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Cult of Personality: Difference between revisions
grammar, expand abbreviations
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''I'm the cult of personality''|'''[[Living Colour]]''', "Cult of Personality"}}
A [[Cult of Personality]] arises when mass media, [[Propaganda Machine|propaganda]], or other methods are used by or on the behalf of an individual, usually a leader, to create an idealized, heroic, and at times worshipful image of them, often through [[Lickspittle|unquestioning flattery and praise]]. A
A
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
While the phrase has been in use since the early 19th century, it was [[Trope Maker|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 [[w:List of cults of personality|list of real-world cults of personality]].
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* 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 [[Romania|Nicolae Ceaușescu]] and [[Yugoslavia|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.
* In a benign version of this trope, [[Christianity]] is in large part a
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