Political Propaganda in Fantastic Beasts 3: The Secrets of Dumbledore
*This Review Contains Spoiler*
The journey of our notorious magizoologist, Newt Scamander, has not ended yet. In the early movie, we’re shown Newt in a mysterious-dark jungle observing a rare magical creature named Qilin. Legend says when a Qilin is born, there will be a righteous and purest leader who will lead the wizarding world into triumph. Whereas in Germany, the powerful dark wizard Gellert
Grindelwald gains more support after the International Confederation of Wizards (Wizards’ the United Nations) officially declared Grindelwald is free of any allegations of murder after the Paris incident in Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Even worse, Grindelwald becomes a legitimate Supreme Mugwump candidate in international confederation elections competing against Vicencia Santos and Liu Tao.
Grindelwald appears to understand this crucial momentum and the power held by Qilin could easily be exploited as political propaganda to make him become a Supreme Mugwump and control the wizarding world. According to Lasswell (1927), propaganda is the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols. That is to say, propaganda manages a tendency to act according to certain patterns of valuation. In this movie, Grindelwald
brings up the tradition of how a Qilin chose a leader for the wizarding world and somehow manages it to become the international confederation election system. Qilin has the ability to acknowledge and evaluate candidates who have a pure heart by bowing to them. This ceremony is called The Walk of the Qilin.
However, the problem is like many other creatures, Qilin is able to be controlled under dark magic spells making it not genuine any more. That is what happened to the poor Qilin which Grindelwald used to choose him as Supreme Mugwump. Besides, the Walk of the Qilin was unnecessarily needed for the election. It is explained that the confederation has not used the ceremony since many many years ago, and usually used people’s votes as an election. Grindelwald understands that Qilin is a symbol of unity for the wizarding world to gain sympathy and support in the election. Even the well-known folklore of how pure a Qilin seems could not deny the fact that the election would possibly become a premeditated fraud. Once again, Grindelwald succeeded in fooling wizards and witches with his clever strategy. Do you think it’s fair to let a magical creature decide your future leader?
Reference
Lasswell, H. D. (1927). The Theory of Political Propaganda. The American Political
Science Review, 21(3), 627–631. https://doi.org/10.2307/1945515