Burjuva Kültürü ve Faşist Sanatın Eleştirisi: Herbert Marcuse’de Kültürün Olumlayıcı Karakteri ve Istvan Szabo’nun Mefisto’su
Bourgeois Culture and Fascist Art Criticism: The Affirmative Character of Culture in Herbert Marcuse and István Szabó’s Mephisto

Summary/Abstract: This study analyzes the evolution of bourgeois culture into a fascist conception of art through István Szabó’s film Mephisto, based on the theoretical framework of Herbert Marcuse’s essay “The Affirmative Character of Culture”. According to Marcuse, the affirmative culture that has developed in bourgeois society creates an illusory realm of inner freedom by separating the spiritual and intellectual worlds from the practices of material life, thereby concealing social inequality and oppression. Although this culture initially possessed a progressive potential, it eventually came to serve the mechanisms of authoritarian states for the total mobilization and domination of individuals. Using this theoretical foundation, the study examines the character of the ambitious actor Hendrik Höfgen in Mephisto. Höfgen escapes political responsibility by viewing art as a separate sphere of higher values distinct from politics, ultimately becoming part of the Nazi regime’s cultural apparatus. The film demonstrates how the regime transforms art into a propaganda tool, reinterpreting even a classic like Hamlet through its own ideology of heroic realism. While the article shows how Marcuse’s theory is substantiated by the film, it also highlights the dialectical nature of art, emphasizing that artworks can possess the potential for resistance as well as for service to oppressive ideologies.

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