in52: Jojo Rabbit

Jojo Rabbit was a great experience. You experience the end of WW2 from the perspective of a 10-year-old German boy who is a Nazi fanatic, but soon grows to become disillusioned by it. Somehow, the movie was able to wrap satire and comedy around such dark tones. I thought all the actors and actresses did very well, and Stephen Merchant was exceptionally unsettling. I can understand the criticisms that the movie was making light of atrocities and humanizing nazis. In my opinion, it only seemed to be making light because of how absurd the propaganda was. The movie made some wildly anti-Semitic comments, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Not because the statement was funny, but the fact that people could have believed that. I think there is a difference between humanizing and empathizing, and the movie did a good job showing the propaganda that children would have experienced.

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