Cult of Personality



"I sell the things you need to be I'm the smiling face on your T.V. I'm the cult of personality I exploit you still you love me I tell you one and one makes three I'm the cult of personality ''Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi I'm the cult of personality"

- Living Colour, "Cult of Personality"

A Cult of Personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods to create an idealized, heroic, and at times worshipful image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. A Cult of Personality is similar in some ways to A God Am I, except that it is established in the minds of others by mass media and propaganda usually by the state, especially in Totalitarian (or sometimes Authoritarian) states. (And its subject rarely possesses the powers of a god, although he will in many cases make claims to them anyway -- see some of the more outlandish stories circulated about the Kim family of North Korea.)

A Cult of Personality is a deliberate attempt to invoke the old and discredited concept of the Divine Right of Kings for modern rulers, by painting them as greater-than-human figures who can make no mistakes and do no wrong. They are generally perpetuated to give a nation or people a focus during a period of trouble or transition, by turning its subject into a benevolent "guide" who will bring them into a new, better era by way of a revolutionary transformation that could not happen without his unique oversight and all-embracing love for the common people. The process usually paints them as some variety of Memetic Badass in Charge along the way as well.

It helps a great deal if the leader in question has some measure of charisma, but if he lets the press do all the speaking for him and limits himself to posing for inspiring photographs and paintings, it won't matter.

Anywhere in fiction and Real Life where you see people fanatically devoted to a leader rather than an ideology or a cause, you're probably looking at a Cult of Personality. This is a common tool of the Glorious Leader and The Generalissimo, and the effort to start up (or expand) a Cult of Personality is almost always one of the first priorities after a Tyrant Takes the Helm.

While the phrase has been in use since the early 19th century, it was first applied in a political sense by Karl Marx in 1877; it was further popularized by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, in a speech he gave criticizing the near-deification of Josef Stalin.

Although we won't turn down Real World examples, why bother? Wikipedia already has a very comprehensive and detailed list of real-world cults of personality.

See also Glorious Leader, The Generalissimo. Compare Propaganda Machine.

Film

 * R'as al Ghul in Batman Begins has a literal cult built up around him.

Literature

 * In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the party has built up a cult of personality around Big Brother -- although less as a figure of cultural salvation than as a figure of omniscience and omnipotence.
 * Napoleon in Animal Farm, as evidenced by Boxer's motto "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right."

Music

 * The song "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour explores the phenomenon from the point of view of the subject of such a cult, but includes comments that are subversive of the purpose of a Cult of Personality, encouraging the listener to break free from the groupthink in which they're trapped.

Tabletop Games

 * "Trust the Computer! The Computer is your friend!"  Among all the other things included the 24-hour propaganda in Paranoia's Alpha Complex is a heavy dose of personality cult centered on the Computer.

Western Animation

 * Jet's little gang in Avatar: The Last Airbender may be small, but it's a cult of personality nonetheless.

Real Life

 * Practically every dictator or other authoritarian head of state in the last century or so has at least attempted to grow a Cult of Personality around themselves; many, like Nicolae Ceaușescu and Josip Broz Tito were successful, at least in the relative short run. However, the two most prominent examples have to be Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.  It's hard to decide which of them is the Trope Codifier, although both qualify for the role; perhaps they both are, collectively.
 * The Kim family, rulers of North Korea. The state-owned press in North Korea is effusive in its unending praise when it comes to covering them, to the point that to outsiders it seems almost like an embarrassing parody.  For instance, despite the Communist rejection of religion all the Kims are and have been painted as semi-divine, "a great person born of heaven".  The latest Kim, Kim Jong-un, is a case in point.  Everything good that happens is because of him; everything bad that is even reported is a defiance of the natural order because it flies in the face of Kim's intentions for the land and people.