by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Website

Based on my own life experience, resisting fascism is a topic I find myself thinking about a lot periodically, especially combined with the notion of preventing genocide. I remember being captivated by the Holocaust Education and Avoidance Pod (HEAP), as outlined in Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk/historical fiction novel Cryptonomicon (1999), as a way to prevent future genocides (that kind of mass killing is a common output of totalitarian regimes). Defeating fascism is an ongoing project, and we are once again living in a time where right wing authoritarianism is surging in many countries in the world, including the United States.

There are a lot of ways to resist, and there are things I am doing offline to channel my anger and fear into productive action. Protests, sharing information about civil rights, and mutual aid organizations are all ways to push back against these kinds of regimes. As a film critic, however, I thought that one additional thing I can do is to write about movies that depict the evilness of fascism and/or resistance to totalitarian regimes. 

This column–which I intend to write monthly until I run out of topics or run out of energy–is named for the Shadow Gallery in V’s lair in the comic V for Vendetta (1990), which contains artwork that has been banned or devalued under that story’s totalitarian regime. As one of my favorite philosophy professors used to say, “if you find yourself becoming an absolute dictator, the first thing you do is get rid of all the books.” So welcome to the Shadow Gallery, where the light of cinema will illuminate hope and a path forward together, collectively. 

First up, I will be discussing Bob Fosse’s 1972 musical masterpiece, Cabaret. This is an exquisitely directed and acted musical that also acts as an amazing illustration of Michael B. Tager’s famous Nazi bar anecdote. In Tager’s tweets recalling the story, he says that he was at a “shitty crustpunk bar” when the bartender kicked out a man who had just sat down. When Trager asked why, the bartender said it was because he was wearing a lot of Nazi regalia, and although he may have been nice and/or peaceful in the moment, if he was allowed to remain, next time he'll bring a friend. And then they’d bring more friends, and soon enough, the bar is now a Nazi bar, and it is too late because no normal person wants to drink at a Nazi bar. In the opening scene of Cabaret, set in 1931, we see this theory in action as a Nazi is kicked out of the Kit Kat Club–a nightclub with a burlesque bent that is a central location of the film. And in the closing shot, we see brownshirts with Nazi armbands sitting in the front row. Over the course of the film, the Kit Kat Club has become a Nazi bar. 

In between these bookends is a tragic story about the waning days of the Weimar Republic, centered around the bohemian and promiscuous American, Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli). She is our lens into this world, and while pre-Hitler Berlin is a much more progressive and sexually open society, there are signs of trouble all around. Partisan graffiti is prominent in many background shots, showing the conflict rising between the communists and the right wing parties, and conversations in public drop in volume over the course of the film. While Sally and her bisexual boyfriend, Brian (Michael York) work through their affair with the enigmatic Max (Helmut Griem), Fritz (Fritz Wepper) and Natalia (Marisa Berenson) try to navigate the rise of antisemitism as they romance each other. This unrest culminates in the film’s most chilling sequence. Set at a rural beer garden, a young boy–blond and blue-eyed–sings the film’s only song not performed on stage at the Kit Kat Club: “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” As the boy sings, many others at the beer garden stand and join in, and the boy is revealed to be a member of the Hitler Youth. 

While author Christopher Isherwood and his real life inspirations for Goodbye to Berlin, upon which the musical is largely based, were indifferent to the film, criticizing both its attitude toward homosexuality and historical accuracy for the rampant poverty in Berlin at the time, the film is extremely powerful. I believe this is in part due to the close proximity of the film to the time period depicted: Nazi Germany was within living memory of those working on the film.. Director Bob Fosse had a huge hand in guiding the script for the cinematic adaptation of the stage play. Although he was too young to see combat in World War II (Fosse went to a Navy boot camp after graduating high school in 1945), he certainly understood the stakes of the film and the evilness of fascism and the oppression that comes with it. Growing up in the world of burlesque–Fosse worked in burlesque and other adult clubs as a teenager (seriously, watch All That Jazz if you haven’t!)–gave him the experience to depict the Kit Kat Club shows as somewhat ribald but ultimately silly and harmless. Yes, there is a lot of provocation about sex, homosexuality, polyamory, and other topics, but the tone of the performances come across as all in good fun. And its innocuousness is ultimately why the club still exists at the end of the film, but for how long? Art is ultimately one of the biggest threats to a totalitarian regime because it is freedom of expression. Art can push back or even transgress social norms, and also help drive and shape cultural attitudes around what is permitted or acceptable. And fundamentally Fosse shows the love and joy that goes into performance, especially when those performances can be honest about identity and orientation (even if they have to do so with a wink because of 1920s taste sensibility or 1970s censorship). The Kit Kat Club is a refuge as well as an outpost, a safe haven against the horrors happening outside. 

