Talk:Mother Night (film)

Model for Howard W. Campbell

Who was the inspiration for Howard W. Campbell Jr.? I expect there were several people who performed similar acts during that time, but i suspect that one person in particular raised Mr V.'s vitriol enough to inspire this character. (P.G.Wodehouse is one suspect but there must be other, better (mroe American) suspects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.6.248 (talk) 14:54, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Technically the above might be considered as about the work not the article, a discussion against guidelines, so at the risk of censure an answer: Reading the Wiki articles I find that Wodehouse is British, has no serious role as Nazi propagandist or public fascist and is thus an unlikely suspect, nor does his work seem to be anything that would provoke Vonnegut. The American born William Joyce (aka Lord Haw Haw) and Ezra Pound provide excellent models for the public image of Campbell as expatriate Nazi radio propagandist and traitor. The sample of a Pound broadcast cited in the Wikipedia article is very similar to that written for Campbell. Both seem to have been sufficiently obnoxious in person to provoke ire in many and invite what vitriol they may have. The inner Campbell and the spy Campbell seem to be entirely creations of Vonnegut as both real world men held strong fascist and anti-Jewish convictions before and after WWII. This topic might be appropriately added to this article and the article about the novel citing the chapter on Mother Night in Unstuck In Time by Gregory D. Sumner (2011) ISBN 978-1-60980-349-0 Jszigeti (talk) 05:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)