Rebness ([info]rebness) wrote,
@ 2009-04-23 10:23:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry

I'm having great fun with an absolutely absurd article in The Guardian today wherein a writer asserts that she's sick of Nazis being portrayed in the media and that she can't escape them: she's had The Reader, Valkyrie and Red Baron ruined by Nazis.

Quite.

The very idea that ignoring what happened or deciding to try and forget Hitler will somehow make everything magical and great is the craziest thing I've read in a long time. The writer is Jewish and writing in a British newspaper - how can she be so daft and disrespectful to the millions of dead to suggest that the best thing is to forget that little fuss in the 1940s? Absurd article, but great feedback from the readers.

The Comment is Free trolls are probably my favourite internets people ever. I always wonder if The Guardian journalists are surprised at how very intolerant and angry their readerbase actually is. :D

(24 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]orwellian_trash
2009-04-23 09:10 am UTC (link)
'Sometimes I lie in bed and imagine actors' agents having conversations: "Could Tom Hollander do Goebbels? He looks like Goebbels. Is Eric Bana too handsome for Albert Speer?"'

I think she should mention this to a mental health professional. "Just Lie Back And Think Of Hitler" isn't really thing to be doing.

Although I do like the idea of Zippy from Rainbow as Hitler and am somewhat disappointed I didn't think of that myself. Having Zippy dressed as the Fuhrer bellowing "I WANT TO HAVE THE SUDETENLAND! I WANT TO HAVE THE SUDETENLAND!" and George as Neville Chamberlain going "Well awright, as long as you pwomise not to invade any more pards of Euwupe!". It would be a thing of beauty.

Edited at 2009-04-23 09:11 am UTC

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-23 09:31 am UTC (link)
Haha, completely agreed. Though for me the dealbreaker would be Bungle as Stalin. ('But I thought we were friends, Zippy!')

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pandorasblog
2009-04-23 11:05 am UTC (link)
I now have that theoretical episode of Rainbow playing in my brain. Thank you! :D

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pandorasblog
2009-04-23 11:08 am UTC (link)
I feel irrational irritation because she typed 'wretch' when she meant 'retch'.

As for the article as a whole, I'm confused. Does she think it's a new development? As far as I can remember, there's always been a fascination with the Nazis in our culture. In the 80s it was Allo Allo at one end of the scale and Raiders of the Lost Ark at the other. In the 90s you had Wolfenstein 3D and Shindler's List... I'd have had more sympathy if she'd been able to argue successfully that all the examples she mentioned were of the 'let's chuck a Nazi in this otherwise unremarkable film to titillate the audience with epic historical evil' variety, but the films she mentions seem to be those which inherently revolve around that history...

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-23 11:27 am UTC (link)
'Wretch' really irritated me, too, but she was hauled over the coals for that in the comments by other users, so I took to just being snarky and shouting at people for writing Nazi's. >:)

This is what I mean! This journalist has gone out of her way to look for Nazi stuff -- everyone knew what those films were about -- so she's gone to the cinema three freaking times specifically to watch films about Nazis, then Googled for Hitler cats and is complaining? I think I'm going to Google rainbows and then write a rant about how I can't escape them.

I am also deeply irritated when people roll out the 'Let's forget' stuff. It's precisely because Europe remembers how terrible war is that we seek to avoid it now. It's because of what happened that we try to work through democracy rather than force. (Um, for the most part.)

I don't agree with the way the British go on and on and on about Germans being Nazis. Someone in the comments also made an excellent point about Little Englanders appropriating Nazism to turn us away from Europe -- but the journalist doesn't make any of these points, nor is she concerned about our continued castigating of the Germans. She just... doesn't like Nazis? Okay?

I so wish I could do a fifty-Hitler post in those comments.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]pandorasblog
2009-04-23 11:58 am UTC (link)
People think there's this arbitrary dividing line between History and Now. Maybe it's easier and less scary for them, just like how it's easier to say that Hitler was A Monster, A Fiend Beyond Imagining!!!111 because that insulates him safely from the rest of humanity, and absolves us of the need to worry about it all happening again. Absolutes make people comfy... so in her mind, it's all over, and therefore there is absolutely no need for it to leave a cultural footprint. Tidy, but wrong.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-23 12:10 pm UTC (link)
That's exactly it. And yet, we're taught time and time again that ignoring problems doesn't make them go away. Look at Bosnia in the nineties -- the same warning signs, the rampant nationalism, the ethnic cleansing (I really hate that term), the death camps and hundreds of thousands of people dead.

But history, of course, doesn't teach us anything.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]pandorasblog
2009-04-23 12:20 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, why do we say 'ethnic cleansing', anyway? It sounds like it might have originated as some dictator's euphemism for racist mass murder but then migrated into the mainstream media...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-23 01:11 pm UTC (link)
Exactly... I don't understand why they think using a PC term makes the concept any less offensive!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]saffronlie
2009-04-23 12:49 pm UTC (link)
I find that The Guardian often has spelling and grammar mistakes. It's very irritating, and I Expect Better. I hope it is just that the online edition is given less sub-editing time than the print edition.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-23 01:05 pm UTC (link)
It's infamous for being so lax with editing. My dad calls it The Grundig, but it's also affectionately known in the media as The Grauniad.

But still! WRETCH?

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]airiddh1
2009-04-23 12:40 pm UTC (link)
I'm not sure I should look at this - might not be too good for my blood pressure!!!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-23 01:09 pm UTC (link)
It's infuriating, admittedly, but the comments are worth it!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]airiddh1
2009-04-23 03:45 pm UTC (link)
I spend enough time as it is on the politics threads on The Scotsman!!! (should rename itself the North Britishman!)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]saffronlie
2009-04-23 12:52 pm UTC (link)
Ahahahahahhaahahahahah I LOLed at your comment there before I saw it was you. Many readers recommend! INTERNET FAME AT LAST

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-23 01:03 pm UTC (link)
:D

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]saffronlie
2009-04-23 12:54 pm UTC (link)
Er, your first comment only. Girl, get a life. :p

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-23 01:04 pm UTC (link)
I was sitting around waiting for a file! ;)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]sroit
2009-04-23 04:21 pm UTC (link)
The internets is broken! The comments won't 'load.'

Pah.

In any case, the woman is mentally stunted, me thinks.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-25 03:17 pm UTC (link)
Dammit! Perhaps try loading just one page of comments instead of them all? It often sticks when I try to do that.

Anyway, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]mothergoddamn
2009-04-23 05:21 pm UTC (link)
How can she dislike the ending of Schindler's List?...IT'S TRUE!? You know Anne Frank was a bit downbeat. Let's add some musical numbers and have her saved by a sexy Nazi?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-25 03:16 pm UTC (link)
Personally, I'm deeply disappointed in this Anne Frank book. It's just so desperately sad and touching and mentions the Nazis far too much. I'm with you on the musical number, bb.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]stovetop00
2009-04-24 01:04 am UTC (link)
And this summer, she'll have Inglorious Bastards to complain about. (And I'm really looking forward to this movie, btw.)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rebness
2009-04-25 03:15 pm UTC (link)
Doubtless she'll go to see it, eating Minstrels, then will rant about how she was surprised and disappointed at the appearance of Nazis.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(24 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…