Althouse: "Riffing on Adolf Hitler’s early efforts to become a painter, plus a report that the Führer had loved Disney’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs..."

June 1, 2016

"Riffing on Adolf Hitler’s early efforts to become a painter, plus a report that the Führer had loved Disney’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs..."

"... this dire mockumentary purports to tell the secret history of the Nazi regime, with World War II more or less an afterthought to Hitler’s passion project: a four-hour, animated Die Nibelungen starring a cartoon duck."

From "What the hell was Bill Plympton thinking with Hitler’s Folly?" at A.V. Club.

25 comments:

n.n said...: The war was primarily a conflict between German socialists and international communism led by atheist Jews (an oxymoron if there ever was one), that followed a progressive (i.e. monotonic) path when the socialists expanded their abortion policies (i.e. "final solution") to cover all Jews, not on principle, but as a diversity class.

That said, Hitler's liberal (i.e. variable) passions in arts and entertainment can be judged and interpreted on their own merits.; 6/1/16, 2:11 PM
Nonapod said...: Typical jokes include reimagining the word Nazi as NACI, standing for National Animation Cinema Institute, and explaining that the goose step was derived from the need to lift one’s feet high while walking down cinema aisles sticky with spilled soda. The least effective Downfall parody, with fake subtitles that have Hitler ranting about Batman V. Superman or whatever, plays like Oscar Wilde by comparison. And those run for only four minutes, not a goddamn hour.

Nothing is as unwatchable as someone trying to be funny and failing badly, especially with something that is supposed to be shock humor.

A bad drama, horror, or action movie can be very entertaining (see: The Room or Troll 2). Bad comedy is just painful and cringe inducing.; 6/1/16, 2:30 PM
Steve said...: If only Donald Trump had gotten into art school.; 6/1/16, 2:48 PM
Robert Cook said...: Please...anytime anyone goes on about the German Nazi "socialists," they immediately announce to the world they are either ignoramuses or shameless propagandists for the promulgated-by-right-wingers notion that tyranny is always (and can only be) leftist, (and its converse, that right-wingers and right-wing governments can never be tyrannical).; 6/1/16, 3:09 PM
mtrobertslaw said...: Mr. Cook seems a bit defensive about the subject of socialism and tyrants.; 6/1/16, 3:18 PM
traditionalguy said...: Cookie is right. The National Socialists were a trendy name stolen for elections by a one man supernatural Cult of Personality. What Schikelgruber liked about Disney was probably the Evil Witch who cast such a powerful spell.; 6/1/16, 3:25 PM
Michael K said...: Hiller also loved Karl May's cowboy books. May of course, had never been to the West and spent only 6 weeks in North America.

Cookie is a bit sensitive about Socialism. I can certainly understand. When are you visiting Venezuela, Cookie ?; 6/1/16, 4:08 PM
David said...: So all kinds of people are commenting on it and none of them have seen it?

That's pretty much par for the course these days.

Here are four "entertainments" that found humor in Hitler.

Chaplin's "The Dictator"
Disney's "Der Fuhrer's Face"
Mel Brooks "The Producers"
Bob Crane's (?) "Hogan's Heroes"

All seen as very funny in their day. The first three are still funny and interesting to watch.

Hogan's Heroes was obnoxiously unwatchable. For me. But a huge hit.; 6/1/16, 4:37 PM
wildswan said...: Perhaps it's a comment on the Millennial imagination, that it can't imagine Hitler as he was, ordering millions, literally millions, to be clubbed, shot gassed, experimented upon, starved, and tortured solely because of their race. Instead it pictures him as a digital artifact, a montage of images, and the Millennial imagination thinks it might be discovered that the reality behind the montage was an cartoon artist who wasn't very good. A Millennial, in short, faking reality on his Facebook page and being taken seriously until a docu-drama shows he's really nothing. Art holding up the reality of the Millennials for us to see - how well can they imagine Hitler? Or Stalin? Answer: Not at all. Not at all. Or militant Islam? Not at all. Not at all.; 6/1/16, 4:44 PM
geoffb said...: Season 1 Episode 6 of "Justified" concerns itself with a collection of "Hitlers."; 6/1/16, 5:22 PM
narciso said...: I don't quite agree with this interpretation, but snyder does marshall a fair amount of evidence,

