The Movie

The Great Dictator is a movie by Charlie Chaplin. It was released in 1940 and was nominated for five Academy Awards. The movie, a political satire, was Chaplin’s most successful commercial venture; it is still popular today and has been critically acclaimed by the modern-day critics.

The Speech

In the movie, the character played by Charlie Chaplin makes a stirring speech about what’s wrong with the world and how it can be fixed. He was extraordinarily prescient in his speech in the movie, The Great Dictator, because most of what he mentioned in his speech afflicts the world even today. In a way, he was talking about faux leaders, who hoodwink people, betray them, and lead masses to unnecessary wars. Those leaders are also responsible for all the pain and suffering a common man experiences or is experiencing. As he states in his speech, he does not want to be an emperor (or a faux leader)—that wasn’t his business.

Firstly, he wanted to help all of humanity, no matter the color of their skin. Next, he realized that we thrive by absorbing each other’s happiness and not through our miseries. He observed that greed—one of the seven deadly sins—has filled the world with hatred and corrupted our lives, and the more knowledge we accrue the more cynical we become. He realized that soldiers are used as pawns for foreign policy. Finally, he implored us all to unite, because the ultimate power resides with the people and not with the faux leaders.

I have listened to this speech umpteen times. I never get bored with it. One sentence that describe our world to a T is, “Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!” Isn’t that the truth worldwide? Replace dictators with “polytickcians” or elites, and the ethos of the message remains the same. We need to unshackle ourselves from the repressive environment we are in and fight for liberty.

Please watch. You can also read the entire speech on this website.

Spread the words, his words…