Freedonia
How free can a country really be when they are not allowed to choose their own leaders, but must submit to the will of a single wealthy woman holding the hostage to her infatuations? Freedonia’s method for choosing its leader is almost as absurd as the Electoral College and strongly suggests it is not a democracy.
“The Laws of My Administration”
Then again, any citizens that not rise up in rebellion against a leader who boldly boasts about his plans for corruption like Firefly perhaps are not deserving of complete democrat freedoms.
“The country's taxes must be fixed,
And I know what to do with it,
If you think you're paying too much now,
Just wait 'till I get through with it.”
That Firefly actually remains leader after presenting this exceedingly unpleasant agenda in a peppy, uptempo song and dance used to be a more ironic than it is now.
An Anti-War Movie
Duck Soup is often listed among the greatest anti-war films of all time. But there is something quite special about the film as an icon of the peace movement that is the height of irony. The heroes or protagonists or whatever you want to call them—the people whom the audience are behind—are the very same ones who started the war. Not only did is the hero of this anti-war film the aggressor, but he started the war over nothing more serious than an insult. Not only did the anti-war icon who is the hero of the movie start a war over an insult, it wasn’t even a real insult, but merely a perceived one he completely imagines taking place.
A War Movie
As a war movie—as opposed to an anti-war movie—Duck Soup proves equally ironic. The entire battle takes place within the war room which is unlike any war room ever seen. The war plays out as a series of message exchanges and sight gags without a single moment of actual fighting anywhere to be seen.
No Soup, Very Few Ducks
Ironically, the movie is about neither ducks nor soup. The only literal reference to the title is the very first image of a duck and ducklings floating atop water in pot for boiling that, ironically, isn’t even being heated.
