do y’all think it’s possible to satirize fascism in a way that is so heavy-handed that fascists won’t unironically like it?

I’m specifically thinking of stuff like Helldivers 2 and Starship Troopers

also, if someone makes fascism satire and then fascists embrace it, that means the satire failed right?

@kasdeya I think that's been asked many times about Starship Troopers, in particular.

It's like the old complaint that you can't make a truly anti-war film.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2025/04/12/antiwar-film/

The underlying problem, I think, is that if you're concerned with truth, you develop an appreciation for ambiguity.

Fascists despise truth and deny ambiguity, violently.

@kasdeya the problem with fascism satire is how willing most fascists are to say "this is good actually" to the most cartoonishly evil shit imaginable, so i think for it to work the satire needs the fascists to constantly eat shit and look like complete chumps

@kasdeya i think they can blind themselves to anything and embrace the satire. I do not even think fascist satire should be made with the intention to change the mind of a fascist, it's a waste of time.

@kasdeya
You could go the camp route. For instance I don't think too many fascists & Nazis are fond of Springtime for Hitler:
https://youtu.be/1zY1orxW8Aw?si=o4lpBlkSbGUau4DB&t=43

@kasdeya I don't think so, because often more people understand the satire than not.

I was bemused, years ago, that a contingent of Fallout fans was enthusiastic for The Enclave. The Enclave is pretty much taking all the mad scientist and evil military dictatorship tropes of the 50s and making it explicit that they were talking about the US the whole time.

But I think most people who play Fallout get that.

Not that I've done a survey or anything, though.

@kasdeya good questions. Maybe we should stop making "satire" that actually just glorifies in the aesthetics of fascism.

@kasdeya IMO the job of the artist/writer to communicate effectively to their target audience. Not every work has to be like an aesop fable where it’s easy for anyone to understand the meaning. Starship troopers is aimed at antifascists, and antifascists largely think its funny, thats what matters

@kasdeya I reckon the way to go making a fascist satire that fascists dislike would be by couching it in a context, for example a movie like lesbian space princess where theres a satire of cishet white men, but its couched in a movie with lesbian protagonists so any cishet white man would be extremely turned off by that in the first place. If you just went heavy handed with it would probs make the jokes boring

@kasdeya The Producers does this in the play within a play. Certain types of satire like farce and burlesque are much more clear about their mockery.

Not specifically antifascist, but Nagisa Ohshima’s film Death By Hanging is famous for using techniques from Bertolt Brecht’s didactic theatre to highlight the artifice of the film and intensify the unreality of the farcical satire of Japanese racism and the carceral mindset.

@kasdeya
It can turn the satire into a vehicle from which to address fascists. I'm not sure why we need to address fascists since they would throw the majority of us in work camps or concentration camps depending who in charge of the Party hate list on the day. But if Judge Dredd was published saying Yaxely-Lennon & Co are working with evil peadophiles & baby killers(all true) it would stick a big stick in the far Right political aims in the UK for at least 8-12 years.