It’s The Beatles Yellow Submarine Movie

visual and videos 5 November 2009 | Comments Off

There are those who believe (as I do) that Yellow Submarine is an allegory for World War II, or the Twentieth Century European wars in general. Here are some of the supposed congruences.
Blue Meanies = Nazis This one is fairly easy to state because of the vagueness of the assertion. However, many of the remaining congruences appear to support it.
Pepperland = Europe at Peace
Dreadful Flying Glove = Luftwaffe
Anti-Music Missiles = V1 buzz-bombs
Clowns = V2 rockets – press the button, nothing happens in between, then BOOM at the other end in pepperland.
England = Ally across the water
Beatles = British military, or Americans if you want to push it.
Apple Bonkers = Aerial bombing

…it goes on and on. Admittedly, some of these derive from each other instead of supporting each other; however, it still makes the movie more fun to watch.
The initial invasion of Pepperland equates to the Anschluss and blitzkrieg invasion of Poland. The Lord Mayor’s denial of the invasion represents the air of denial and appeasement that prevailed at the time, and the dispatch of Young Fred to get help signified the Dunkirk debacle.

If we continue on in this vein, the Beatles agreeing to help would represent the people of the Allies agreeing to fight the threat and pitching in as democracies (mostly).

I don’t know to what degree this makes sense and to what degree it’s self-constructed and self-supported, but it does make for fun during viewings.

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