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Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that's especially indicative, unless there's more background on this that I don't know. It's not like he was some random person wandering around in an SS uniform. If I saw someone dressed to look like Hitler (and dressed well as "Hitler resurrection in a film" might, not like a shitty Halloween costume) I would naturally assume he was an actor.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

There was some amount of controversy in Germany over it. While a lot of people reacted negatively to the Hitler actor, or just laughed at him, a number of people seemed uncomfortably okay with what he was saying. Which was one of the points of the film -- it's critical of Nazism and Hitler, but also of modern Germans.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

From an English article about the film,

"The cast and crew drove across the country, having Hitler interact with ordinary people. Most of these people react to the sight of one of the 20th century’s vilest leaders with excitement and amusement. They pose for selfies with the feared Nazi leader and perform the famous Hitler salute for him. Even non-European immigrants seemed to be happy to see the Nazi leader, Wnendt said, because “they probably learned about history a little differently.”

Wnendt said that his producers asked him to include more negative reactions in the film, but they couldn’t — only two people responded negatively to Hitler during 300 hours or so of filming. One negative incident, Wnendt said, was when Hitler was driving through Kreuzberg, a Berlin neighborhood known for its leftist leanings, and a man ran over and ripped his hat off. While that scene was not included in the film, another was: In the Bavarian town of Bayreuth, a man walks up to Hitler while he is drawing caricatures of people in a square to express his anger.

[...]

“If you put him on a T-shirt, I think people would buy it,” he said. However, while he expected to find many who found Hitler amusing, Wnendt said he was surprised to find so many people would openly express disgust with immigration and democracy.

When Hitler asked one woman where the problems in Germany are coming from, she immediately pointed to the foreigners who are arriving. Another man tells him that immigrants from Africa are dragging down Germany's average IQ by around 20 percent. “We Germans are not allowed to open our mouths because we still have that stigma,” one man said to Hitler at one point, gesturing behind him.

In one particularly worrying scene, Hitler is easily able to persuade a group of soccer fans to attack another actor making anti-German comments. Wnendt said the crew had not expected it to happen so easily and had to step in to help. “They would really have completely have beaten him up if we hadn’t stopped him,” he said. “It was so easy to get them to do that.”"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/look-who-s-back-new-film-asking-what-would-happen-it-hitler-returned-to-germany-has-a-worrying-a6706736.html

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

Thanks, this is helpful. I don't know if it's that I'm not thinking about it right, or if the person who mentioned it didn't present it helpfully, because to me, someone responding that Germany's problems come from immigrants is a racist attitude whether or not the question is posed by an actor dressed as Hitler, people's willingness to Sieg-heil as a joke is racist even if they're just doing it with their friends, and it's not really about the response to the costume per se.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

And that does honestly raise some serious questions about the ethics of portraying Nazis basically ever. If even people in a country where 'do not be a Nazi, it is the worst thing you can be, please, we are begging you' is part of primary school education will still do this shit at the drop of a hat, maybe every portrayal should be viewed with extreme wariness.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

Damnato memoriae for the Nazis? The problem is that we cannot, both for practical and for ethical reasons, tush up the history of the Nazis.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

NA You can't win with fascists.

Show them like absolute monsters and those of us who hate them see them as monsters, while their fans see everything monstrous they do as great and cool, but at least they hide because they still want the social perks of being seen as normal.

Never talk about them because they're so awful they don't deserve any screentime and their fans will think what they did was fine and there's a silent majority of fascists waiting for the next supreme leader, and they start to become bold about it because they think they're just saying what everyone is thinking.

Making fun of them (in an Inglorious Basterds way or whatever Taika Watiti's new film will be) seems like the best of a hard situation. NYT profiles about how modern Nazi's are complex definitely isn't the way to go, tho.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of the modern Nazis latched onto Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds as a 'fun' Nazi, sadly, so even comedic portrayals aren't totally safe. You really do seem to need to portray them consistently as the dumbest, most embarrassing, least intimidating people in the universe for Nazis to not adopt them. Maybe Disney knew what they were doing with Disney Hitler, who knows.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

Disney absolutely knew what they were doing with Disney Hitler. 'Der Fuehrer's Face' and 'Education for Death' have persisted beyond their original use as wartime propaganda for a reason.

Re: ars_belli

[(Anonymous)]

https://youtu.be/62cPPSyoQkE

I'm inclined to agree with Lindsay Ellis that there's no clear answer on this, though mockery of Nazis a la The Producers seems to work better for discouraging gross fetishizing than serious drama films. If it's purely taboo, then you run into the issue of edgelords like ars_nazi latching onto it.