Hitler: comedy star?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,748885,00.html
Hmmm, this particular attempt sounds like a bomb. And if part of the background humor is based around German dialects, I can't see it making much of a market elsewhere. But this does raise an interesting point, which we can call nazi humor. Now, there are some folks who are against it, one and all. Sometimes for rather cynical reasons, (gaining "street cred" with Jewish or liberal organizations and lobby groups, for instance). But the fact of the matter is that making fun of nazis and hitler has been going on almost as long as there were nazis and a hitler. Chaplin's most well known character may be the Little Tramp, but his most well known movie is The Great Dictator. Warner Brothers made a whole bunch of cartoons during the 40's that poked fun, (and if I remember correctly, Disney did as well, despite his pro-nazi leanings..). As the article points out, Mel Brooks made a fortune off of Springtime For Hitler, and long before that, we had Jack Benny and To Be, Or Not To Be. And then we have examples like Hogan's Heroes and a whole host of cameos, sub-plots and jokes on TV and in movies, etc. So, the humor exists, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. My question is if the whole nazi/hitler/WWII thing will ever become nothing but the dead past, Few of us really get riled up about the War of 1812, the Hundred Years War, Attila the Hun, etc. You can study them, you can make fun of 'em, nobody cares. Yet Attila was probably as nasty as hitler. So, will adolf ever be just one more background dude from history? I see the argument going either way. On the one hand, time softens everything. As danger recedes, new dangers replace it in our minds, and those with real memories of it die off. In fifty years it's quite possible that no one who remembers WWII will still be alive, (unless life extension research gets a major breakthrough, of course). And a hundred years beyond that, there'll be no one who remembers someone who remembered the War. You see where I'm going with this. Is there a point where no one will care if fun is being made of it?
But, on the other hand, the conflict and nazism are so thoroughly documented, and so thoroughly implanted in pop culture (how many WWII movies are there - a thousand? Two thousand?), that it may not recede into some hazy historical chapter, but be kept alive. And one must deal with the Holocaust. A very real and horrible event, the memory of which is kept alive, even promoted, (sometimes for noble reasons, and sometimes for quite cynical ones). There's been great success at least in this country on that count, much better than any other group that's suffered similarly, (just check in with your local Armenian, Cambodian or Congolese for more information). And so, the War and nazism, through efforts in the modern media, may well be the first exception to a very old rule about the past being buried. I really would be curious how the whole thing will be handled 200 years from now.
Hmmm, this particular attempt sounds like a bomb. And if part of the background humor is based around German dialects, I can't see it making much of a market elsewhere. But this does raise an interesting point, which we can call nazi humor. Now, there are some folks who are against it, one and all. Sometimes for rather cynical reasons, (gaining "street cred" with Jewish or liberal organizations and lobby groups, for instance). But the fact of the matter is that making fun of nazis and hitler has been going on almost as long as there were nazis and a hitler. Chaplin's most well known character may be the Little Tramp, but his most well known movie is The Great Dictator. Warner Brothers made a whole bunch of cartoons during the 40's that poked fun, (and if I remember correctly, Disney did as well, despite his pro-nazi leanings..). As the article points out, Mel Brooks made a fortune off of Springtime For Hitler, and long before that, we had Jack Benny and To Be, Or Not To Be. And then we have examples like Hogan's Heroes and a whole host of cameos, sub-plots and jokes on TV and in movies, etc. So, the humor exists, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. My question is if the whole nazi/hitler/WWII thing will ever become nothing but the dead past, Few of us really get riled up about the War of 1812, the Hundred Years War, Attila the Hun, etc. You can study them, you can make fun of 'em, nobody cares. Yet Attila was probably as nasty as hitler. So, will adolf ever be just one more background dude from history? I see the argument going either way. On the one hand, time softens everything. As danger recedes, new dangers replace it in our minds, and those with real memories of it die off. In fifty years it's quite possible that no one who remembers WWII will still be alive, (unless life extension research gets a major breakthrough, of course). And a hundred years beyond that, there'll be no one who remembers someone who remembered the War. You see where I'm going with this. Is there a point where no one will care if fun is being made of it?
But, on the other hand, the conflict and nazism are so thoroughly documented, and so thoroughly implanted in pop culture (how many WWII movies are there - a thousand? Two thousand?), that it may not recede into some hazy historical chapter, but be kept alive. And one must deal with the Holocaust. A very real and horrible event, the memory of which is kept alive, even promoted, (sometimes for noble reasons, and sometimes for quite cynical ones). There's been great success at least in this country on that count, much better than any other group that's suffered similarly, (just check in with your local Armenian, Cambodian or Congolese for more information). And so, the War and nazism, through efforts in the modern media, may well be the first exception to a very old rule about the past being buried. I really would be curious how the whole thing will be handled 200 years from now.
posted by mendip at
10:36 AM
1 Comments:
Interesting question. Don't forget that there are people today still pretty riled up about the Civil War.
In some countries, people remain strongly moved or angered by conflicts that happened centuries or millennia ago, because the government actively keeps those resentments alive. Americans' tendency to let the hatreds of past generations fade may be more the exception than the rule.
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Infidel753, at 12:27 PM
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