A coworker at my job recommended this movie to me one time and like so many times I put off watching it because I got busy and was doing other stuff. But this time I decided to finally watch it and it was definitely a really good movie. It definitely was eye-opening just the way the plot turned out. And it teaches a good message about propaganda and stereotypes in children, that children are conditioned, taught and trained to be prejudiced and un-learning ingrained bias and prejudice isn’t an overnight thing, but rather a process involving empathy and vulnerability. Jojo’s mother, Rosie, is hiding a young Jewish girl named Elsa (played by Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic, and at first when Jojo finds Elsa is hiding in their attic, he freaks out and she has to silence him with a threat and his knife because if he screams on her, she will be found out and taken away. At first he calls her nasty names and says a lot of hurtful things about Jewish people because that is what he grew up believing. Elsa isn’t fooled and tries to tell Jojo the truth about his life, that he is not a Nazi and that what he has been taught about Jewish people is propaganda and stereotypes. Jojo keeps a book where he draws offensive caricatures of Jewish people and when he asks Elsa to tell him about what Jews are really like, she tries to say positive things about being Jewish but then he tells her to say negative things about Jewish people because again, he was taught growing up in the Hitler Youth to hate and discriminate against Jewish people. However, as he gets to know her he sees his own humanity and also her humanity as well, and starts to see more clearly how painful and scary living through this war was.
It was interesting because at the end when the Second World War is over, Germany is now fighting Russia, and Yorki, Jojo’s friend, shows they still haven’t overcome their prejudice about other groups, so instead of trashing the Jews he trashes the Russians and thinks of them as the enemy. However, even though Yorki becomes a young soldier and is proud to fight, Jojo starts to see around him the destruction of war and the cruelty of the people who he once followed as his mentor, like Captain Klenzendorf, the Hitler Youth leader (played by Sam Rockwell). Honestly this movie reminded me of the time I was studying about the Holocaust in middle school, and I saw this book in the library called Hitler Youth by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. I haven’t read it yet, but it got me wondering about young men who grew up being trained as future Nazis and following Hitler. It made me think of an episode from the British show The Crown, because Prince Philip flashes back to his childhood going to boarding school in Scotland, and how he endured tormenting, harsh living conditions and the death of his sister in a plane crash. His sister married a member of the Nazi party and Philip had a lot of resentment about that, but when she died he really suffered so much pain and grief. There is a scene when he is in her funeral procession, and throughout the city Nazi flags are draped from windows and Philip is looking around at this feeling disillusioned and pained, especially because the headmaster of his school is Jewish. His father blames him for his sister’s death and basically calls Philip worthless, and because Philip is already struggling with bullying and neglect at his boarding school, he is forced to grow up very quickly.
In Jojo Rabbit, Hitler puts a lot of pressure on Jojo, even though he is only ten years old and still doesn’t know much about the world. But the movie shows how quickly young people are taught to hate others just because they are different. When I was in my African-American Studies course on Afro-American history, we watched the movie 42, and there is a scene where Jackie Robinson is playing the game, and a white man and his son are sitting in the bleachers and the white man starts screaming the N-word at Jackie. The camera focuses on how the son reacts and he at first is figuring out whether to go along with his dad or not, but unsurprisingly he imitates his dad and starts calling Jackie the N-word, too. I remarked in class how shocking it was, but the professor threw up his hands and was like, “Well, of course, these kids weren’t born racist. They were taught to be racist.” As a sensitive person I didn’t know how to react, but as I thought about it more and saw Jojo Rabbit, I realized what the professor was trying to tell me. It’s not until Jojo actually sees Elsa’s humanity and gets to know her that he overcomes the bias he grew up with. It reminds me of Buddhism because it’s hard to see someone’s Buddha nature, or this respectworthy nature we all have regardless of our identity, because we have fundamental ignorance, or this inability to see people’s Buddha nature. But when we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, we see people’s inherent dignity just as they are. This is not easy to do because many of us, myself included, grew up with preconceived ideas about others and who they are and how they are supposed to act, think and feel according to what we have been taught growing up. But it’s not until I educated myself, watched movies, listened to people’s stories and chanted to respect the inherent dignity of each person’s life, including my own, that I was able to see the inherent dignity of my life and the lives of people around me. Even if I don’t always get along with the other person or agree with them on everything, I chant to see their Buddha nature and through gradually transforming my life condition I transform my relationship with the other person. It’s still a process and I can’t totally say I am perfectly woke and free of bias, but I’m working on getting better.
I also really love the scene where toward the end Jojo is walking through the deserted fields after the war and he sees a beautiful blue butterfly flying around. He marvels at this beauty, and I thought it showed how Jojo transformed throughout the course of the movie. At the beginning Jojo during his training is forced to kill an innocent rabbit by wringing its neck. Jojo thinks the rabbit is sweet and doesn’t want to kill it, and the captains and other boys tease him about it. Jojo panics, then drops the rabbit on the ground, trying to free it, but then the captain, frustrated, kills the rabbit himself and flings its dead body across the forest. Jojo is taught during his training that he cannot be sensitive and that it is in his nature to hurt people and living things. But the few women in his life, Rosie and Elsa, encourage him to embrace his sensitive nature and be vulnerable. Rosie is sad because Jojo just wanted to live his life, but now that he has internalized a lot of this Nazi propaganda, he thinks he needs to develop a thick skin and hide his vulnerability to be a true man, even though he is only ten and still figuring life out. Elsa tells Jojo about her fiance, Nathan, and Jojo plays a mean prank on her at first by making up a letter by Nathan telling Elsa that he found someone else and wants nothing to do with her, but because deep down Jojo is sensitive, he realizes that his joke really hurt Elsa, so he writes another letter pretending to be Nathan and tells her that he was just joking and wants to still be with her. Elsa tells Jojo that he will fall in love one day, and Jojo thinks it’s silly but over time as he gets to know Elsa he really does fall in love with her. There is a really sweet moment when he is going to declare his love for Elsa and we see his stomach and that there are little cartoon butterflies flying around in his stomach because he is so nervous and so in love.
There is one powerful scene where Jojo once again realizes how traumatic this war has been and how it brought out so much cruelty within people. Earlier he sees five people hung from gallows at a public square. He tries to turn away from it, but Rosie forces him to reflect and just understand what happened. She wants him to face the painful reality of this time during the Nazi regime and the war, because it has brought out the cruelty in people. Unfortunately, it’s not until Rosie herself is hanged that Jojo realizes the inhumanity of the Nazi regime, and starts to feel deep pain for his mom and for all the people who lost their lives fighting against an inhumane regime.
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