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Did the movies "The Boy in Striped Pyjamas" have dialogue with the following subtitle, which has been compared to Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again"?

He's [Hitler] making the country great again

Example tweet

Andrew Grimm
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    Just for context: The slogan is older than the movie. For example, Reagan used a [similar slogan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_America_Great_Again) in the 80s. – tim Mar 24 '16 at 12:18
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    It's such a generic quote I wouldn't be surprised if you can find it going back to comments about Roman senators. – user56reinstatemonica8 Mar 24 '16 at 12:55
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    I don't think this is notable. You're asking whether a line appeared in a movie. You have a picture of that line subtitled in that movie. What kind of evidence would convince you? Someone else taking a picture of that scene in that movie with subtitles on? – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Mar 24 '16 at 14:06
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    At the very least this sentiment is sixty years old: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/100858 – DJClayworth Mar 24 '16 at 16:04
  • @Dawn it makes the title less "subjective", but also less informative. – Andrew Grimm Mar 27 '16 at 11:36

1 Answers1

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This line is in the movie. You can see it in the subtitle file:

495
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:11,075
It's only horrible for them, Bruno.

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00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:13,554
We should be proud of Dad,
now more than ever before.

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00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:16,068
He's making the country great again.

Although, "he" refers to Bruno and Gretel's father, Ralf.

  • So, it's in the movie. Is it in the book? – GEdgar Mar 27 '16 at 01:34
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    @GEdgar [It isn't](https://books.google.com/books?id=yK7jrmsqJ20C&q="great+again") –  Mar 27 '16 at 01:35
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    And so what if the line is in that movie? I would bet that each of those lines (absent the name) appears in numerous books and movies, and has been used uncounted times in speech. There are only so many words in the English language, and only a limited way to string them together to express a particular idea. How many movies do you suppose contain a line like "I love you"? – jamesqf Mar 27 '16 at 17:53
  • @jamesqf It's kind of like whether Gandhi supported homeopathy - it's not terribly relevant, but it'd be convenient if the quotation were false (and it turns out the quote is partially false). http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22085/did-gandhi-support-homeopathy#comment84104_22085 – Andrew Grimm Mar 28 '16 at 01:51
  • @Dawn: But the implication here seems to be that Trump (or someone in his campaign) deliberately plagarized the line from the movie, maybe because they couldn't come up with a slogan on their own. Which rather begs the question of whether ANY mainstream candidate in the last - oh, 50 years at least - has actually said ANYTHING original. – jamesqf Mar 28 '16 at 21:53
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    @jamesqf No, the implication here (here being the tweet which is the basis for notability, and also maybe the question itself) is that `Trump == Hitler` based on similarity between Trump's slogan and a line in a movie (allegedly, though per this answer incorrectly) talking about Hitler. – Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Mar 28 '16 at 22:21
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    It doesn't matter what the implication is because we don't debunk implied claims or motivations behind claims. The only thing that matters for this site's purposes is the evidence behind the claim that the quoted line is in the movie. –  Mar 28 '16 at 22:29
  • @Dawn: Who exactly are you calling "we" here? I took it for granted that the line is in the movie, since verification would be trivial, and the bare fact of interest only to collectors of movie trivia. – jamesqf Mar 29 '16 at 17:43
  • @jamesqf "we" means skeptics.se users. See [this meta post](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/3350/handling-claims-that-are-implied-rather-than-explicit): "*claims need to be explicit*", "*it is possible the claim being asked about is only being inferred only the asker. I believe that rationale can be extended to any implied claim.*" The fact that you took the claim's truth for granted doesn't really affect this question or answer. –  Mar 29 '16 at 18:05