DEALING WITH FASCISM: PROFESSOR MAMLOCK(1961), DAS SCHRECKLICHE MÄDCHEN(THE NASTY GIRL, 1990)

On 16 June 1976, the French newspaper Le Monde published Roland Barthes's review of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò ou les 120 Journées de Sodome (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975). Barthes's review was mixed; he defended to some extent Pasolini's avoidance of symbolism and his literal adaptation of Sade's cruelty on screen. Yet he also derided Pasolini for representing the fascists in monstrous terms, thus enabling the audience to distance themselves from them and their activities. In a passage that merits being quoted, Barthes states:

I want to probe the kernel of Barthes's argument, which I find pertinent, not least in the current historical context, when right-wing extremism is on the rise. Barthes here evinces a concern with analysing the historical processes behind the events; failing to do so makes fascism appear as an empty abstraction dissociated from the social and historical processes that give rise to it. This is the reason why he suggests that the representation of fascism demands political ways of seeing ‘à la Brecht’. Such a method is investigative of causes and does not reduce fascism to an abstract monstrosity.

The question that arises is what is so specific in Brecht's view of fascism? Brecht saw fascism as ‘a historic phase which capitalism has entered into’ (BAP: 145). His argument is founded on the idea that in moments of economic crisis, capitalism faces an existential threat and fascism is an extreme way of absorbing social dissatisfaction using a seemingly radical rhetoric that aspires to preserve the capitalist division of labour and the property relationships that go with it.