Cabaret 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me': leftist hijacking possible
example · film: Cabaret ·
retold in 3 talks
Žižek argues the scene in Bob Fosse's Cabaret where a Hitler Youth sings has nothing fascist outside the swastika symbols; the same song with a red star would be perfectly acceptable, showing that fascist form is separable from fascist content.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“Imagine exactly the same song, maybe with a word or two changed. Imagine instead of swastika a red star. 'Tomorrow belongs to me, red star, communism will win.' And I would totally accept it.”
“my point is not shame on you if you secretly enjoyed the song my point is enjoy it but not secretly”
“this song is a rather ordinary, popular song. incidentally, it was composed while they were shooting the movie by a jewish couple. nice irony.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Béla Balázs2Bob Fosse2John Frankenheimer2Leni Riefenstahl2Nikita Mikhalkov1Agnieszka Holland1Mikhail Chiaureli1Atom Egoyan1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Žižek argues the scene in Bob Fosse's Cabaret where a Hitler Youth sings has nothing fascist outside the swastika symbols; the same song with a red star would be perfectly acceptable, showing that fascist form is separable from fascist content., illustrating ideology is not in elements as such,left should not cede terrain to fascism
Bob Fosse's Cabaret scene where a beautiful blond boy begins singing a nature-awakening song that gradually reveals itself as a Nazi anthem, with the whole inn joining in. Žižek says he shamelessly likes the song and uses this to argue the pseudo-intellectual lesson ('now I understand fascism's emotional appeal') is wrong, the same song with changed words would work as a communist anthem., illustrating fascism and aesthetics,exaptation,ideology
The song from Bob Fosse's Cabaret makes viewers think they understand fascism emotionally, but Žižek argues it was composed by a Jewish couple and could with slight changes be a communist song; fascist ideology is not in the emotional content but in its articulation., illustrating ideology as empty signifier,fascism and the left