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supercantaloupe · 5 days ago

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saw a post last night complaining that the sound of music film and its popularity contribute to the "universalization of the holocaust" and that by depicting an austrian catholic gentile family's opposition to the nazi regime instead of being about jews, it paints some kind of false picture of who the nazis' real targets were. and i'm sorry but that is such a narrow minded, externally motivated reading of the film/musical. and i say this as a jew who broadly agrees that holocaust universalization and the sidelining of "the jewish problem" (as it was known in that era) in film and media is a genuine and pervasive problem. the sound of music...that is really not the right target for your ire, my friend

#sasha speaks #like yeah it is annoying when people spam reblog that gif of georg ripping up the nazi flag right after posting antisemitism #that sucks and i wish it wasn't do prevalent. i also wish antisemitism in general were not so prevalent but yknow.#baby steps or whatever.#but anyway it's not the sound of music's fault that people are using that gif a bunch but misunderstanding nazism #and its specific primary targeting of jews (and romani)#A. i actually don't think it's invalid or bad to show stories about gentiles being threatened by/opposing nazism.#that Was a real thing that happened. the trapp family were in fact real people even if their story is somewhat fictionalized #in the musical #it takes place in 1938. therefore before the holocaust proper had begun #(not that persecution of jews wasn't already a huge thing. the november pogrom was the same year of course.)#but even while racial hatred of jews and romani Was the primary characteristic of nazism and should be recognized and depicted as such #it is not misleading or distracting to also depict the real experience of white gentiles who were threatened by nazism #like. one drop in the bucket. two cakes. whateved #also. and this feels so blatantly obvious to me i shouldnt need to spell it out but.#B. the sound of music was written by two jews in the late 1950s.#it's...it's just not. it's not an example. of a bad faith depiction of wwii/its lead up #sometimes stories are about other things. even when the authors could have made it about more personal subjects to themselves #and the era in which it was created had a very different attitude towards and contrxt for depictions of wwii (& preceding) in media #if you want to get mad at people misinterpreting a musical about the rise of nazism go look on twitter or tiktok for cabaret discourse...#now that's an audience that knows how to miss the gddamn point

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