“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

In a mad mad world, the political situation can act as a background to the action, proposing a society in which the action happens. What is unusual, however, is that the political realm can slide between utter chaos and oppressive control, and the audience will continue to doubt the sanity of the system. A chaotic political world might be defined as a place in which a group other than the government has absolute control, and the true government is either incompetent or incapable of reestablishing order. In Batman, the group is the Joker and his goons, in The Dark Knight it’s the Joker, although it previously was the mafia bosses, and in Renaissance 2054, the power is held by a private corporation, Avalon. A controlling political world is one in which the government has fascist tendencies and oppresses the population while the citizens are complacent. In Alphaville, the leader oppresses emotions, in Brazil the bureaucracy controls by ridiculous paperwork, and in Equilibrium, the leader governs a city of drugged emotionless people. No matter which political extreme the film falls under, the discomfort that the audience feels towards both political chaos and oppressive control proves both of the systems mad nonetheless.