The events that occurred before, during and even after WWII is arguably one of the worlds most influential time periods. The people of Europe experienced one of the worst humanitarian crises ever in a fascist society that masked the true cruelty of what was occurring behind the curtains. Looking from the outside in it is easy to conjure the question as to how something of such a horrific magnitude was allowed to happen. The movie “Hot Fuzz” directed by Edgar Wright is a perfect example of a fascist society and how easy it is for a society to appear as if it is one thing, and yet be operating as something completely different. 

Fascism is an authoritarian right wing system of government that is highly intolerable to certain view or practices that go against their own. The government is composed of a dictator or a martial government, in which military officials make up the governing body. In “Hot Fuzz” we see the martial government in the form of the Neighborhood Watch Alliance. The Neighborhood Watch Alliance would conduct secret meetings and only consult those in the alliance on all decisions made for the town of Sandford. For someone looking from the outside in, they would see a normal town. Sandford has all aspects one would expect in a modern town, including a law enforcement division, the police. However, someone looking from the outside in wouldn’t see the reality of what made up the Sandford Police, and ironically nor did the policemen themselves. The police station was under the wing of Inspector Frank Butterman. Inspector Butterman, however, was a major part of the neighborhood alliance, and was the “judge, jury, and executioner” of everything that was police related in Sandford. The policemen themselves had no idea that any of the suspects they caught would end up subject to Inspector Buttermans judgment, making them indirectly involved in the fascist governing of Sandford. Although this movie has a large comical aspect to it, this part is very relevant to examples of what we have seen historically. The policemen, with the exception of Nicholas Angel, represent the people unknowingly trapped in the fascist cycle in fascist society such as Italy under Benito Mussolini and Germany under Adolf Hitler. The people go to their jobs everyday thinking that they’re doing something right, when in reality they’re just pawns in the grand scheme of the Neighborhood Alliance.  

Similarly, to the police department, the town of Sandford as a whole looks far different from the outside looking in, then what it is like in reality. The pride and joy of the Neighborhood Alliance, is winning the “best village award” every year. For an outsider Sandford looks the part of the best village. All of the citizens seem to be happy, and there never seems to be any problems. The behind the scenes reason for this is that the Neighborhood Alliance capture, kill, and bury anybody that causes a disturbance in the picture perfect society they have worked so hard to build. This act by the Alliance, from their perspective, was in order to cleanse the community, similar to the acts of Hitler. An example of this is when a man dressed as a statue was parading around town holding poses as a statue and thus drawing attention, the Neighborhood Alliance had him captured and killed to eliminate the discrepancy. The fascist dictators, or members of the Neighborhood Alliance, hold day jobs as well. This makes them important and well liked people in society. They put on a façade to the townsmen, pretending to be everyday citizens when in reality they are following their underlying plan.

Although the situation between the holocaust and that in “Hot Fuzz” are extremely different, there are many parallels between the way the fascist Nazis led their movement and the way the fascist Neighborhood Alliance governed a “perfect village”. The Nazi movement was led by the infamous dictator Adolf Hitler, and his Nazi solider disciples. The German people did rally behind his political movement, behind his ideals and propaganda that he preached for promise of a better life. Hitler built a society off of the support and momentum given to him by the people, but ran his own operation behind closed doors. Hitler’s concentration camps and methods of mass genocide of the Jews and other “inferior” people were not known by the common people of Germany.  We now know Hitler was a master of spinning the reality of what was going on, with the genocide and with the news of the war, to the people of his empire. He built up the moral and functionality of his fascist society on a bubble of lies. “Hot Fuzz” depicts this perfectly, only on a much smaller scale. The people of Sandford were unaware of the actions by the fascists leaders. The people had no idea what was going on behind the scene, and were only aware of the product of the cruelty, the appearance of the perfect village. Similar to the people of Germany, the Sandford citizens didn’t realize they were playing a part of a fascist society, and for someone who would look at Sandford from the outside, wouldn’t realize it either.

As we’ve seen historically, a society can appear as something completely different then what it is in reality. The dictators of fascism create a bubble of a faulty reality that mislead the people into participating in a movement that they may not even realize they’re involved in. The movie “Hot Fuzz” is a perfect representation of fascist ideas being implemented in society, like those seen throughout history. One can only wonder what other societies in this world appear as something that they are not.
