True, but the Jews, or prisoners of war are not portrayed as willing helpers of the Germans as the slaves were in GWTW. No one in the camp was assuring Klink and Schultz they'd help shore up the Siegfried Line to keep out them nasty Allied Armies as one of the field hands tell Scarlet when Sherman is marching on Atlanta. The crimes of the Nazis are more than softened or even passed over for the show's comedy, but they are never revised. This wanders away from Sci's critique of GWTW, a better comparison would be the love heaped on Pride and Prejudice. The 1995 version in particular shows what a veritable romantic joy Regency England could be. I wonder how many folks might have been hung for poaching a rabbit on Darcy's ten mile circuit of land around his house because they didn't want to starve? Regency England was no joy for the lower classes.
It's a magnificently well made film but I find its content to be offensive and don't think the product of its time excuse flies for what was in it. Admittedly, I also found it just boring.
On a side note, if you watch what Schultz says and does carefully, it's clear to me that he's a "Fifth Columnist" Allied Forces sympathizer.
Good points, but it does stand that Hochstetter was used for laughs. General Burkhalter, too, and as a General, I've no doubt Burkhalter had access to information regarding the concentration camps. It follows somewhat, though a case can be easily made that my statement might be overreaching, which it is. I'm more taking the piss than anything. I agree with Sci's basic sentiment that GWTW romanticizes the slaveholders of the South, it's just more a matter of degree, in my opinion. Also, I had to get that Hogan's Heroes line out. I was about to explode.
You've never seen it?! You're missing out! I think you'll love Sgt. Schultz. I adore him. If you ever get a chance, check out the show. I'm always hoping the entire series will pop up on Netflix Instant Watch.
Laughter at the expense of Nazis doesn't seem to be a bad thing to me. Making them look like fools gets a thumbs up from me. Be it Hogan's Heroes or the Blues Brothers. While HH didn't often address Nazi philosophy they did touch upon it from time to time. Such as when Kinch boxed the German champ. The Heroes weren't just POWs but an espionage unit working behind enemy lines to disrupt the Nazi war effort. I get what you were trying to do with your comment, but Hogans Heroes isn't really doing the same thing as GWTW.
One thing about Wilson. He wasn't an enlightened person when it came to race or African-Americans. I got this from the PBS website: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/portrait/wp_african.html Wilson - A Portrait African Americans "[Wilson's] stance on race is perhaps the greatest single defect of his moral vision of what the United States should be." John M. Mulder, Historian Woodrow Wilson's record on race relations was not very good. African Americans welcomed his election in 1912, but they were worried too. During his first term in office, the House passed a law making racial intermarriage a felony in the District of Columbia. His new Postmaster General also ordered that his Washington offices be segregated, with the Treasury and Navy soon doing the same. Suddenly, photographs were required of all applicants for federal jobs. When pressed by black leaders, Wilson replied, "The purpose of these measures was to reduce the friction. It is as far as possible from being a movement against the Negroes. I sincerely believe it to be in their interest." "To understand Woodrow Wilson's racial views, it is important to remember that he was a southerner. He had been raised in a climate in which it was presumed that African American people were less evolved than Anglo Saxon people." Victoria Bissell Brown, Historian So for Wilson to praise Birth of a Nation isn't that big of a surprise. On Wilson and White Supremacy: http://suite101.com/article/woodrow-wilson-and-white-supremacy-a126787
After skimming over some of these comments, I agree with a lot with Sci has to say on these matters. I've seen Birth of a Nation (in a film class) but I've never had a desire to watch Gone with the Wind. As a black person growing up in the South, the romanticizing of the Confederacy has always made me uneasy. And GWTW always seemed like a prime example of that so I've stayed away from it.
I've seen it, The Civil War is pretty much in the background and for the most part skipped over for the most part its a chick flick so your not missing anything by not seeing it. Come to think about it, is it at all possible to demand a (I think Middle School) give me my amount of money a movie ticket costs if they didn't charge me to watch a film?
^ Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the film. As for your second question, I'm not sure what you're getting at. I'm guess you're asking could you be refunded the price of a ticket instead of watching a movie you might object to in a class? For Birth of the Nation, I watched it in graduate school, for an African American cinema class. I had heard about the film and I didn't object it being shown, and I'm sure the price would've been a miniscule deduction in my class fee anyway. For that film I did find it an interesting and disturbing recasting of the Klan as this heroic force during Reconstruction. At least Birth exposed me to the twisted thinking that led to segregation, lynching, and all manner of racial violence and oppression that followed the Civil War. So it was educational in that sense. I'm not enough of a student of film to dissect or marvel at it's technical innovations. Besides I could not divest my disgust for its racial views from its technical expertise anyway.
Well it wasn't a class it was some school movie watching thing, I just want my money and time back because I don't particularly care for the film because I thought it was boring as hell. I mean it was over a hour or so of an obnoxious woman going on about her love life basically with some pro Civil War South stuff thrown in. Why are people interested in these kinds of films (the crap about people's love life stuff not the pro Civil War South stuff)?
Setting aside the pro-Confederacy question and answering the more generic question about why people enjoy stories about characters' love lives: Because stories about characters' struggles to find love speak to many people about their own struggles to find love.
Birth of A Nation is far more influential as a picture and in the development of longform films in particular. It's also far more extremely overtly racist to the point the second half of the film is an extended racist fantasy (and as I recall the racism of GOTW was toned down from the novel, there's an attack made by black characters in the book that in the movie is done by white characters, something like that.) Mostly GOTW is a plodding and somewhat interminable epic. I've never been fond it, leaving the controversial material to one side. Fine. The 1930s saw the publication of W.E.B. Du Bois' monumental history of the Reconstruction, that fundamentally challenged the Dunnings school in its then-controversial largely positive assessment of the Reconstruction as fundamentally noble and worthwhile pursuit. You know I doubt such a film would actually be as problematic. Postwar German cinema has generally treated Nazism as suitably abhorrent; while neo-Nazis exist their influence is nothing at all like the neo-Confederate Lost Cause mythology that was widely propagated in the US and is the subtext of material like Gone with the Wind.
I really don't see how you can say a hypothetical Gone With the Nazi Wind would not problematic. I mean, even if its racist ideas were not to gain traction in the German public, the ideological content of such a film would still be just as morally objectionable.
http://www.amazon.com/South-Was-Right-Walter-Kennedy/dp/1565540247 http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Unnecessary/dp/0761526463/ref=pd_sim_b http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Lincoln-Abrah http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Ta..._3am-Unnecessary/dp/0761526463/ref=pd_sim_b_1 http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-South-Again/dp/1596985003/ref=pd_sim_b_5 http://www.amazon.com/War-Crimes-Against-Southern-Civilians/dp/158980466X/ref=pd_sim_b_6 http://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Davis-Right-Walter-Kennedy/dp/156554370X/ref=pd_sim_b_7 http://www.amazon.com/Myths-American-Slavery-Walter-Kennedy/dp/1589800478/ref=pd_sim_b_8 http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-Civil-Guides/dp/B0064X7BXG/ref=pd_sim_b_9 http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Grace-God-Michael-Grissom/dp/0882897616/ref=pd_sim_b_10 http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Money-Civil-Federal-Reserve/dp/1589803981/ref=pd_sim_b_13 http://www.amazon.com/Red-Republicans-Lincolns-Marxists-Marxism/dp/0595446981/ref=pd_sim_b_17 http://www.amazon.com/The-South-under-siege-1830-2000/dp/1568373945/ref=pd_sim_b_19 http://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Marxists-Al-Benson-Jr/dp/158980905X/ref=pd_sim_b_23 http://www.amazon.com/Stonewall-Jackson-Black-Mans-Friend/dp/158182565X/ref=pd_sim_b_28 http://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-%C3%9Cber-Alles-Dictatorship-America/dp/1589806921/ref=pd_sim_b_11 http://www.amazon.com/Ride-Devil-Tobey-Maguire/dp/0783241909/ref=pd_sim_b_40 http://www.amazon.com/Complicity-Promoted-Prolonged-Profited-Slavery/dp/0345467833/ref=pd_sim_b_14 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_s...complete+series&sprefix=firefly,movies-tv,163 What is this "was?"