The Conformist 
Directed and written by Bernardo Bertolucci
108 minutes, 1970, 
PG 


This movie from 1970 portrays a fascist in Italy 
who leads a former girlfriend and a former 
professor of his to their assassination deaths in 
service of Mussolini. At the end of the movie 
depicting the end of World War II and the 
revolution against Mussolini the main character 
and member of Mussolini's political police betrays 
his cause and yells to the crowd to pursue a 
homosexual and a blind fascist officer for their 
crimes in order to blame his own crimes on someone 
else.

MIM has to admit that Stalin and top Soviet 
intellectuals held views like those in this film 
that the fascist political police of Germany and 
Italy likely came from homosexual backgrounds. The 
film puts forward the view that fascism was a 
reaction of homosexuals to their own deviance from 
heterosexual norms. As if to arrest their own 
decay, the fascists overreact to instill what they 
believe is good order.

The fascist discovers on his mission to kill the 
professor that an ex-girlfriend of his is now the 
professor's girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend has 
sexual relations with both the fascist and the 
fascist's fiancee just before the assassination of 
the professor. Thus in the fascist camp we see 
childhood male homosexuality followed by social 
problems while in the anti-fascist camp we see 
bisexual wimmin. As symbolism, the film's 
characterizations match some radical Freudian 
theories of politics.

MIM does not believe that this sort of sexual 
motivation theory of history matches the facts. 
More detailed work needs to be done to undo some 
of the propaganda of World War II and to uncover 
the facts of the situation regarding homosexuals 
who were on both sides of World War II. On the 
other hand, this movie may bring out prevalent 
beliefs regarding fascism and give the audience a 
taste of politics. Those reacting to the movie 
with a "plague on both houses" attitude or by 
identifying with the fascist villain will provide 
evidence of the weaknesses of our movement and the 
readiness of the people to tolerate fascism. We do 
not give this movie an unqualified recommendation, 
because saying homosexuality was the cause of the 
activism of the leading fascist activists may 
itself create a chink in the armor of the united 
front that the international proletariat needs to 
lead.