A Marxist Reading of the Marx Brothers

[@Bowsar1337]

there's just something punch-able about this guy's face

[@rattyeely]

Joker Pepe icon, saying someone has a "punchable face". . yeah it checks out

[@rusted_ursa]

@@rattyeely Don't forget how 1337 he is. 😆

[@salvagemonster3612]

Yes I often wanted to punch Groucho

[@kit-ekat8139]

you know i never forget a face, but for you i'm willing to make an exception.

[@pencilpauli9442]

Any face that you can make a fruit drink out of is okay by me Your face reminds me of lemonade. Without the aid. There's no helping anyone with a face like yours.

[@WhoWantsCake0]

I suddenly have a ravenous craving for the rich 🎹

[@thelmadelyte5890]

Sir Since high school, I've been saying I was the last Margaret Dumont fanboy It is my deepest pleasure to welcome you to her club

[@thelmadelyte5890]

also your actual analysis is top drawer

[@onbearfeet]

Room for one more? I sincerely believe their movies wouldn't have been half so glorious without her. People criminally undervalue that woman's professionalism.

[@pencilpauli9442]

Serendipitously, I just saw a post in a Marx Brothers Facebook group, which was a picture of Groucho with Margaret in the early 60s. I commented that a Marx Brothers film never feels quite right without her. She was the 6th Marx Brother

[@rusted_ursa]

All throughout, I had the delightful feeling that you've read the same Marx Brothers biographies that I used to borrow from my dad when I was a tween/teen. I always loved Chico's and Harpo's solos so much. 🎹

[@DavidJBradley]

I remember reading one a lot of years ago called Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo (stole it for my opening line) and Harpo Speaks is one of my favourite books of all time.

[@rusted_ursa]

@@DavidJBradley Yup, dad had both of those, plus "Groucho and Me."

[@CthulhusBFF2]

“I’ve heard about a cutting remark, but this is ridiculous! Hey, why is there nothing in my hand?” 🎹

[@Salami1001]

I would watch a lot of these films with my grandparents growing up, so I really enjoyed looking at them again through your video as an adult 🎹

[@onbearfeet]

Thank you for perfectly summing up so much of why I memorized Marx Brothers routines as a child. And also validating my queasy bafflement with the Gabriel song (which at least one of my family members referred to as the "obligatory happy racial-slur song" and no, he didn't say "racial-slur"). 🎹

[@gryfon_gamez8184]

loving the matching shirt and nails also i'm still waiting to see the uncensored pc you teased us with last video

[@CapriUni]

🎹 Pian-o? Why not a 🐤-o? Personally, though, I could never eat the rich. To a one, I've found them bitter, and rotten to the core. Bletch!

[@albertgarrett4273]

That was one solid video! 🎹

[@SamuraiMujuru]

Always have time for the Marx Brothers. Introduced a friend to Duck Soup a while back. Lemme tell ya, Wait Til I Get Through With It hit very differently a few months into the Trump administration.

[@lizziestired]

saw the content warning goona head out now will watch later leaving a comment frr the algorihtem

[@Lycandros]

👍👍 I don't have the motivation to find the piano keys.

[@redactedredacted6656]

Make the most spaghetti anyone's ever eaten out of the rich 🎹

[@ingwerschorle_]

nay, we will prepare a bourgeois buffet

[@AveryTalksAboutStuff]

The lapel pin though 😂

[@DavidJBradley]

Just because I want to eat the rich doesn't mean I can't accesorise.

[@AveryTalksAboutStuff]

@@DavidJBradley it's absolutely wonderful and I love it!

[@CrazyAboutClassics]

As an ace, that is how I first discovered your channel, but goodness this video awoke many memories. I was a HUGE Marx Brothers fangirls in my teens, they developed a lot of my own sense of humour and I even did a Chico Marx cosplay.🎹

[@TheSheebeen]

I don't know how to do emojis on the pc, but I loved this interpretation. It has been FAR too long since I watch the Marx brothers. Time for a rewatch. Also, David I LOVE your nail polish it is fab!

[@melissacooper8724]

My uncle used to wear his nails pink because pink was his favorite color.

[@Pencliff]

I've never watched anything Marx brothers, and know next to nothing about them so this has been really interesting and an education to say the least. I think I will have to watch some of the movies if I can 🎹

[@everperplexing]

Amazing video as always 🎹

[@Th0tsandprayers]

Wow 😍 that nail color 💖💖💖🎹

[@daniexists6]

Honestly, I absolutely love this video, and I would also make the same argument for The Three Stooges. The Stooges, in their films, were usually portrayed as extremely lower class victims of the capitalist system and The Depression who thumb their nose at societal norms and the wealthy upper class, albeit in a far more physical way then the Marx Brothers. An amazing example being Hoi Polloi (1935), which had the trio in the role of three garbage men who two professors bet each other that they could take average, every day oaf and turn them into an upper class twit in a semi adaptation of Pygmalion. Other similar shorts, like A Plumbing We Will Go, Three Little Pigskins and especially Ants in the Pantry and Movie Maniacs echo a similar sentiment. They're the underdogs all the time, and they only have each other to help one another out, even if it results in them suffering for it. Also, they did a jab at Hitler before Chaplin.

