Lurker Rants, Too!

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Mark Novitz writes:

>      Speilberg may be manipulative, even pandering to you and I, with his 
>      various gas/water whatevers, but the film is quite a piece for 
>      standard Blokbuster Hollywood (as someone else said) and that, well, 
>      that is exactly my point.

>      People watch this movie (and they did, in a BIG way--check the ratings 
>      released today--more folks watched the film on TV than the entire 
>      theatre audience over the course of its run).  Because of "his" big 
>      name, because of his fame, because of his success, people will watch 
>      it and continue to watch it.  And they will be educated; they will 
>      learn.  Perhaps something they never understood before.  Perhaps 
>      something they never even knew, or cared about before.

 . . .

Well, that's really what gets me (and Steely) bothered. People will
indeed be `educated' by Schindler's List. The real question is not
whether but what message people get from the film. None of us are
disagreeing about the horrors of the Holocaust nor about the fact that
such history is ignored by most people. I'll underline this point,
just to be sure. Our gripe is *not* that Spielberg presents ignorant
people with a limited understanding of the Holocaust.

Our problem is that Spielberg's film suggests that free market
capitalism can stop future holocausts, that free market capitalism is
the best safeguard any nation has against totalitarianism, that the
war was not initiated, fuelled and milked by free market capitalism
but by a relatively small bunch of sick fanatics whose better natures
had been corrupted by a small inexplicably but ineradicably evil bunch
of Nazi thugs. I need hardly add that we believe we have God (aka TRP)
on our side.

And to me Spielbergs pathetic attempt to produce what only Hollywood
could describe as a class act, the marketing hype, the ensuing Oscar
hullaballoo, the money-grubbing dirt which tarnishes his non-Hollywood
`good works' only serves as further evidence that the man is more
interested in money and the greater glory of Stephen Spielberg than
any service to Jewry worldwide. Far from lending his prestige to the
cause of oppressed Jews he is using the cause of oppressed Jews to
grasp at the prestige which, being the cheap entertainer that he is,
has eluded him.

Give us a bucket.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.