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Mob Mentality In Fritz Lang's Film M

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Fritz Lang’s film, “M”, showcases the power, influence, and negative side effects that mob mentality can ultimately lead to. Mob mentality is not new to this world and our modern culture, which is evidenced in both “M” as well as in the culture of Nazi Germany. To start, Nazi Germany was flooded with Hitler’s personal beliefs and ideals and those beliefs made their way into the minds of many German citizens. WIth Hitler as their leader and controlling dictator, many people felt an actual need to agree with him and support his beliefs by looking down on anyone that did not fit their “perfect”standards. People would go around feeling pressured to hate those “lesser” than them and proceeding to fake their actions in order to please those around them. At …show more content…

Everyone, convinced that the leader possesses the only true thoughts, chooses to abandon their own thinking and ideas in order to blindly follow whoever is “right”. People even forget basic morals and compassion when stuck in mob mentality, with a specific example being the townspeople in “M”. Once the murderer is found and cornered into a trial, he delivers a monologue in which he states that he does not want to murder these children and remembers nothing about his actions until he sees them in the newspapers. He adds that he feels pursued by the “ghosts of mothers” and that he feels chased by himself. While some people in the crowd nod their heads, seemingly realizing that this man is not a monster, but rather just ill and in need of help, others still start yelling that he should be killed and pay for his crimes and eventually everyone joins in. These people chose to let the primary belief that the murderer was a vile human being deserving of death control them and drive them to completely set their morals aside, along with the notion that, in killing this man in cold blood, they,

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