It Started with a Slap
The war between Freedonia and Sylvania is quite literally over nothing. (Well, economics, since both Firefly and Trentino have their eyes on the Teasdale fortune.) It all begins with an insult that leads to a slap. Anyone who doesn’t believe actual wars have been started for reasons just as ridiculous is invited to read some history books.
Mrs. Teasdale
The only reason that someone as utterly unqualified to run a country as Firefly is made leader of Freedonia is because of the influence of Mrs. Teasdale’s wealth. She is one of the most perfect symbols of the corruption of monied influence in the political process.
The “Going to War” Musical Number
Chicolini’s trial is interrupted by news that Freedonia is going to war with Sylvania. This immediately stimulates the film’s most spectacular musical number in which it seems perhaps a goodly overall percentage of the country’s population takes part in joyously bombastic jingoistic manner. The sequence is ridiculous and amusing. The symbol is ridiculously on point and terrifying: this is exactly how members of a popular stirred to pointless patriotism behaves.
Firefly's Uniforms
During the “war scenes” of Duck Soup, every time there is a cut back to the brothers, Firefly is showing wearing a uniform from a different period of history, including both a Union and Confederate soldier a Boy Scout uniform. The symbolism here is one of a quite pointed satirical jab and it is kind of a wonder they got away with it since it is effectively making fun of military pageantry and thus, by implication, the military itself.
Eeny Meeny Miney Moe
Things look bad for Freedonia and a volunteer is needed for a suicide mission. Chicolini decides to pick the unlucky sap using a Yiddish-y substitute: “One-sa, two-sa, zig-zag-zav, poptie, gimmega, tin-lie, tav, harem, scarem, moychan, tarem, tare, tore” only to wind up pointing at himself. So he does it again and again he winds up the moe. So he does it one more time and just immediately picks Pinky. The symbolism here is harsh but true on the subject of who gets picked to start wars and who gets picked to die in them.
