Through dancing, The Motherfucker's Birthday shows the evil of the dictator and the horror people endure under powerful political leaders. The film presents dancing, a universal and uniquely human activity often representing joy, with eerie footage of Saddam and his sons’ torture tools while they dance. Bush also dances with a smirk across the screen while announcing a war that would destabilize a whole region. Contrasting the dancing of these powerful men, who seem disturbingly unconcerned with the lives they impact, with the dancing of the people of Iraq amplifies the fear, control, and horror the general public lives under. Everything becomes a gesture of dance—the torture, the hesitant political humor, and the war. Everyone becomes a dancer, the dictator and the oppressed performing a distorted version of this human act. Saddam dances, Bush dances, so what's left for the Iraqi people except to join in?
Content warning: Images of torture.