Something that was so incredible about JoJo Rabbit, is how Elsa is portrayed. When we first meet her, it’s in a suspenseful moment where she scares JoJo. The shots and the music make it seem like we’re JoJo in a haunted house, and she is the scary creature out to kill him. It’s the way JoJo was taught to see Jews, and therefore, it’s the way we see Elsa.
Throughout the film, we start to see Elsa’s humanity more and more, just as JoJo does. We start to see scenes in her perspective (her conversation with Rosie, her listening to Rosie and JoJo dance downstairs while she is alone), because JoJo himself is starting to see life through her perspective the more he talks with her. She becomes more human to both JoJo and the audience.
What I love so much about the character is that she is not portrayed as simply a victim. This is the problem with so many of the stories about the Jews that hid inside the walls of houses: they are described as simply helpless victims and nothing more. But the film does more than that. Elsa has the upper hand on JoJo the whole time. She is smart and brave, as she faces a whole team of Nazis and lies to them that she is JoJo’s sister.
However, she is also allowed to be a scared young girl who has been through far too much and wishes to see the outside world again. She is a multi-dimensional character whose personality is revealed more and more throughout the film.
Elsa has seen and experienced the worst humanity has to offer. So, it says so much about both her character and JoJo’s that she doesn’t see him as a Nazi. Not only that, but she makes efforts to allow him to see things from her point-of-view. At the start of their interactions, Elsa adds fuel to the fire of JoJo’s fantasies about Jews. This was mainly for survival, in order to maintain her position of power over him so that he does not tell on her or his mother. Then, she starts to notice JoJo’s slow realization that Elsa is not what he has been taught to see her as. That’s when she works to break this brainwashing he has lived with his whole life. For example, she asks him to keep reading her the “letters” from Nathan, even though she knows their fake. Why? Because by creating fake letters from Nathan, JoJo is not only doing a kindness to a Jew, but he is unknowingly seeing this would-be married Jewish couple as human.
Elsa sees that JoJo is a boy who has been strongly misled by his fanaticism and, not only befriends him, but works to break down that fanaticism, and bring out the young child that they both should have been.
Great analysis.I have a small note - letters "from Nathan".I think Elsa is asking Jojo to keep reading her these fake letters not because she wants to educate him that she is human.After the second letter, it was obvious that in Jojo's eyes she was human.She asks for these letters for herself.She is brave but very lonely and feels like the whole world is against her and these letters are a completely unexpected proof that she is becoming important to someone.Jojo won't tell her much about it in conversation.Letters can say more.