Hitler Loved Rom-Coms For An Insidious Reason

With all the craziness that I’ve been seeing in the news, I’ve been turning the pages of history to see parallels. Politically, America is right around the same type of headspace as Germany as Hitler rose to power.

Hitler rose to power by telling Germans that Jews were the enemy, that they were superior, and that the world would be better if he was in charge. He put German, “Aryan” men at the forefront of the party.

He was not the popular candidate. Rather, he was the candidate who slowly grabbed power through legislature and partnerships with other parties. When he first ran, people thought he was a buffoon.

That much is common knowledge today — or at least, that's what I hope is common knowledge today. What many people don’t focus on is the way Hitler’s propaganda focused on women.

One of the less-discussed tenets of fascism is misogyny.

Without fail, women’s rights always take a hit under fascist dictatorships. This is because fascism is all-consuming. Men die faster under a fascist regime due to war, overwork, and criminal death penalties. 

A society needs children to replace those men. 

Only women with uteruses can birth kids.

In order to delay the inevitable, fascist dictators need women to be baby-birthing machines. Having children at a rate that is not well above the replacement rate will make fascist societies crumble fast.

Dictators are, at the end of the day, at the mercy of women. They need women to be mothers and caretakers, readily available for men. Women act as a prize for men who fall in line — and children, their legacy.

Hitler was so desperate for babies, he created the Lebensborn program. This was basically a breeding facility for Aryan women and high-ranking Nazi elites. When the babies were born, elites would adopt them. 

Of course, women’s rights were also stripped as a way to goad them back to the kitchen. What most people don’t realize is that there were “soft sells” on housewifery and motherhood prior to extreme measures like this.

Hitler was a huge fan of using the media to sway public opinion and goad public thought.

Media is how he convinced people to go along with the “final solution,” and how he managed to keep spirits high during the war. Funny, heartfelt rom-coms were his favorite type of propaganda. 

The plots were almost all identical:

1. Woman meets man, man meets woman. 

2. Man wants marriage and kids, woman is unsure.

3. Hijinks ensue, dolloped with romance. 

4. Woman concedes to marriage and kids, dropping her career goals or identity in the process.

5. They all are happy ever after, the end.

It worked. In fact, it worked a little too well. Rom-coms and Disney-style movies continued to excel well into the 2000s in America. It was a staple of many people’s childhoods, even after we crushed Germany in the war.

If you’ve ever read feminist literature, you might have noticed how many women feel like rom-coms lied to them about the nature of dating. You may have heard women mention they want their own “Disney wedding” or “romance novel.”

That’s a byproduct of rom-com propaganda. Women were sold a very unrealistic view of what it’s really like to meet, date, and marry a typical man. And we’re still reeling, collectively, from the fallout. 

Men benefited from it, to a point — though the Nice Guy trope backfired on them. You don’t get brownie points for the bare minimum of being a functioning member of society, folks.

As we head into a more fascist world, expect rom-coms and dating shows to come back in full force.

Dating shows, romantic comedies, flirty bawdy novels, and similar goods will likely start to flood the market. You might also see a newer iteration of these tactics through tradwife influencers, romance influencers, and motherhood influencers, too. 

Regardless, you will likely see a lot of new books and movies flood the market involving a plot similar to the following:

1. Strong, independent woman hooks up with a man, and gets pregnant. 

2. Hijinks and a series of pursuits from the man ensue.

3. A major red flag appears.

4. Woman makes the hard decision to give up her career for her man and have the kid. 

5. Man marries woman. 

6. Happily ever after ensues.

These films and influencers are meant to act as a soft sell on housewifing and motherhood. They’re not realistic. In fact, they encourage women to give abusive or otherwise bad men a chance. 

The “soft sell” is not done for women’s best interests, nor is it even done for men’s best interest.

Soft-selling love and romance is not good for either gender. It’s a way of making people get into relationships they shouldn’t be in because “that’s just what you do.”

For men, it puts unreasonable expectations on them and teaches them that being superficially nice is the ticket to getting laid. This isn’t true. Attraction has to be there and so does taking care of yourself.

Men also end up internalizing the idea that they have to be the provider, caretaker, and hero. This sounds great until you realize that they’re being held to impossible standards that aren’t realistic for the vast majority of men. 

For women, it primes you to put another person’s needs first — even when it martyrs you in the process. It also primes you for desperation to get married, abusive relationships, having kids you either can’t raise or don’t really want, and not realizing your worth. 

These movies you’re going to see? They’re not for you. They’re there to increase the population. That’s all they’re there for. Follow them and internalize them at your own risk, regardless of whether you’re male or female.