Comparison of Fascist Aesthetics in Nazi and Modern Film

The film Hitlerjunge Quex (Hitler Youth Quex, 1933) directed by Hans Steinhof and the

satirical propaganda film Starship Troopers (1997) directed by Paul Verhoeven contain various

similar fascist aesthetics. These films premiered decades apart, but as Eric Rentschler argues that

fascist film and fascist aesthetics are not unique to Nazi Germany. They existed before the

Nazi’s, during the Nazis and they will continue to exist into the future. Comparing The films

Hitler Youth Quex and Starship Troopers contain similar fascist aesthetics of sexual repression

and glorification of death, as well as a similar message of doing anything it takes to support the

respected political party, which support Rentschler’s premise that fascism in film is not a special

technique used by the Nazi party, but it exists in varieties of films from different times and

cultures. Even though these two films contain similar fascist aesthetics and messages, A simple

difference in time setting separates the effectiveness of each film’s propaganda. Only Hitler

Youth Quex is considered a true propaganda film because it is set in the past and feeds off of

viewers’ emotions from past events (from the premier date), while Starship Troopers is set in the

distant future, which creates a viewpoint unattached from the political party and effort, which

defeats the propaganda within itself, and exaggerates the fascist aesthetics, and thus satirizes

fascist films. (portraying itself as a satirical film on fascist propaganda).

Rentschler argues in his introductory chapter “The Power of Illusion” that fascist film

within the Nazi era is not simply total fascist, nor a form pure artistic entertainment. Instead, the

truth of fascist propaganda films lies somewhere between the two extremes. In attempt to

formulate an idea about what specifically makes a film fascist, Rentschler constructs five

separate premises. The first premise is that many films of the time were a form of propaganda,

but it is difficult to determine if every single movie was a piece of manipulation. Premise two is
that fascist films were actually forms of entertainment, not every film was attempting to persuade

the audience to join the effort. Premise three is that every film and entertainment medium played

a small role, that together made the propaganda. Premise four; even though the films may have

pushed fascist aesthetics, they were still a part of the culture of the time, churning out hit movies

and songs (potentially revise). The fifth premise is that fascist propaganda existed before the

Nazis, and it has and will exist after them. It is not something special to the Nazi party, but it

was something that they used to their advantage (Rentschler). The fascist aesthetic similarities

between the films Hitler Youth Quex, and Starship Troopers confirm Rentschler’s assessment

that fascist film is a reality that will continue into the future of cinema. This last premise is

important while comparing the films Hitler Youth Quex and Starship Troopers.

A shared fascist aesthetic between the two films is the repression of sexuality. Within

Hitler youth Quex, Gerda, a communist girl, is flirtatious and pushers her sexuality upon every

young man. She is problematic and she causes some boys from the Nazi party to go against their

Nazi orders. A friend of Heini’s in the Nazi party has a sister, and she is conservative, and not

flirtatious. She follows Nazi ideologies and appears masculine because she wears a button down

shirt with a tie, and has short hair. She is also very helpful because she assists Heini in printing

all of the new leaflets after Gerda’s flirtation leads to the rogue Nazi boy to throw the Nazi

leaflets into the river (Steinhoff, Hitlerunge Quex). Starship Troopers greatly exhibits a similar

sexual repression. The film makes a generalized repression of sexuality by having men and

women both fighting in the war with no separation between the two sexes, they even shower

together. But more strikingly is that there is a flirtatious wild girl, Dizzy, who at times seems to

be a distraction to the main character, Johnny, from the war effort. There is also Carmen, a

conservative girl who resembles the conservative girl in Hitler Youth Quex. She wears

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conservative clothing and is a superior officer, while Dizzy is just a foot soldier. Dizzy is

eventually killed in the movie, while Carmen survives (Verhoeven Starship Troopers). This

storyline shows that flirtatious women are distractions to the war effort and the party. They are

inferior to conservative women. Conservative women will prevail, while flirtatious girls will

perish. How can I bring this back to the idea that the futuristic setting says this is false? Is

there a way to say that even though they each play similar character archetypes, the communist

girl is vilified in HYQ, while Dizzy seems to maintain more of a sense of virtue?