Cabaret shows how a society as liberated as Weimar Berlin–sexually permissive, doing groundbreaking research with transgender people, and more–can succumb to fascism, and it does so without needing to humanize or attempt to understand what made Nazi ideology attractive or popular. At the end of the beer garden scene, Brian asks Max, “Do you still think you can control them?” referring to the Nazi. Max simply shrugs before they get into their car and speed away. Soon after, Brian ends up in the hospital after ripping down a swastika flag because the two Nazis brutally beat him up for it. It is one reason “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” is so chilling. I cry every time I watch that scene, because I know what is to come. I know about the ghettos, the Einsatzgruppen, the camps. But Cabaret is only the beginning. 

Jumping ahead a few decades in both production and setting, Jeremy Saulnier’s 2015 film Green Room is mostly set in a Nazi bar–Neo-Nazi/skinhead if you want to get more specific. Punk band The Ain’t Rights are couch-hopping around the country, and when their next planned gig falls through, take one opening for a white supremacist metal band at the private Nazi club. The Ain’t Rights seize the moment and their courage, playing Dead Kennedys’ “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” which makes the hostile crowd even more hostile. They almost make it out of the club and on their way when Pat (Anton Yelchin) heads back into the green room to get his bandmate’s phone and discovers that a girl has been stabbed to death by a member of the other band. Gabe (Macon Blair)–the ‘reasonable’ Nazi punk–consults with the group’s leader, Darcy (Patrick Stewart), who decides that the Ain’t Rights will not be missed and should be killed as part of the coverup. From there, a desperate attempt by the band to escape leads to mayhem and more death as things escalate out of control.

This was my first revisit of Green Room since I saw it in the theater, which was an experience that left me sweaty and my hands exhausted from gripping the armrests for the entire 95-minute runtime. I am happy to report Green Room retains its power, even viewing at home. During the day. With the lights on. It is accurate that the Pacific Northwest has been a hotbed of white supremacist movements for decades–as seen in last year’s The Order (dir. Justin Kurzel)–and while these groups seem to ebb and flow over time and influence, we live in a time where mainstream right wing rhetoric has been more and more aligned with their rotten values. 

In fact, when I first watched Green Room almost a decade ago, I thought of it as almost being apolitical, because I was so used to Nazi ideology being deployed as a stand in for “irredeemable villain” that I thought it was basically used as a shortcut to make the club as scary as possible. Watching it now gave me two political takeaways: Saulnier shows that the lack of value Nazis place on human life, regardless of identity, makes it so that violence is the first lever they will pull in any situation, and second, that art is an effective way to push back against fascism, and “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” is one of the most direct examples of that.

Far right groups turn to violence because it is the easiest way to attain power for them via intimidation and aligns with their goals of subjugating a populace, regardless if that populace agrees with them or not. The Nazi will start with the easiest people to marginalize–Jewish people, LGBTQ+ communities, immigrants, etc.–before tightening their circle of who is considered acceptable until every aspect of life becomes some absurd and hypocritical purity test. We live in a society where political violence is all around us, thanks to the militarization and gang-like behavior of the police, as well as incidents like those outlined in the Department of Homeland Security’s Reference Aid: US Violent White Supremacist Extremists (backup link). The goal of this violence is to make people afraid and compliant. Pushing back means collective action and resistance. 

Like the Kit Kat Club performers at the end of Cabaret, it takes courage for The Ain’t Rights to take the stage in front of a bunch of Nazis and tell them to “fuck off.” And just like in the Nazi bar anecdote, giving a Nazi any kind of tolerance will only lead to a bad outcome. “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” is a powerful statement, and excising Nazis from a subculture or group is the best way to maintain an inclusive environment. Tolerance does not mean allowing all points of view, and ideologies that are predicated on hate and subjugation are incompatible with the common good. There is no slippery slope here, just a line in the sand. Do not allow the intolerant to draw that line, because chances are you will one day find yourself on the other side of it. 

Next time in the Shadow Gallery: To Be or Not to Be (1942) and Inglourious Basterds (2009).

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