[@ursaminorjim]

I do not care to eat the rich as they strike me as being bland, flavorless, spoiled, and simultaneously stringy _and_ flabby. But I shall gladly butcher, cook, and dish out the rich to any hungry comrades. _How gratifying for once to know that those above will serve those down below!_ 🎹

[@Sandra-hc4vo]

i don't know how to leave emojis in the comment. but cleverly this has encouraged me to leave a comment..

[@qiae]

Honestly i have never seen anything of the Marx brothers before but was curious and enjoy your content so gave it a watch, i must say the 🎹 and other musical skills are solid and i do quite appreciate creative combinations of different talents, kinda makes me wonder what their work would be like had they been making movies today instead. Keep up the great work, and i hope everyone has a wonderful day!

[@DarkElfofVulcan]

I hadn't thought about it this way, but they really were rather subversive. Sort of a shame the rich have moved on to being more flashy and less about how they comport themselves within a rule structure. 🎹

[@emmarubacava]

It does annoy me when I point out that old films are racist and/or sexist and people reply with "but that's just what it was like back then". I think David covered it very well here by saying it is still unacceptable regardless of when it was made. The Marx Brothers must have know that their audiences would be laughing at the people of colour and not laughing with them. *piano emoji*

[@arthurlopes286]

loved the video, didnt even saw the time go by 🎹

[@nickalasmontano1496]

Excellent video, as always 🎹

[@TheSCSIBug]

Ever since I saw the films for the first time, I felt it's a damn shame that the Marx Brothers never used their station in Hollywood to give these people of color any more notable screen time than perpetuating the racist Vaudeville minstrel acts. 🎹

[@therainbowwillow4453]

This channel is so underrated! 🎹

[@sonic232s]

🎹🎹🎹 Lovely to look back on these movies. I'd never seen them before, I just knew of them through the vague haze of what popular culture references. This context gets left out of those references just way too often!

[@DavidJBradley]

I would recommend watching them if you get the chance. Just, you know, with an asterisk.

[@apteropith]

🎹? 🎹.

[@jackwiththefish2973]

And now I have the song Lydia the Tattooed Lady stuck in my head. Thanks lol

[@MegaDoomdoomDoom]

This was a great video 🎹

[@37Dionysos]

"And what causes wage slavery? Wages! So just remember, one for all, and all for me, and three for five, and six for a quarter."

[@stephaniestop3174]

I wrote an essay in college about Duck Soup. It’s a really excellent film. Loved the video!!! 🎹

[@michaelmcg8011]

a piano keys emoji?

[@sailorenthusiast]

Since I don’t really know what to say, I’ll just leave this piano emoji for the heck of it. 🎹

[@evaahallows1102]

Huh. Went in blindly on the assumption that his videos are always good, was not disappointed 🎹🪗

[@mygvmtnamepublicallyavailable]

The red and purple fade 😍🤩🥲 My two favorite colors :) and my favorite symbol ☭ You had me hooked at the thumbnail alone lol

[@Whocares158]

Love your painted pink nails. Pink is one of my favorite colors~💟

[@gwynethh9524]

omg I forgot how much I loved these movies as a kid.....I didn't understand most of the jokes lmao but they still cracked me up just bc of the brothers' delivery (also I see that ace ring!!!!!!!! hello!!!!)

[@theneonchimpchannel9095]

I've been recently rewatching The Marx Brothers movies as I bought a Laserdisc player in lockdown so I've been going back through all the old favourites (and some new ones I missed in the VHS days). I did notice the portrayals of people of colour but was in 2 minds about it. Yes, it does appear racist when viewed through modern eyes, but I wonder if by doing it the way they did that wasn't actually the point. By showing them in these roles, almost parodying what white society expected of these people, maybe there was a deeper meaning to it. It's almost like they're mocking the idea of the white saviour trope with Harpo showing up and not really doing anything but somehow being idolized. Also, they were giving roles to a lot of people of colour and featuring jazz in their movies at a time where it was still seen as the devil's music. This may have been the first introduction to that kind of music for a lot of people, especially as The Marx Brothers always did well with younger audiences. When you think about it, the first generation of kids who grew up with The Marx Brothers movies were the hippy generation. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it and maybe it was just cheap racist jokes, but based on everything else, it would not surprise me if they were doing it to deliberately make a point that went over the audiences heads. Seeing The Marx Brothers interacting freely with people of colour in the same way they did with their fellow whites was probably a big deal at the time. The blacking up and impressions though...yeah that hasn't aged well (not that it was right then). Oh...and I don't know how to leave a piano keys emoji.

