When “Deuce Bigalow: The Dude Gigolo” was released in 1999, noted film critic Roger Ebert wrote, “The View and Brew Theater was built for movies like that, unless you see it.” When the sequel, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, was released in 2005, Ebert was even harsher, calling it “offensively bad, as if it was trying to cause pain to the audience.”
Rob Schneider played the title role, a tropical fish tank cleaner turned gigolo. For this sequel, Schneider won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor and was nominated for Worst Actor of the Decade in 2010.
Some 15 years later, Schneider might have been expected to resurface in an even worse third installment of the Bigelow series, or another lowbrow Hollywood comedy. Instead, he appeared in a far more unlikely setting: a campaign video supporting Hungarian far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Schneider’s entry into local politics may have surprised Duce Bigelow’s Hungarian fans, but it didn’t come out of the blue.
In recent years, Schneider has sought to establish himself as a leading voice for conservatives, railing against Hollywood’s perceived liberal bias. A frequent guest on Fox News, he has publicly opposed diversity, equity and inclusion policies and is a vocal anti-trans and anti-vaccine advocate. In a recent opinion piece, he argued that “ever since the rise of the ‘Wake’ movement and its complete domination of the creative industries, anyone with conservative views has been punished and even blacklisted.”
The video also includes endorsements from other right-wing figures, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Argentina’s President Javier Millei, Jean-Marie Le Pen of the French National Assembly, Italian deputy prime minister and Lega leader Matteo Salvini, and German parliamentarian and Alternative for Germany leader Alice Weidel.
Why does this global far-right group care about Hungary’s political future? The answer lies in the central role Hungary has played as an incubator for the rise of the global far-right.
I saw firsthand the rise of the far right unfolding in the Central European country. Within a week of moving to Budapest for graduate studies at Central European University (CEU) in 2008, I was attacked by neo-Nazis. Over the next few months, during a severe economic crisis, I encountered several neo-Nazi rallies and rallies.
Violence targeting the country’s Roma population increased sharply. In February 2009, a Romani man and his five-year-old son were shot dead in a village on the outskirts of Budapest while fleeing their home, which had been set on fire. In September of the same year, a Roma woman and her 13-year-old daughter were shot by gunmen who had invaded their home in a village near the Ukrainian border. The mother died and the daughter was admitted to the intensive care unit.
Anti-Semitism was also on the rise in Hungary. In June 2009, vandals desecrated a Holocaust memorial with pig’s feet. This monument commemorates the Jewish victims who were stripped, shot, and thrown into the Danube River by the fascist paramilitary Arrowcross Party during World War II.
Viktor Orbán became prime minister from 1998 to 2002 and returned in 2010 against a backdrop of increasing racist violence and far-right mobilization. He was then re-elected in 2014, 2018, and 2022, strengthening his grip on power. He used his electoral power to systematically take control of state institutions and suppress opposition.
Press freedom has declined significantly under Orbán. According to Reporters Without Borders, oligarchs close to Prime Minister Orban’s Fidesz party have bought news organizations and turned them into mouthpieces for the government. Currently, an estimated 80 percent of Hungarian media is concentrated in the hands of Orbán’s supporters. Regulatory bodies are being weaponized to shut down independent media. The government and pro-government media regularly accuse critical news outlets of spreading disinformation and receiving funding from George Soros, a Hungarian-born American investor and founder of the Open Society Foundations.
National institutions and laws have also been weaponized to crack down on educational institutions, civil society groups, and cultural institutions that President Orbán sees as impeding the country’s authoritarian far-right shift. In 2018, the Soros-linked CEU, seen by Orbán’s government as a liberal bulwark, was forced to close most of its Budapest operations and move to Vienna after Orbán’s government refused to sign an agreement that would allow it to operate as a degree-granting university in Hungary.
In 2019, the Hungarian parliament passed a law allowing Orbán’s government to take control of the 200-year-old Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This was the first step towards the incorporation of 15 scientific institutions into the Etvos Loran Research Network (ELKH), which will be headed by a board appointed by Mr. Orbán. The official justification for the move was to “improve funding and efficiency for Hungary’s underperforming research and development sector,” but critics say it is yet another way for the government to suppress opposition.
Civil society groups say artistic freedom and cultural institutions are also under attack. Mr. Orbán is well aware that cultural and artistic spaces can play a “role in promoting pluralistic political discourse” and has used “cultural approaches” to promote anti-democratic policies. This included the centralization of the National Cultural Fund and the National Cultural Council, as well as the appointment of Fidesz-friendly administrators to take charge of the Petofi Literary Museum and the National Theater. Remarkably, before being sacked, the National Theater’s artistic director was publicly reprimanded by the Orbán government for his “political views and homosexuality.”
More recently, Orbán’s government established the Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO) to investigate critical journalists and civil society organizations in the name of combating threats to national sovereignty. Mate Kocsis, leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group, justified the creation of the SPO, saying: “We want left-wing journalists, fake civilians and money-making politicians in Iraq.”
That tactic is being replicated as Orban’s efforts to strengthen right-wing rule continue at home and around the world. Its success in Hungary has inspired other far-right dictators who see Orbán as a pioneer in establishing a conservative utopia with far-right hegemony over all aspects of political, social, cultural, and economic life.
The Orbán leadership takes this role seriously as an inspiration to others and an instigator of the far right. Well-funded Hungarian think tanks like the Matthias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) are working in Brussels to bring Orbanbrand’s xenophobia, transphobia and climate change skepticism into mainstream European Union politics. MCC claims to be building an alternative conservative policy and political culture that challenges “centrist views of national life.”
This agenda is particularly evident in the conference entitled “The Battle for the Soul of Europe” organized by MCC Brussels. The event brought together right-wing politicians, academics, intellectuals, literary figures, and journalists from across Europe, along with prominent conservative thinkers and commentators from the United States.
Hungary also enthusiastically welcomes conservatives from around the world as a way to “spread knowledge.” Institutions such as the MCC, the Hungarian Foundation, and the Danube Institute in Budapest develop globally connected intellectuals to build a conservative future through visiting fellowships, book talks, and public panel discussions.
Indeed, today Hungary is an important stop for conservative figures traveling the world, from Nigel Biggar to Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson. In 2026, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) returns to Hungary for its fifth edition.
The announcement of the 2026 edition of CPAC Hungary proudly proclaims, “After all, before Trump, we were Trump. And at CPAC Hungary, our key words are: ‘No to immigration! No to gender! No to war!'” was spoken for the first time. This has become official US policy. ”
As the authors of A World on the Right: Radical Conservatism and World Order argue, the global nature of the far right is well established. Nevertheless, Hungary under Orbán played a decisive role in this interconnected movement. According to recent opinion polls, Mr Orbán faces a stiff challenge from the opposition for the first time since 2010. Mr. Orbán’s right-wing friends around the world know this and are coming to the aid of this harbinger of a global shift to the right.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
