The Downfall of Parody ?

Just noticed the news story Hitler Downfall Videos Being Pulled From YouTube.

Of course that inspired me to have a look....

Love the one about taking down the rants: Hitler finds out about the Downfall Parodies

Commercialism - A Glogal Hegemony

Most behaviours with biological or cultural value are treated as commodities, so they can be regulated as “trade” e.g. the commodity of sex is controlled via laws of marriage/ prostitution/ incest/ paedophilia/ bestiality/ etc etc etc.

The global triumph of “commercialism” as a shallow but all pervading “philosophy” has been aggressively widening the definition of commodities to include all expressions of thought (speaking, writing, singing, painting etc). Their audience thus needs to be regulated at any original performance (e.g. did you realise it was illegal to sing a song that you heard at concert at the restaurant later that night ? (See Happy Birthday). Any subsequent expression made by any person exposed to this original performance is also subject to regulation if a court can be convinced that the expression is derivative from the exposure (e.g. your tune sounds similar, your book has similar lines, your film has similar scene etc etc ad nauseam).

As all language meanings are infinitely plastic, the law of copyright has expanded to truly ludicrous dimensions and is treated with contempt by a huge and growing number of the world’s population. Such threats to commercialism’s global hegemony are treated with campaigns of fear – random severe punishment targeted specifically at “ordinary” people.

Silencing Parody is no joke

The above attempts to remove the Hitler “Downfall” parodies from the global community is particularly pernicious.

Satire (unlike copyright) (involving techniques such as parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre) is a social activity crucial to free open society. It is a key point of difference between us and countries that we consider to be oppressive such as the Muslim theocracies, and other tyrannical regimes such as China, Russia, Korea, Sudan etc.
Parody is immensely powerful in highlighting the development of “sacred cows” and forcing justification of things considered "beyond question".

The right to parody all memes should be protected - especially when the parody offends, as this indicates that the parody actually has some power. In our culture, Hitler is perhaps the ONLY remaining universal symbol of evil and this elevates the importance of allowing parody in this specific instance.

Stephen Digby