Swastikas for Sweeps

[Dave Monroe]

>From Maureen Dowd, "Swastika for Sweeps," NY Times,
Wednesday, July 17th, 2002 ...

PASADENA, Calif. 

We've had Hitler the hippie grooving in the movie "The
Producers." We've had Gay Hitler shimmying on
"Saturday Night Live." We've had everyone from Charlie
Chaplin to Alec Guinness to Anthony Hopkins
goose-stepping across the screen as Adolf the
Fruitcake.

Yet the monster will not die. Fifty-seven years after
he swallowed a bullet instead of Europe, Hitler is
still a hot property. 

For sweeps next season, CBS will bring us Hitler in
the demo: Young Hitler, the miniseries, covering the
years between 18 and 34 — the demographic sweet spot
of network television. The Gathering Sturm. The Young
and the Racist. From "Achtung, baby," to "Achtung,
dude." 

If there's one thing Hollywood executives understand,
it's megalomania. And if there is one audience they
crave more than any other, it's teenagers and young
adults.

The WB network got a hit last season out of showing
the dreamy teenage Superman in "Smallville." So why
not show the teenage Hitler dreaming of his super
race? 

"Hollywood is playing the Nazi card," says the TV
writer Eric Mink dryly.

And how. Besides what CBS calls "the Hitler project" —
cuddly Ewan McGregor's name has been bandied about as
the leading Deutschman — there are at least two other
Portraits of the Führer as a Young Man in the works.
There is talk about Robert Downey Jr. playing Hitler
as a struggling painter in Vienna in a BBC drama. Then
there's an independent feature film called "Max,"
focusing on the relationship between a Jewish art
dealer (John Cusack) who was friendly with the
aspiring artist and mass murderer. 

After the glut of Hitler movies was reported in the
press — "It's Primetime for Hitler," Variety
proclaimed — some Jewish leaders denounced the
projects as vulgar and exploitative.

They don't want to see a glossy, sympathetic
"Lifestyles of the Reich and Fascist": a cute,
brooding teenage Hitler painting away in a garret,
listening to Wagner (the Eminem of his age), hanging
at the cafes in Vienna with Wittgenstein and Freud,
accumulating disappointments and rejections as raw
material for "Mein Kampf," roiled by sexual confusion,
frightened by the advances of an amorous milkmaid, and
like everyone else then and now, steamed at the
French. 

"These are documentaries and films about Hitler the
man, Hitler the lover, Hitler the young person," said
Abraham Foxman, the chairman of the Anti-Defamation
League. "I find that trivializing and offensive." Mr.
Foxman and others probably fear the Tony Soprano
effect, a bad guy who becomes a cult anti-hero.

CBS executives at the television press tour here
seemed a little uptight about the criticism of the
Hitler project, which is based on the first part of
the excellent two-volume Ian Kershaw biography of the
German dictator — "Hitler, 1899-1936: Hubris."

CBS's president, Leslie Moonves, told TV critics that
he thought the young Hitler was a "fascinating
character."

"I also think this is a very timely subject about how
bad guys get into power and how it affects the rest of
the world," he said.

It's a stretch to argue that understanding an old
evildoer would shed light on the new evildoers.
There's a big difference between genocide and
terrorism. But there's no denying Hollywood's eternal
reliance on two subjects — evil and sex. 

With a group of writers trying to fathom the cultural
landscape post-9/11, Mr. Moonves found himself
justifying the aesthetic sensibility of a network that
is touting, as two high-profile acquisitions, Young
Hitler and young hotties on the annual Victoria's
Secret lingerie show.

[...]

But Mr. Moonves did not seem to have a ready answer
when asked what kind of company might want to
advertise or underwrite the Hitler miniseries.
"Volkswagen?" murmured one TV writer sarcastically....

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/17/opinion/17DOWD.html


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