Another fascist aesthetic between the two films is the glorification of death. At the end

of Hitler Youth Quex, Heini passes out leaflets in a communist district and communists chase

him until they eventually catch and kill him. When Heini dies, the film super imposes the Nazi

flag on top of his body and then fades to thousands of Nazi soldiers marching (Steinhoff,

Hitlerjunge Quex). This glorifies Heini’s death and symbolizes that he did not die in vain. He

died for the Nazi party, and because he died, the Nazi’s are able to grow and keep fighting and

continue the war effort. This glorification of death happens towards the ending of Starship

Troopers when a soldier, Sugar Watkins, sacrifices himself so that the others can survive to keep

fighting the bugs. He stays behind in the bug’s layer with a nuke, while the others escape.

Because he blew himself up, the soldiers were able to catch a brain bug, which will increase the

Citizens understanding of how to defeat the bugs. The film glorifies his death, because he died,

the rest of the Citizen Party and war effort benefited. How does the future effect this? Again, is

the HYQ guy seen in absolute heroism, while the Sugar may be recognized as a hero, but his

altruism is suppressed by the extreme circumstances surrounding his act?

The idea that both films attempt to promote is that the viewers should join the effort of

the political party of the respected film. This mentality develops in Hitler Youth Quex when

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Heini Völker defies his father’s communist ideals, and joins the Nazi’s. While Heini’s father

does not agree with Hein’s decision, Heini is happy being a member of the Nazis. His decision

to join their party brings him food when he visits his new Nazi friend. He does not suffer being

poor like the communists and his father (Steinhoff, Hitlerjunge Quex). Within Starship

Troopers, there is similar tension between the parents and Johnny about joining the war effort.

Johnny joins the Citizens even though his parents do not want him to. Later in the movie, the

bugs destroy his home city and his parents died there (Verhoeven, Starship Troopers). If he had

stayed there, like his parents wanted him to, he would have died there too without doing anything

for the Citizens and the human race. However, because he joined the war effort, he did not get

killed by the bugs. He survived the initial attack and now participates in the war effort to kill the

bugs. Even if he does die fighting the bugs, he dies for the good of the human race. These films

are from different countries, different times, different issues, but they both push the belief that

the party is more important than the family.

The films further develop their propaganda messages by pushing the audience to do

whatever it takes to contribute to the party’s war effort. In Hitler Youth Quex, a rouge Nazi

party member destroys Nazi leaflets by throwing them into a river, hindering the Nazi party’s

plan to gain members. To combat this, Heini Völker stays up all night re-printing new Nazi party

leaflets to distribute and continue spreading the Nazi party ideals as planned (Steinhoff,

Hitlerjunge Quex). The film shows his determination for the party and that he is willing to do

whatever it takes to improve the strength of the Nazi party. This is a subtler way of getting this

message across. Starship Troopers, on the other hand, creates this same message, of doing

whatever it takes to support the war effort, in a much more obvious and satirical way.

Throughout the film, there are short “commercials” that aim to recruit viewers to join the

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Citizen’s war effort against the bugs. In one of these “commercials” the narrator asks,

“Everyone is doing their part. Are you?” while children are stomping on cockroaches. The

narrator continues, “The war effort needs your effort, at work, and home, in your community”

(Verhoeven, Starship Troopers). This obvious propaganda “commercial” is similar to Hitler

Youth Quex’s scene with Heini re-printing leaflets, because it does not necessarily recruit

fighting soldiers, but it displays the importance of people supporting the war and the party in

their everyday lives. While fighting soldiers for the war are important, the political parties

require complete support from regular civilians.

While both of these films contain a similar message of joining their respected political

parties and war efforts, the difference in cinematic time setting, Hitler Youth Quex in the past,

while Starship Troopers is in the future, makes a dramatic difference in how an audience

interprets the two films. The past provides a sense of knowledge of how things used to be and the

film uses this history as a means to justify the message of the film. Hitler Youth Quex describes

the life of a Nazi martyr that was killed by communists, which is a real event from the past. The

audience bases their thoughts on the fact that the communists killed a young boy, and they fear

the communists will kill another. The film built off from what has already happened to describe

how to act in the present, to join the Nazi party, to prevent the communists from continuing. This

message leads the audience to support the Nazis. However, by using a futuristic setting, Starship

Troopers effectively defeats the propaganda within itself. The futuristic aspects of the film seem

so improbable that the audience has no basis for connection with the message. The propaganda

is not for the viewing audience, but for the people of the future. The audience is not charged by

the hate within the film, instead they view the fascist aesthetics from an unattached viewpoint,

which is enough to portray fascism in an absurd way. Both films contain fascist aesthetics,

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supporting Rentschler’s premise, but a simple altered lens of time greatly effects the influence of

the film upon an audience.

