Artefact 5 was generated by observing the fact that, of all the parodied characters, the one for which comedic exaggeration is least required is Hitler. To test this, I interviewed Adina Huma from The University of Plymouth, specialising in Discourse Analysis and asked her to watch a collage of an original speech of Hitler, a cartoon version and a Monty Python sketch.
She thought that indeed, the cartoon and the sketch had only slightly exaggerated the stage persona of the original. Even for the cartoon version, which seems to present a raging lunatic, there is evidence of a similar behaviour on the part of the original "His oratory used to wilt his collar, unglue his forelock, glaze his eyes..."(Janet Flanner for the New Yorker).
Since the rendition of the character in terms of tone of voice, gestures, mimicry, body language was similar, the next question was how come one version produced laughter, while another was a stern reminder of past atrocities.
The interviewee remarked that in its original context, the speaker`s ability not only to articulate the anger of its audiences, but actually recreate it on stage (“People feel it, but don't articulate it... Hence, if you don't become one of them in your articulation of it, you can't convince them that that is the truth.”). The response is visceral; the speaker`s engagement with his subject is played out rather than argued.
There is a catch with this ridiculing of Hitler, in the sense that placing the character out of context easily turns him into a loon and acts as a sort of eulogy of today`s individual who feels he would never fall for someone as ridiculous and outrageous.
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