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Adolf Hitler sits, surrounded by generals, in the gloom of his Berlin bunker. Nervously, the men deliver bad news. Clearly shaken, Hitler slowly removes his glasses, then orders all but three men from the room. He remains silent for a moment before unleashing his fury - over poor quality footage from his latest film shoot.

That was the first Downfall parody I saw. Since then, I have watched dozens, all based on the same scene from the 2004 film on Hitler's last days. Four years after the controversial film's North American release, it has reappeared in the cultural landscape - only this time, as farce.

Which prompts the question: Where is the line between harmless humour and tasteless parody?

The original scene captures the moment Hitler, played by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, learns the Soviets are advancing on Berlin, and that his order to counterattack has been ignored. The online parodies all use the same footage, but add subtitles to make it appear that Hitler is enraged over the suspension of his World of Warcraft account , or the new Star Trek trailer , or the failings of Windows Vista , or the theft of his car. There is even one casting Hitler as Stephen Harper. "Now my lawyers are telling me to go to the Governor-General ... to beg a woman for permission to prorogue."

Screenwriter Keith Ross Leckie ( Everest, Shattered City) said the original scene lends itself well to parody.

"Hitler is the extreme villain of course, and we're all fascinated with him. The scene is set for you at the first glimpse. All his generals are standing around looking tense. You know something is up. The very intensity of it is what makes it so funny."

But is it tasteless or offensive to use a man Mr. Leckie refers to as "an icon of villainy and murder and slaughter and evil" to make geek humour or score political points?

Not necessarily, says McGill professor Will Straw, who heads up the university's Web portal on issues in media, technology and culture. After watching a parody in which Hitler raves about his disappointment with George Lucas and The Phantom Menace , Prof. Straw said, "The absurdity is in using Hitler to talk about some Hollywood release. The distance between Hitler and the movie they are using is so great, that it's kind of innocent. But when you get to Harper - whatever you think of Harper - there's a greater risk of trivializing it. To say Harper is like Hitler is obviously not fair to Harper, but it also doesn't acknowledge the enormity of Hitler."

Prof. Straw points out that there is a long history of Hitler parodies dating back to 1930s and 1940s - most famously perhaps including Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator.

Those early parodies were designed to make Hitler seem less fearful. They depict him, Mr. Straw said, as "a silly little man" and aim to trivialize him. But as awareness of the sheer monstrosity of the Holocaust grew during the 1970s, poking fun at the Fuhrer risked diminishing that anonymous slaughter. "In World War II, making Hitler look small and foolish was seen as a useful way to counter his own sense of himself as a gigantic mythological figure," Prof. Straw wrote in an e-mail. "Then, with time, the concern was less and less that Hitler would be seen as larger-than-life but that, on the contrary, he would become banal and trivial."

Most of the Downfall parodies cast Hitler as himself. In the best of them, the humour is based on a common cultural crotchet (like disappointment with The Phantom Menace or frustration with Windows Vista). There is a bit of a transgressive thrill in having an over-the-top Hitler venting about something the viewer has felt too.

But some use Hitler as a stand-in for another figure, such as Stephen Harper, or Hillary Clinton. The Clinton parody, has now been removed after complaints from Constantin Film, producers of Downfall.

Director Sturla Gunnarsson ( Air India 182, B eowulf & Grendel) said rather than seek to remove them, he would take these types of mash-ups as a compliment. "There are dozens of Beowulf mash-ups online," he said. "The fact that people are taking the material, and playing with it - as an artist it means that people are paying attention."

And Mr. Gunnarsson has no qualms about casting contemporary political figures as Hitler. "I thought the Harper one was funny, and very effective as a piece of agit-prop," he said. But, he points out, the parodists draw the line at invoking the Holocaust. That's a point Mr. Straw makes as well, and he believes it shows "there is still a sense of taboos that should not be violated."

One recent parody has Hitler angry at how much he is expected to spend for Christmas. And another brings the cultural self-referencing full circle, with Hitler infuriated by the phenomenon of Downfall parodies. "I was the most hated man in history! Now I am a laughing-stock, a joke. What did I do to deserve this!" the sub-titles read. "I have lost my title as a monster of history!"

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