Taika Waititi’s career is one of the most encouraging success stories in cinema; evidence you can come from the wrong bit of the planet, making eccentric films unlike anyone else’s, to find an enthusiastic audience that has apparently been waiting for you
Are some subjects beyond a joke? It is a perennial question in comedy and, while the answer is rarely a flat “no”, the list of things we think should never be made fun of is constantly shifting.
He's so patriotic, in fact, that he conjures an unusual imaginary friend: the Fuehrer himself or, at least, a gambolling, naughty version of the Fuehrer, something a 10-year-old who is missing his dad might concoct as a playmate. Jojo’s father is away at the war, possibly on the wrong side; his older sister has died; and he is alone with his beautiful, theatrical mother , when she is not out on mysterious errands he never thinks to question.
Waititi’s career is one of the most encouraging success stories in cinema; evidence you can come from the wrong bit of the planet, making eccentric films unlike anyone else’s, to find an enthusiastic audience that has apparently been waiting for you. He came to international notice with, a coming-of-age story of exceptional sensitivity set in New Zealand’s East Cape in which he played the titular boy’s criminal father.
Waititi has a Maori father and a Jewish mother. Not much of a pure Aryan, then, playing Hitler. It is a good joke, but not one he originally intended. He wrote the script in 2011. At the time, he says, he had a lot of interest in the role from A-list actors. It didn’t occur to him to play the part himself. “Because – well, look at me!” he says. “I’m not white! So that was never the idea.”
"I’m not out to be the bad boy of cinema or anything. I’m from New Zealand! We’re too polite. We don’t do that. We try to be nice - but also try to deliver a message that doesn’t anger people who don’t need to be angered. I’m not going to push the anti-Semitic jokes too far, for example. I’m not going to give any ammunition to the people who actually think like that.”
Of course, humour has always been a frontline weapon against tyrants. “Because they can’t handle it. They just hate it," he says. "You can see that with Trump. He cannot stand being laughed at. That is really one of his biggest weaknesses. And he will stop running the country and take time out to go on Twitter and pick on comedians just because they have made fun of him. So it feels very much that comedy is a very powerful tool in this discussion.
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