this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
1013 points (99.0% liked)
Political Memes
5501 readers
1838 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think this is my favorite joke in the whole franchise. I love that Austin's first assumption is that obviously socialism (the "good guys") won in the end.
I mean, that's one interpretation. The other one is the reality that the Soviet Union didn't always treat political prisoners particularly well, and being a former/current western spy, he was pretty smart to err on the side of caution in case they were the ones in charge.
It's honestly a great joke just because it can be so multi-layered given the character of Austin Powers being a free-love, hippy-ish, world-class spy. He genuinely could have both genuinely hoped that communism won, but also a smart tactic to potentially avoid being sent to a gulag, knowing that if he was wrong, the potential repercussions would probably be less severe.
It's been years since I've seen them movie but I recall having a third interpretation of the joke.
I thought Austin has assumed the communists won because prior to being frozen he felt that USSR had a stronger standing in the cold war and would be the more likely victor, regardless of Austin's personal opinions on communism and capitalism.
To expand on this, you could also imply that Austin assumed the capitalists lost because he was frozen. He knows he's a great spy, what chance did capitalism stand without him fighting for it?.
I don't intend to rewatch the movie because my life experiences since then have made it impossible to enjoy media that uses homophobia and transphobia as common punch lines, but I can still agree that it's a great joke, a great movie for it's time, and cleverly written.