Kneejerks, Straw Men and the attack of the blindly devoted

[davemarc]

> From: MantaRay at aol.com
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Kneejerks, Straw Men and the attack of the blindly devoted
> Date: Monday, February 24, 1997 8:23 PM
> 
> People:
> 
> davemarc kneejerks:
> 
> >arrogant pontificating, hyperbolic
> >moralizing, and neglectful factchecking
> 
> then goes on to do the exact same thing. From what I can tell, the main
> thrust of Steely Dan's criticism, if you filter out his clever wordplay,
is:
> 
> Spielberg is profiting off a man who profited off slave labor. davemarc's
> support of Spielberg qua Leni however-you-spell-it does nothing to refute
> this argument.      
> in fact, he assents:
> 
> >Schindler's actions are not necessarily
> >the highest form of righteousness, which would be completely anonymous. 
> >Nevertheless, Schindler enacted a lower, more problematic, more
debatable,
> >more questionable, form of righteousness while advancing himself. 
That's
> >clear in the film.
> 
> That, in the words of my pop, is " just a clean way to not call bullshit
> bullshit." Righteousness with four qualifiers preceding it seems to be
> another way of saying, "Ok, you're right: we are immortalizing a man who
did
> profit form slave labor."

Having seen Schindler's List, I did not feel in the least that Spielberg
presents Schindler as a man of great moral fiber.  It's clear that
Schindler's profiting from forced labor.  Even the blurb on the movie
tie-in paperback calls the book "A stunning novel based on the true story
of how German war profiteer and prison camp Direktor Oskar Schindler came
to save more Jews from the gaschambers than any other single person during
World War II."  (For the sake of full disclosure, I'll offer the rest of
the blurb:  "In this milestone of Holocaust literature, Thomas Keneally
uses the actual testimony of the Schindlerjuden--Schindler's Jews--to
brilliantly portray the courage and cunning of a good [not great...] man in
the midst of unspeakable evil.")

Thomas Jefferson is another person who profited from slave labor.  It's
worthwhile to view him realistically.  The same applies to Schindler.  The
movie depicts him as a man in a liminal situation who managed to save many
threatened lives.  It does not present him as flawless or even exemplary,
but it does show how he managed to save those lives and earn the gratitude
of many of those he saved.   
> 
> So what are you so hot under the collar for!? What, do you have a poster
of
> E.T. in your bedroom or something?

I hate E.T.  I really really hate the second Indiana Jones movie and that
Young Sherlock Holmes movies, which are flat-out racist.  I don't think
Schindler's List comes close to being the best movie ever made, but it's
probably best movie Spielberg's made.  I also happen to admire Spielberg
for his support of Akira Kurosawa.  And I think Spielberg's work on the
Shoah Project deserves to be recognized for the great achievement it is.

>  The socio-political implication you are
> not seeing seems to be clear. The message of the movie, within the
context of
> your "more debatable" form of righteousness, and the INEVITABLE and
> ANTICIPATED praise, cash and awards Spielberg got off this flick, is that
> this "lower" form of righteousness, capitalism, wherein, we can make a
savior
> out of a man (Spielberg/Schindler, bizarre, no?) that rips off the very
> people we love him for saving, is the path to take to ward off the more
> literal horrors of fascism, which deals with more obvious exploitation. 
> 
> If Spielberg is so connected to the issue, documenting survivor's oral
> histories and such, why doesn't he offer them to the world, instead of
this
> calculated narrative? Because they wouldn't sell and he wouldn't have the
> balls to put out something as trite as a "documentary" when he can
release
> fiction, based on fiction (a novel), and call it one. davemarc, you are
> missing the Hollywood variable in this equation. Put yourself in the head
of
> the studio execs who got behind the film. Do you think they gave a shit
about
> educating the public, one that has already dealt with countless better
> material on the very same subject? Nah, they were thinking Oscar, and
cash.
> If you recall the media hype for the Oscars (Oscar/Oskar, bizarre, no?)
that
> year, critics and nerds from all over the country were stating into
> microphones that this should be the year that Spielberg finally gets it. 

MantaRay just doesn't know the facts here.  Spielberg is, in fact,
spearheading the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which is
dedicated to videotaping and otherwise documenting the testimony of
Holocaust survivors around the world.  By the end of last year, 2937
interviewers (they have the option of getting a $50 stipend per interview),
1307 videographers (they get paid union scale, as far as I know), and 2974
volunteers had conducted a total of 21,755 interviews, including 11,676 in
the US, 2,339 in Israel, 1,376 in Australia, 236 in South Africa, and 1 in
Zimbabwe.  Profits from Schindler's List help fund the project.  So
Spielberg is, in fact, offering oral histories to the world.  If the money
and awards that stemmed from the film he made of a Booker Prize-winning
book make that possible, what's so terrible about that?  How the hell
should Spielberg make his money so that it'd more "pure"?  For about five
decades after the Holocaust--during which time many survivors died--no one
else managed to cough up any pure or impure money to undertake this kind of
work.

It's disgusting that Steely, who knew of the Shoah project when he began
resurrecting this debate, asks why Spielberg didn't document other stories
or aspects of the Holocaust without even addressing the work on Shoah. 
Again:  Spielberg is documenting these stories, and he's using the momentum
from Schindler's List to do so.  (After last night's television broadcast,
more than 5,000 potential interview subjects called Shoah.)  If you're
going to take the measure of Spielberg, you can't ignore the entire body
and thrust of his work.  Same goes for Riefenstahl, whom Jeffrey St. Clair
states has more heart than Spielberg.  Of the good Germans in Goldhagen's
book who saw the good-hearted Riefenstahl's films, how many were then
inspired to do any good?  
> 
> This is all besides the point, really. The argument that you two really
seem
> to offer, in your respective ways, is enough, and your take on it begs
the
> question. After propping up Lang, you should have stuck with his model of
> righteousness, instead of, in your own decontextualized words,
"championing"
> Schindler's my-hands-are-tied form of righteousness. So he saved some
lives.
> Is he worth an Oscar and the drooling over Spielberg and the debate on
this
> tired issue? No. 

How many Oscar-winning movies (which include numerous Holocaust-related
films) are ever the best?  Hate Spielberg if you want, but at least be
aware that the movie Schindler's List was not an end in itself, but the
beginning of many educational projects as well as the Shoah Project.
> 
> So leave the condescending "whoops" and "oh, boy" and the annoying
> repetitions
> of Steely's name out of your disagreement, and let's deal with the facts.


I wonder if MantaRay's more sympathetic to my point of view now that he has
more facts.

davemarc