Benito Mussolini: Difference between revisions

Mussolini first got the idea for fascism when he was a [[Red Shirt Reporter|war reporter]] in the trenches of [[World War One]], following around the soldiers. And he liked what he saw in the army. He wanted to create a society organized like a military battalion, a rigid conformist society with no dissenters to undermine patriotic values.

 

 

That all said, there is a real historiographical debate about how much of a Fascist Mussolini really was, as the most notable members of his cabinet consisted of political opportunists rather than die-hard Fascist fanatics, and Mussolini seemed to waver a lot when the question of how far the Fascist revolution was meant to go came up, on at least one occasion saying that Italy was not ready to be Fascist. In other words he believed in Fascism, but was too cynical about Italy and politics in general to believe that a Fascist revolution could take place, and thus was content to run a straight-up dictatorship with Fascist dressing, electing to maintain his position rather than upset the status quo. Thus, [[Fascist Italy]] was not as totalitarian as [[Nazi Germany]] nor Stalinist Russia- it was a one-party state with media controlled and opposition banned and such, but it was still a monarchy, had a shaky, up and down relationship with the Catholic Church, tolerated (if not permitted) a degree of freedom of speech, and had an aggressive foreign policy that was more bark than bite<ref> They invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and entered World War 2 on the Nazi side of course, but Mussolini had been variously promoting or downplaying war for at least a decade before that</ref>. Though Mussolini ruled for more than 20 years, several parts of Italy barely noticed any change from the previous fifty.

* [[Dead Guy On Display]]: Along with his mistress.

* [[Embarrassing Middle Name]]: Andrea?

*** It's quite a common name for Italian men.

* [[Fascist but Inefficient]]: The [[Trope Namer]]. Ironically, because this is the man who was said to have "made the trains run on time." ([[Reality Is Unrealistic|They actually didn't.]])

* [[Get It Over With]]: When Mussolini was executed by local communist partisans, his [[Famous Last Words/Real Life|last words]] were "Shoot me in the chest!"

** Then they hanged him from his feet instead (and did the same to his girlfriend).

* [[Kneel Before Zod]]: What a lot of his propaganda said. [[Large Ham|OBEY!]]

** It's either that or "SI!" (Yes in Italian)

* [[Nice Hat]]: his fez, that he would wear almost always (including the page picture). Bonus point for the fez being proof he served in World War I as a Bersagliere, Italy's elite infantry.

* [[Shirtless Scene]]: Believing it was a sign of a strong and virile Roman man, Mussolini was frequently photographed with his shirt off, posing with rifles or diving into the sea.

* [[The Social Darwinist]]: The ultimate real-world definition of the trope.

* [[Squick]]: Look up how he and [[Dark Mistress|his mistress]] died. Seriously, it's bad.

** He even said that "War is to a man what maternity is to a woman". Mussolini's utopian society would always be at war.

* [[Ye Goode Olde Days]] : Mussolini wanted to make his regime a grandiose revival of [[The Roman Empire]]. It is hard to tell whether the Romans would have been amused or insulted.

** After Italy surrendered in 1943, Mussolini ''de facto'' became Hitler's yes-man.

 

* In Harry Turtledove's ''[[Worldwar (Literature)]]'', Mussolini is overthrown when Italy is eventually overrun by the Race, but is busted out of prison by [[Crazy Awesome|Otto Skorzeny]] and later seen in exile in the United States.

* ''[[A Greater Britain]]'', a work aimed at rescuing Oswald Mosley from the scrappy heap, does the same to Mussolini: he fights on the Allied side of the truncated equivalent to [[WW 2]], and it reflects on his political gifts which tend to be brushed over nowadays.

* Joey from [[Friends]] claimed his grandmother was the 6th person to spit on Mussolini's corpse.

** Also, Milhouse's full name is "Milhouse Mussolini Van Houten".

* ''Tea With Mussolini'', obviously.

* In ''[[The Office]]'' Dwight reads a speech by Benito Mussolini apparently trying to say that paper salesmen are a [[Proud Warrior Race]].

[[Category:Historical Domain Character]]

[[Category:Benito Mussolini]]