Chaplin's Tramp was an icon of poverty; the FBI kept a file on Chaplin
The Tramp was Chaplin at his most iconic: dignified and downtrodden in a penguin suit whose jacket was too tight, waistcoat too short, and trousers ballooning around his legs. A genuine hobo, the character was also, in Barbara Korte's phrase, an icon in the public representation of poverty.
The FBI kept a substantial file on Chaplin from 1922 until his death in 1977, suspecting him of being a political agitator and a possible communist. As John Sbardellati and Tony Shaw note, the FBI feared that the Tramp films worked as anti-capitalist propaganda.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The better question is not whether the FBI was right; it is why an actor drew both a decades-long file and a theory that his films were anti-capitalist propaganda.
The bureau's worry is evidence of how the FBI read the films, not proof that the films were anti-capitalist.