[@sofiamelendezcartagena1711]

Dang it you have tricked us into engagement!! 🎹

[@allyson87]

Because the race scenes stick out so much, I wonder if they weren't meant to be satire and modern audiences don't pick up on the wink at the camera. Sometimes when consuming old media and you think "wow this is odd and seems antithetical to the rest of the message..." that's because it was supposed to. I just did a quick search but couldn't find anything discussing this directly. However, they grew up around socialists and Groucho definitely supported leftist causes, including support for the Scottsboro Boys, and the FBI thought he was a communist. Maybe the scenes are as bad as assumed, idk. Just seems like this characterization was made based on modern bias and not necessarily in the context of the time. And I don't mean "that how things were back then" context, but the context of how movies were made/what options they had as a result of the studio system and codes for what could be on screen as well as communication styles/film language/cultural symbols. Apparently there are certain aspects of Gone With the Wind that we see as romanticization that audiences of the time would have actually understood as parody

[@littlemissmello]

I understand what you're saying but don't see it the same way. Firstly, just to point out, although nowadays a more intersectional take is much more common, back then being a socialist didn't mean you cared about Black people. Plenty of leftists were anti feminists. Things have changed much in that regard. Now onto my second point; I think that separate from intentions, things can still be racist. We can still see it in context of course; the infamous Gabriel scene in Day At The Races we now understand to be very racist but had to be cut almost entirely from the movie in most southern states at the time because the mere fact of Black people on the silver screen was a rebellious act, which I believe (based on nothing but my life long love of the Marx Brothers) was perhaps maybe purposeful. Still Bad Representation is Bad and there's little use in discussing the context when it comes to furthering anti racist causes and it only serves to absolve our childhood heroes. Just acknowledging the inherent racism regardless of whether it was satire or a parody or trying to platform Black people in the ways available at the time, or just plain ignorance. Finding out John Lennon hit his wife doesn't make his music any less beautiful. Both can be true at once. The Marx Brothers being a product of their time and failing to see or do anything substantial about racial inequality doesn't need justification. Doesn't make them inherently bad, doesn't take away all the good they did do and doesn't take away the joy they brought. Both can exist at once.

[@rattusrattus7495]

great video, brb off to eat some rich

[@Larper64]

Almost always wait until the end, and yeah, whenever someone pronounces it Cheeco it is a little grating. 🎹

[@jamestown8398]

This was a fascinating video. 🎹

[@soulpanda5616]

So when you doubt whether or not society has gotten better when talking about race and ethnicity, I think it's important that we remember how far we've come. I mean, the bar was sooo low. We've got a long way to go, but we are a long way from when *this* was a positive portrayal, and at the time, it was 🎹

[@couchingzone2615]

As an anarchist I usually quote Groucho: "I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”

[@meats7854]

piano key emoji

[@kilibubblecata6266]

🎹 this was brilliant. I am going to binge all of these movies this weekend. (also I'm a fellow ace and I just found your channel from the Tara Mooknee collab, omg I'm obsessed 💜🤍🖤)

[@jintym2951]

I learned something new about Chicko 🎹 thank you

[@martinbackstrom4721]

Excellent video 🎹

[@kiifromhell]

piano emoji 🎹 also great video

[@ElectraAlan]

How come you never talk about Manfred? I want to hear more about Manfred Marx.

[@jentzi23]

IIRC I came across a biography-style book about Groucho Marx. There were some very interesting bits that wouldn't be misplaced here .

[@SteamClockWork]

🎹 fun video, also nice nails!

[@sinclairethomas8197]

Now I wanna watch Marx Brothers movies!🎹

[@kelzling]

Far more interesting than the april foolsy premise belies 🎹

[@pluppkalsson]

Nice video🎹

[@robjewell1223]

Can't wait to hear marxist analysis!

[@robjewell1223]

🎹 Great watch! 🎹

[@persbaderse]

you hear that? that's the sound of thousands of people adding these movies to their letterboxd watchlists

[@wiesejay]

I stayed to the end to find out why everyone was dropping a piano keys emoji in the comments 🎹

[@Ubernerd3000]

Yes, but pointing DIRECTLY at the Marxs for operating within the bounds of a racist system is a bit unfair; because ALL the actors in those films, including the Black ones were willing participants in those performances and portrayals; it’s easy to look back and condemn the films, but 10-15 years earlier, Black people were played by white men in Blackface, and only portrayed as dangerous, mindless brutes; basically as ‘cringe’ as this was, it was a step forward, and those black people were exercising the little agency they had by being there and demonstrating their talent; please don’t dismiss that aspect of films of this era, just because they are also artifacts of a more racist past…

[@dariocomesana6804]