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Earth-Holocaust-History-Warning/dp/1101903457?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc; 6/1/16, 7:58 PM
J. Farmer said...: @wildswan:

"Perhaps it's a comment on the Millennial imagination,"

Not sure when you were born, but the anti-millennial schtick really is tired. Being criticized by baby boomers for narcissism and self-absorption really is quite rich. Wasn't Tom Wolfe calling young adults in the 1970s the "me generation?" How many young GI's in the 1940s do you think were really clued in on imperial relations in Continental Europe and East Asia?; 6/1/16, 8:04 PM
narciso said...: they didn't have to meditate on the greater picture, the depression and the war, concentrated their attention,; 6/1/16, 8:31 PM
Drago said...: Those crafty Nazi's! Calling themselves socialists when what they really were was nothing less than small government Tea Partiers!

Thank goodness hilarious conspiracy theorist Cookie is here to set the record straight!

(trigger warning: "straight"); 6/1/16, 9:42 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Hitler eas interested in architecture, not movies. He wanted them to stand, therefore couldn't be hated, would be hated by people who are against murder, and Jews were the cause of the universal opposition to murder, in his mind.

It was Goebbels who was interested in movies.; 6/1/16, 10:10 PM
narciso said...: there's an interesting portrait of goebbels in the previous bernie gunther tale, phillip kerr strives not to make him seem like a psychotic, specially when he dispatches gunther to search for the father of his paramour, who is involved in the heart of darkness, that is ustache yugoslavia,; 6/1/16, 10:26 PM
narciso said...: a rather dark take, with very dark humour,

http://berniegunther.com/book/lady_from_zagreb/

allen dulles also make an appearances; 6/1/16, 10:35 PM
narciso said...: a dated but relevant piece,

https://mises.org/library/why-nazism-was-socialism-and-why-socialism-totalitarian; 6/1/16, 11:00 PM
tim in vermont said...: propagandists for the promulgated-by-right-wingers notion that tyranny is always (and can only be) leftist, (and its converse, that right-wingers and right-wing governments can never be tyrannical)

Well, if the shoe fits Robert...

"Right Wing" socialists are national socialists, we know all about them, left wing socialists are international socialists. You know, like the Soviets.

Do you find it interesting that communist countries like China and the Soviet Union could switch to fascism on a dime, with little more ado than a change to the letterhead? Do you ever think about that Robert?

Those of us you call "right wing," us small government types, are the common enemy of both of your totalitarian ideological phyla. Because its hard to take everybody's stuff to give out yourself to your supporters, and to control everybody's behavior, so that they conform to your ideals, without a really big government.

I would like you to point to a small government tyranny in the world somewhere in the modern era. Just one tyranny in history where the government wasn't the instrument of it. That would be interesting to see.; 6/2/16, 5:37 AM
tim in vermont said...: Robert Cook is like my dog. My dog can only think of one stick at a time, and if you throw two, he gets confused.

There are three major poles, Robert, left-wing socialism (e.g. the Soviets), right-wing socialists (e.g. Mussolini), and those of us who at least aspire to a degree of individual freedom (e.g. The United States)

If you can show me the overarching similarities between the Tea Party and the Nazis. The similarities that make them largely the same thing, (just calling them 'not left-wing socialist' is not an argument, see above) I will concede your point.; 6/2/16, 5:44 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I'm a little sad that no one here is interested in Bill Plympton specifically.

And the problem isn't trying to do comedy about Hitler, but doing it and having it come out badly. Here, A.V. Club is saying it's very boring. It will be available free, on line, on June 3rd, so we can all find out. But if you're not already interested in the work of Plympton, it's really almost not worth thinking about.; 6/2/16, 10:31 AM
Nichevo said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/2/16, 12:18 PM
Nichevo said...: Who's Bill Plimpton? Is he related to those overbred whitebread WASPy actors?; 6/2/16, 12:20 PM
mikee said...: George Plimpton will forever be regarded with favor by me, because I was among those who read his April Fool's story in Sport's Illustrated magazine way back in 1985, about the best baseball pitcher ever to step upon the mound, Sidd Finch.

http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/10/15/curious-case-sidd-finch

Duck, duck, goose-step!; 6/2/16, 1:29 PM
mockturtle said...: Didn't Carl Reiner do a film called The Producers in which was featured a musical called Springtime for Hitler? I think I even remember the tune...; 6/2/16, 1:42 PM