Now, even Hitler 'reacts' to JNU row

KOLKATA: By now, it has almost become mandatory that any controversial event anywhere in the world will inspire a Hitler meme. In India, one has already seen memes after Anjan Dutt directed Byomkesh Bakshi and Kamaleswar Mukherjee made ‘Meghe Dhaka Tara’. Recently, a spoof titled ‘Hitler reacts to JNU row’ has been grabbing eyeballs. The video, which was uploaded on February 26 by Saurabh Natsingh, had close to 8,000 views in 24 hours. Among those who shared it online is a faculty member of Jadavpur University.

A famous scene from the 2004 movie titled ‘Downfall’ has long been an online favourite. Many have added funny subtitles to make comic representations of the reasons for Hitler’s rant against contemporary political issues, sports, popular culture or daily life. In all the videos, Hitler’s last ten days in the Berlin bunker from Oliver Hirschbiegel’s movie provides the visual. The audio has Swiss actor Bruno Ganz (as the Nazi dictator) screaming on top of his voice while the subtitles are tweaked around to suit the themes of the ‘Hitler Rant’ videos on YouTube.




The video begins with the ‘aazadi’ chants while the introductory message says ‘the ensuing battle of positions between bhakts and students’ has not only affected the powers that be but also Hitler who ‘frustratingly decides to change his mind over the issue’. While some have described it as ‘hilariously sensible’ and ‘brilliant’, others have been more elaborate in their reactions. Subhajit Chatterjee, assistant professor, film studies, JU, confessed that he was ‘actually waiting for this meme to surface online’. “This meme is about Modi being equated with Hitler, who is seen thrashing the ABVP-RSS brigade for a complete mismanagement of his design to oust critical opposition. This leads to his embarrassment. Hitler has no way but to take off sedition charges and educate the ABVP members in nationalism and English by making them attend JNU lectures by force,” Chatterjee described. One scene even shows an annoyed Hitler mentioning how leaders have been rummaging dustbins to find used condoms!

Having watched other Hitler spoofs, Chatterjee described it as ‘quite nice’ though it isn’t the best that he has seen. “The JNU meme adds some intelligent humour to the fascist horror story unfurling around us,” he said.

Chatterjee is now waiting to see how a counter is done to the meme. Making a personal Hitler video is easy. A link opens up to an online form where one has to enter the title and captions for the video. Beside each scene is placed a text field. The size of the text field matches the length of the corresponding dialogues that need to be entered. In order to upload a video, all one needs is access to a personal YouTube account.

Some time back, cinephile Mahadyuti Adhikary had used this link to create a hard-hitting spoof titled ‘Hitler and contemporary Bengali cinema’. “The images were pre-set and all I had to do was to place relevant words. There was no payment involved in it,” Adhikary said. Though he has seen a couple of his friends sharing the JNU video, he is yet to watch it himself.

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