I don´t know wath to put here but I´m just writing to bust it 🎹

[@sophiaz6833]

hahahah this is GREAT!!!! 🎹

[@ansibleblackwind7195]

Engagement 🎹

[@andchimeras]

Using a pc like a dowager rube. *keyboard emoji*

[@necronwarlord9188]

Recently I very unexpectedly came out to my mom, luckily she didn't say that one fucking phrase

[@voidify3]

If I had a nickel for every time the marx brothers did a jarringly racist scene of POC being completely awed by harpo's music I'd have 3 nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird they did it thrice 🎹

[@puglosipher1666]

Good video comrade!☭ 🎹

[@walrus4046]

What I want to know is why pianos have so many keys but no locks. Have you ever seen a piano with a any hair on it's G string? 🎹 I'm wanting to give the Marx Brothers the benefit of doubt with the scenes with the Black farmers. In the context of Jim Crow and sharecropping when these films were made, the poor Black communities accept the Marx Brothers in the same way that the poor passengers on the ship did. The same could be said for the scenes with the "indians" both communities being marginalised The clown/tricksters are likewise marginalised by society I'll admit to my shame that I hadn't really noticed the problematic aspects, though to be fair I don't think I've seen those sections since the mid to late 1980s. It's clear though that allowing for any good intentions, the handling of race was not subtle Thanks for the video.

[@hailsateen9219]

I felt pity for the black people that were in those musical scenes. But I guess a crappy gig is better than no gig🎹

[@LadyLightningstorm]

*Piano keys emoji*

[@altyrrell3088]

As much as I appreciate the Marx brothers, I still prefer the three stooges. 🎹

[@bobguy3939]

Awwww too short =_= 🎹

[@FriendlyKitten]

*Pianokeyemoji*

[@tsp1999]

They aren’t called "anarchic" comedies for nothing

[@Orange-tf3bf]

You are so underrated, excellent analysis!

[@spasticpug5209]

I didn’t know blackface was offensive until last year. I always had loved the Marx brothers movie and do think they deserve to be preserved. I’m currently trying to write a one man play on Groucho and am studying as much as I can. 🎹

[@borealmarinda4337]

🎺

[@dbandia]

🎹 NomNom

[@discoinferno103]

Just when I thought you couldn’t get more based

[@saranicole5898]

🎹 :-)

[@thesmilyguyguy9799]

:-)

[@neonoobie3]

🎹

[@blazerider763]

🎹🎹🎹

[@patrickfallon6192]

😂😂

[@darrenkoglin3423]

And along came Elvis Presley and changed all that accepting all creation of man as all equal

[@vincentsaia6545]

I agree with many of the points you made - I'm glad you clarified the pronunciation of Chico's name and whether Margaret Dumont got the jokes, though I think calling it misogyny is a stretch - but if the Marx brothers were true Communists they would have killed or captured the affluent people they were mocking and forced the minorities to go along with their views, as the top priority of Communism is a paternalistic one-size-fits-all code of rights for the collective as opposed to addressing the unique rights and needs of specific groups of people within the collective.

[@JamesPolichak]

One of the most racist things was (like Al Jolson) treat Black actors as equals and made sure they were paid the same as White extras. A lot of the Jews in show business equated the prejudice they experienced as being similar to Blacks in show business. Al Jolson is criticized today for performing in blackface in minstrel shows. What the White audiences didn't know was that Jolson often hired Black singers wearing blackface to fill out the chorus on stage and in his movies.

[@samandrielgray9338]

To me this doesnt make sense cause tbh i think the rich are more into making money than appearances. Like i think this makes sense as more of a 1930s society thing where appearances (by which i mean an oppressive standard of social rules) were most important. It seems like keeping a specific neutral appearance is something that applied to everyone during that time, not just rich people??? But then that doesnt make sense because then that makes the marx brothers, with grouchos stupid jokes about margaret dumont and the racist stuff part of the problem. Cause like theyre contributing to harmful appearances of poc? And just rather than breaking down that system reinforcing the negative side of it. Like it seems like instrad of dismantling the system of a specific standard of social rules they are just doing that thing where they use appearances to push down poc. Idk

[@RedVynil]

Too bad you had to ruin this video with all that whining about racism that didn't exist in those movies.

[@texasmimi5566]

I tried watching this but I found it to be a political, social put down that made me highly annoyed. Life is a class society, the haves and the have-nots. We all have choices. I worked hard to get out of the projects and do better and I have succeeded, and I resent the whining about the hard workers who have from the lazy ones who feel entitled that don't have.

[@DavidJBradley]

Ok, Karen. Glad to know the video is working as intended.

[@ingwerschorle_]

should it be this way though?

[@musettamarie]

🎹

[@msdanger7549]

🎹

[@saramartino9036]

🎹

[@mayamsherer6941]

🎹

[@mishaaudis2693]

🎹