As Rentschler argues in his fifth premise, “Nazi cinema did not suddenly come out of the

dark when Hitler rose to power; after his demise it would not simply disappear from view”

(Rentschler 23). The fascist aesthetics take shape in multiple movies throughout history. Both

films have similar fascist aesthetics and similar messages, but the audience receives the messages

differently. Hitler Youth Quex is a piece of propaganda that the Nazis used to persuade people to

support their party. The audience is emotionally charged by the film and grows to hate the

communists and join the Nazis. However, even though Starship Troopers does contain the same

fascist aesthetics and propaganda messages, it does not influence people to join the party’s war

effort the same way as Hitler Youth Quex because it is in the future and its messages are

disconnected from the viewing audience. This portrays fascism the film in a satirical way and

the audience does not feel influenced to join the effort.

The film Starship Troopers can appear to satirize fascist film while understanding the

concept that it is in the future, however, when overlooking this aspect, the film appears to

romanticize fascist films. The multiple parallels between Starship Troopers and Hitler Youth

Quex displays that Starship Troopers does contain fascist aesthetics. As untrained viewing

audiences would miss the fact that a film is fascist, this is how Starship Troopers can be

mistaken for fascism, and also why fascist films, such as Hitler Youth Quex, were effective. The

audiences did not know that they were viewing fascism, so they perceived everything as truth,

but if they noticed that it was fascist they could catch the propaganda messages within the film.

In order to prevent fascist film propaganda from greatly effecting another audience, people

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should be educated to understand what fascist aesthetics within film are, so that when another

fascist film comes along, people will catch it and not be persuaded to murder millions of people.

HYQ - > Fascist aesthetics -> Historical setting -> Plausible -> Audience can envision

themselves or someone they know in the situations of the story -> Leads to emotional

involvement of the audience and the effective promotion of fascist concepts. The aesthetics are

subtle yet successful.

SST - > Fascist aesthetics -> Futuristic setting -> Implausible -> Audience has no way to project

themselves realistically into the situations in the film -> No emotional involvement of the

audience and therefore no effective promotion of fascist concepts. The aesthetics are extreme,

yet only succeed in satirizing the fascist ideas.

A fine line of time setting separates these films that lead to each either recruiting

supporters, or parodying fascist film. The films effect audiences differently, because Hitler

Youth Quex is in the past, while Starship Troopers is in the distant future. This simple difference

in cinematic time setting makes a dramatic difference in how an audience interprets the two

films. The past provides a sense of knowledge of how things used to be and the film uses this

history as a means to justify the message of the film. Hitler Youth Quex describes the life of a

Nazi martyr that was killed by communists, which is a real event from the past. The audience

bases their thoughts on the fact that the communists killed a young boy, and they fear the

communists will kill another. The film built off from what has already happened to describe

how to act in the present, to join the Nazi party, to prevent the communists from continuing. This

message leads the audience to support the Nazis. But by using a futuristic setting, Starship

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Troopers effectively defeats the propaganda within itself. The futuristic aspects of the film seem

so improbable that the audience has no basis for connection with the message. The propaganda

is not for the viewing audience, but for the people of the future. The audience is not charged by

the hate within the film, instead they view the fascist aesthetics from an unattatched viewpoint,

which is enough to portray fascism in an absurd way. Both films contain fascist aesthetics,

supporting Rentschler’s premise, but a simple altered lens of time greatly effects the influence of

the film upon an audience.

Bibliography

Hitlerjunge Quex. Dir. Hans Steinhoff. 1933.

Rentschler, Eric. "Introduction: The Power of Illusions." The Ministry of Illusion. N.p.: n.p.,
1996. 1-24. Canvas. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
<https://umich.instructure.com/courses/98125/files/2297849?module_item_id=156215>
Starship Troopers. Dir. Paul Verhoeven. 1997.