Social Issues in Charlie Chaplins "Mordern Times"

 

“It seems our laws are always telling us what not to do – are always keeping us from enjoying ourselves. Human beings are made just as much for having fun as goose-stepping and sweating in factories.”

 – Charlie Chaplin

Modern Times is a 1936 comedy written, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin.

Along with masterpieces like The Great Dictator, Gold Rush, and City Lights, it is regarded one of his most essential pictures. The picture, like all of Chaplin's best work, walks a tight line between slapstick and satire while also serving as a socioeconomic commentary on American culture in the 1930s as a result of increased industrialisation and, in particular, the catastrophic impacts of the Great Depression.

The Little Tramp, who had earned Charles Chaplin worldwide fame and who is still the most globally recognised fictional image of a human being in the history of art, made his final film appearance in Modern Times.

The world into which the Tramp said his goodbyes was substantially different from the one into which he had been born two decades before the First World War. Then he had shared and symbolised the tribulations of all the poor in a world just emerging from the nineteenth century. In the aftermath of America's Great Depression, when huge unemployment coupled with the massive expansion of industrial automation, he found himself in radically different situations.

                                                        "Buck up - never say die. We'll get along."

                                                            The Tramp (A Factory Worker)

Narratives about a satire narrative of an Industrial future have been well dealt with, utilising subtle humour to burrow into the collective consciousness of a particular era's developing terror. I'd like to use the Tramp's sign to demonstrate that Chaplin's physical comedy is generated not just from structures 'inside' the mechanical scrambling, but also from structures 'outside it.' To emphasis on the comedy, "Modern Times" depicts comedy not only as a kind of amusement, but also as a subtle observation of human behaviour in an industrial era. The four phases of "Modern Times" - sequences in various settings such as a factory, prison, department store, and dance hall - function as four broad topics that work within a radius of a primary theme. To comprehend the nature of human labour in an industrial society, I seek to identify comedy and the subject of norms inside the category of the tramp in this paper.

"Modern Times" declares itself as “a story of industry, of individual enterprise – humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness.” 

The scene can be seen as a workplace where factory workers are reduced to numbers and the all-encompassing premise remains the chase of profit in giant organisations. Due to the regular shifts awarding recognition in the system, we see all of the workers huddled together to engage in their various shifts. However, the spectator notices one lone black sheep in the flock of sheep, which may be seen as Chaplin's Tramp persona challenging the standards and breaking 'free.'

On the one hand, we discover that the Tramp figure is a subject who uses comedy to portray how abstract labour stays "politically free but socially unfree" in a capitalist society's "popular prejudice." The jail setup, on the other hand, reflects Chaplin's desire to live within the confines of prison, where he is confronted with the ready availability of shelter and food, as opposed to the world 'out there,' where starvation and unemployment are the normative order.

The tramp who shows the least interest in safeguarding his rights and resists the sudden transformation is subjected to a considerable lot of scrutiny from the people around him, as shown in the video. The film has several scenes that demonstrate the new industrial society's disregard for workers. The Tramp and Gamine's connection is sincere, demonstrating that in a country ravaged by the wretches of poverty and a shattered economy, the simple pleasures of life are difficult to come by, as evidenced by countless incidents such as them playing home in a decaying cottage. The fact that the Tramp was ready to return to prison until an orphaned Gamine changed his mind and convinced him to look for work indicates that the Tramp was ready to take the iconic route in his last picture, but not alone.

The Tramp and Gamin are just victims of economic hardship because they are surrounded by material goods but lack purchasing power. In the mechanical age, mass production and consumption have shaped the internalisation of desires. As previously stated, Chaplin's Modern Times is more of a social commentary on an industrialised future, utilising humour to show how norms move beyond the dichotomy of 'doing' and 'undoing,' focusing on how they are exposed to re-signification.'

The exploitation of workers is a topic that is regularly discussed today. Workers are dissatisfied with how management treats them and will not put up with it any longer.

In the 1930s, communism was opposed, but capitalism was also questioned. The Great Depression demonstrated that capitalism can and does fail. It can also be a system that reduces people's humanity.

The film's opening scene depicts sheep galloping through a field, hinting that the workers are sheep. Chaplin demonstrates how employment and capitalism place a premium on practicality above originality, depriving employees of their identity and autonomy. Workers are owned by corporations and companies, and many shots suggest that work eats its employees, torturing and exploiting them until they're exhausted or insane.

These messages are usually dark and depressing, but Charlie Chaplin's film did not finish that way. Regardless of any statements he intended to make about class divisions or working circumstances, his film finishes on a positive note. The Tramp character determines that no matter how horrible his life is, he can still be joyful due of the love he has for the people around him, thanks to the use of music to establish the mood.

Chaplin's brilliant concept has lasted 85 years.

Entertainment may act as a mirror, revealing the attitudes and concerns of people in any era. While poetry can help us comprehend a period, it can also serve as a timeless source of self-reflection, allowing us to assess our society now and evaluate if things have improved.

Have things progressed far enough? "Modern Times" still makes us think about difficult issues, but it also reminds us to smile with every sunrise.