I don’t know if this or Cafe Society is the proper place but I’ll try here and see how it goes.
I was watching 1984 and noticed something interesting. Whenever Rallies are shown with people watching Propaganda, People in the audience have a tendency to do a funny kind of salute(?) where they hold their hands out above and in front of the head, close their hands, cross the wrists and move the entire thing back and forth in a forceful display.
In the Facist Scenes from The Wall, a large portion of the crowd does the same thing.
I’ve never really seen this before that I can remember outside of these movies. Is this a real facist behaviour or something one movie did and the others picked up on? If it’s real, what exactly is it supposed to mean(if anything)?
Heh. Apparently, Cafe Society wasn’t the correct place.
I’ve never seen anything like that outside the two movies you’ve mentioned, but it would not surprise me if some group, somewhere used it as a salute. Hell, the Nazis didn’t pick their stiffarm goosing out of their asses: IIRC, it was a Roman Slave salute.
I don’t remember orwell mentions any special kind of salute.
That and I think you have it backwards. Considering the Wall ** was released in 1982 and 1984 in 1984(unless the imdb is wrong) then perhaps the people making 1984 were paying tribute to the wall**?
I remember seeing a b&w photo in an issue of LIFE from the 30s of a political rally in France where they were all doing a crossed wrists salute like that. They weren’t facsists, though - I think it was some centre-left party that had adopted a salute to play “me too” with the fascist - “we’ve got a neato salute too, and it’s even goofier than yours, etc.”
That salute is very common in all the “Latin” countries, and generally does not carry fascist, nazi, or other political connotations. It simply is used when an oath or something else is sworn.
