Editorial: Dark humour surfaces in hard times

The famous scene in Downfall where Hitler (Bruno Ganz) erupts over bad news. Photo / Downfall, YouTube

In a dour, unprecedented year, a sense of humour is more needed than ever.

Poking fun at the powerful can help people stay sane, especially when there's a pandemic and recession around and our lives are more limited than normal.

Quite a few people on social media have wondered whether US President Donald Trump's interest in TikTok has more to do with comedian Sarah Cooper's skewering lip sync videos of him than other reasons. Another popular routine on Twitter is Michael Spicer's The Room Next Door about a fictional political adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other UK figures.

But an Australian case suggests that should other people not see the funny side of your act, it can be your downfall.

An oil refinery worker has ended up having the last laugh after being sacked for creating a Hitler meme parody of his employers during wage talks. Scott Tracey posted the video to a closed Facebook group. He was later reinstated and has now been awarded A$200,000 in compensation after a two-year fight against unfair dismissal.

The Western Australian technician was dismissed from a BP refinery after after he used the famously parodied bunker scene from the 2004 film Downfall where Bruno Ganz as Hitler thunders at his generals.

BP had said it was "highly offensive and inappropriate" but a federal court ruled that it was unreasonable to say the meme had likened managers to Nazis. In the words of a union official, "a few stuffed shirts didn't get a joke".

Despite the subject matter, the Downfall scene has for years proved amazingly adaptable to very different situations about anyone in a crisis.

Its comedy is in the way the people around Hitler nervously impart bad news - his generals have failed and the war is lost - and his mixture of shaking suppressed emotion and explosion of frothing anger. He initially is in denial, then blasts others, but has to face defeat. The New York Times wrote of it: "Something in the spectacle of an autocrat falling to pieces evidently has widespread appeal".

The parodies are resubtitled to cover any topics from politics to celebrities, sports and very small in-jokes. Trump and Hillary Clinton have been among the political figures drawn into the meme, but many of the parodies do not turn the subject into Hitler. For instance in one, Trump argues with 'Hitler' at a coronavirus press briefing.

No doubt the Downfall meme and various slices of satire will swamp social media as the high-stakes US election nears.