Ethical Diversions

[Paul Mackin]

On Jun 26, 2006, at 5:46 PM, Oscar wrote:

> Can you point out why it was embarrassing and how it fostered an
> incorrect view of the holocaust?  I have not seen the movie, but I am
> aware that it is considered one of the greatest films of the 90s.
> Some say it is the greatest of all time.

The grumbling I was referring to concerned the fact that the film  
though well intentioned and well done was still essentially a  
Hollywood fantasy. A miracle occurred resulting in the salvation of a  
thousand or so otherwise doomed Jews. The reasoning was that this is  
not the right way to present the Holocaust, even in a blockbuster  
mass audience attempt to reach a non-Jewish audience for whom the  
full and true tragedy of the Holocaust is relatively remote. Worse  
still, the miracle worker is not a Jewish God, whom one could easily  
draw the conclusion has abandoned his people, but a Christian  
munition maker.  In other words if they needed a hero, which this  
being Hollywood they did,  couldn't they have found  at least found a  
Jewish one.

This isn't my view and perhaps it wasn't very prevalent.  The movie  
critic and religious communities extravagant praise for the movie was  
practically universal. But you did hear occasional negativity voiced  
if you looked for it.

My original point in response to a message concerning why the  
Holocaust literature has been such dodgy undertaking was that EVEN  
Spielberg and Schindler's List were not totally exempt from a certain  
understandable kind of criticism..





>
>
> On 6/26/06, MalignD at aol.com <MalignD at aol.com> wrote:
>> << Even Schindler's List  was viewed by some as fostering an  
>> incorrect
>>  view of the Holocaust. >>
>>
>> Schindler's List was embarrassing.
>>