Spielberg and the 6 Million

[Steelhead]

>Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 09:56:51 -0700
>To: <LBernier at tribune.com>
>From: sitka at teleport.com (Steelhead)
>Subject: Re: Re[2]: Spielberg and the 6 Million
>Cc:
>Bcc:
>X-Attachments:
>
>Jean at the Tribune chastizes me:
>
>>  So, would it have been better if Schindler had been a flawless man who
>>  chose not to utilize slave labor, and all those people had died?  This is
>>  not a black & white issue.  Do not judge it as such.
>
>Pardon the pun, but it was Spielberg who made Schindler and S's List a black-
>and-white issue. And Schindler _is_ portrayed as a nearly flawless man, indeed
>the film is almost a hagiography of the good German, the humane capitalist
>with a conscience, the great father figure who has redeemed himself for
>previous infanticidal fantasies.
>
>Bullshit.
>
>This is fairy tale theater and (now that Steve has done everything in his
>considerable power to make sure his film is considered the definitive
>statement on the Holocaust) does a grave disservice to those he said he sought
>to honor. A great con artist like Spielberg could never be caught critizing
>the links between capitalism and genocide, could he?
>
>Go to the Spielberg wing of the Holocaust museum, where there are interactive
>computer games on the Holocaust, its like a virtual theme park of the Weimar
>and Third Reich. Just pick up the mouse and you too can try to sneak past the
>drunken SS officer and over the fence at Mauthausen. If you succeed, it's on
>to Sobibor and then Bergen-Belsen. C'mon, learning about genocide can be FUN!
>
>Jonas Goldhagen's new book Hitler's Willing Executioner's: Ordinary Germans
>and the Holocaust destroys all of these myths. Of course, how many people will
>read it or Hannah Arendt's Eichmann In Jerusalem? No. Schindler's List will
>now replace Night and Fog in the classrooms of America and we will all feel
>much
>better about helping to rebuild Germany as a titan of international capitalism
>after the war, rescuing the good Nazi's Dornberger and Von Braun to assist us
>in fighting the mad Russians and our all-important moon shots.
>
>Steely