The Truth About Fiction

Did you know that Charlie Chaplin was a Jew?

Regardless of what your answer is, the reality is that, no, you did not know that.

Do you know why you didn’t know that, even if you’ve heard it before?

You didn’t know it because it’s simply not true.

It is, however, a very common rumor. A rumor with very interesting origins that go back to Chaplin’s mustache-sake himself; Adolph Hitler.

We all know the gag. Charlie Chaplin’s, “Little Tramp,” character, gets mistaken for Hitler, because of their coincidentally similar mustache. Oh, what an ironic and comical spectacle!

But it wasn’t a coincidence.

It isn't even ironic.

As they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

Adolph Hitler, a notorious film aficionado, first grew a so-called, “toothbrush mustache,” as an homage to a man who was then and still is to this day, a legend of cinema. The man who originally made that accessory iconic.

A talented British performer, by the name of Charles Spencer Chaplin.

It would seem that his admiration dimmed however, by the time he declared Chaplin to be a Jew, given his reasonably well known objections to those of the Jewish faith.

You see, in 1940, prior to the United States’ entry into WWII, Chaplin made a satirical talkie called, “The Great Dictator.” He (playing alongside his mustache, as well as Paulette Goddard) portrays a power-hungry, vicious, insecure, totalitarian ruler, bent on world domination.

Needless to say, the role ruffled a few of the fuhrer’s finer feathers.

Hitler immediately went on the offensive. He commissioned his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebels, to spread the word that Charlie Chaplin was a Jew and reportedly declared with agitation that Chaplin, “had his brain circumsized.”

I guess that in spite of being spurned, Hitler felt that he deserved to hang onto the mustache after the breakup.

Still more interesting is the fact that, to begin with, Chaplin was Romani. I.e. a, “gypsy.” A race of itinerant peoples’ actually very similar in both backstory and culture to the Jews and equally despised by Hitler.

This story has always represented a multitude of ironic idiosyncrasies and a sort of sense of living symbolism.

But one of the most stark revelations of this anecdote is that misinformation has long been a commodity peddled to the masses.

Worse, it has generally been a very successful device, because it plays the credulity and herd mentality of people (to add even more irony, a phenomenon warned against in, "The Great Dictator,") as well as their desire for spectacle and a perceived common enemy to unite them.

Chaplin initially refuted reports that he was a Jew, simply because, well... He wasn’t a Jew.

Eventually, however, he came to realize that his denials were being seen as something to reinforce the notion that being a Jew was in fact a bad or shameful thing. Being acutely aware of and sensitive to this brand of stigmatization, given his origins within an often persecuted, itinerant ethnic group; Chaplin eventually ceased to deny the rumor and decided that it would be best left to the people to draw whatever conclusions they would.

And they did.

It would be nice if, “fake news,” was only a present and isolated phenomenon.

It would be nice if the spread of hatred and divisiveness, by use of deceit or hyperbole, was a recent innovation.

It would be nice if everyone was out to help you and to tell you the truth, because they are duty-bound and driven by their high standing on their rung of an infallible honor system.

Unfortunately, they're not.

It is not the duty of the exploitative not to exploit.

It is not the burden of the loathsome to inform the masses.

The first words on the charter that is the basis of all for which this country stands begins, “We the people.”

These words give us not only rights, privileges and a supposed guarantee of accountability from our elected officials.

They give us a responsibility to ourselves.

It is our duty, our burden and our imperative to be accountable for ourselves, by ourselves.

To seek the truth. To illuminate that which is in the shadows and elucidate that which drifts in the mire.

To be informed and to inform others. Assuming they'll willingly accept our information.

We the people, have a moral and ethical responsibility to ourselves and to our country. To uphold the truth in all forms. To speak the truth aloud, when it’s being pushed into a realm of silence and to venerate it above all else.

To bear the burden of reason and carry the yoke of justice.

We must understand that even freedom comes at a cost.

After all, as Mark Twain apparently said 12 years after he died, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has had time to step into its pants.”