# Petty rants against well liked movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 5, 2009, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550 "2009-02-05T11:16:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![MyFootsZZZ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/myfootszzz/32/12580_2.png) [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/181 "2009-02-13T19:34:33Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > that’s one of the most awful things I have ever read on this message board. Honestly, I don’t even agree with Lissner’s view but this comment is miserable. I agree **Lochdale**. I don’t agree with \*\*Lissner \*\*at all either. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/182 "2009-02-13T22:22:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Maybe they got that from watching _The Matrix_. You know the one where the heroes are trying to free humanity - except for all those cops they shot. The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/183 "2009-02-13T22:24:12Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Does this POV extend to all accounts by survivors? Are they all self-hating anti-semites, for allowing people to know that they lived? Why is this so often the default response to an artistic opinion in this forum, to attempt to extrapolate it into an inflexible law in order to disagree with it? Why can’t you see a specific response to a specific artwork as _a specific response to a specific artwork?_ Is it because the default mode of analysis here is scientific? An interesting discussion perhaps. In any rate, Malthus, no: just because you can extrapolate from something I said something I did \*not \*say doesn’t mean it has any validity whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/184 "2009-02-13T22:27:25Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > We are hardwired to see the world in terms of narratives. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/185 "2009-02-13T22:29:00Z")
[QUOTE=even sven;10807749We are losing sight of what actually happened, and turned the Holocaust into a tidy little lesson about the good that hides in the midst of great evil (the ultimate moral of just about every Holocaust film.) [/QUOTE] FWIW, there are some important exceptions to this, although all of the ones I’m aware of are European; the narrative disorder (for want of a better term) you describe seems to be uniquely American. Another byproduct of the Hays code, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/186 "2009-02-13T22:32:13Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You say “popular entertainment” like it’s a bad thing. What use are unpopular, unentertaining stories? Your twisted view–and Spielberg’s–in a nutshell. God forbid a story of the Holocaust should be unentertaining. “Springtime for Hitler” anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Jester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jester/32/8223_2.png) [@Jester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jester)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/187 "2009-02-13T22:39:56Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Cite? Please describe to me anything that has ever happened in the past in a fashion that uses no assigned point of view and has no arc or structure to speak of, and make it make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/188 "2009-02-13T22:52:04Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Your twisted view–and Spielberg’s–in a nutshell. > > God forbid a story of the Holocaust should be unentertaining. “Springtime for Hitler” anyone? Hey, say what you will, people will be humming “Springtime for Hitler” years after they’ve forgotten what the girl in the little red coat was. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/189 "2009-02-13T22:53:55Z")
> [@Jester](#): > > Please describe to me anything that has ever happened in the past in a fashion that uses no assigned point of view and has no arc or structure to speak of, and make it make sense. So . . . someone makes a definitive statement suggesting that Homo sapiens is genetically predisposed (“hardwired”) to require a narrative in order to understand something; I ask for a cite for this definitive statement; and \*you \*respond that it’s \*my \*burden to disprove this definitive statement? What’re you, new? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/190 "2009-02-13T22:57:57Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Hey, say what you will, people will be humming “Springtime for Hitler” years after they’ve forgotten what the girl in the little red coat was. I agree. And tragically, people will hold _Schindler’s List_ up as “history” long after \*Shoah \*or _Come and See_ are unavailable to all but the deepest-digging aficionado. ---
**Author:** ![Jester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jester/32/8223_2.png) [@Jester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jester)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/191 "2009-02-13T23:01:00Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > So . . . someone makes a definitive statement suggesting that Homo sapiens is genetically predisposed (“hardwired”) to require a narrative in order to understand something; I ask for a cite for this definitive statement; and \*you \*respond that it’s \*my \*burden to disprove this definitive statement? What’re you, new? Nope, just saying that I’m not sure her point was really a scientific assertion. I think, instead, it was an observation of how we as people tend to deal with our pasts. If, indeed, she was arguing for the existence of a “narrative” gene, then sure, it’s on her to provide a cite. But if that’s the case, then allow me to soften the statement to a more ephemeral, anecdotal form that has a bit more relevance to the argument: People tend to process historical events by couching them in narrative; it’s the default way that we interact with them and we tend to learn more from it than we do from sheer facts. And if you still want a cite, then I hereby cite any educational history text ever written.😛 ---
**Author:** ![Jester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jester/32/8223_2.png) [@Jester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jester)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/192 "2009-02-13T23:04:15Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > I agree. And tragically, people will hold _Schindler’s List_ up as “history” long after \*Shoah \*or _Come and See_ are unavailable to all but the deepest-digging aficionado. Mostly agreed, and that probably is a bad thing, but I would also contend that there is nothing inherently toxic about _Schindler’s List_’s message that makes its lasting memory _detrimental_ to society. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/193 "2009-02-13T23:16:07Z")
> [@Jester](#): > > Nope, just saying that I’m not sure her point was really a scientific assertion. I think, instead, it was an observation of how we as people tend to deal with our pasts. If, indeed, she was arguing for the existence of a “narrative” gene, then sure, it’s on her to provide a cite. But if that’s the case, then allow me to soften the statement to a more ephemeral, anecdotal form that has a bit more relevance to the argument: > > People tend to process historical events by couching them in narrative; it’s the default way that we interact with them and we tend to learn more from it than we do from sheer facts. > > And if you still want a cite, then I hereby cite any educational history text ever written.😛 sorry, if you use the word “hardwired,” it implies a biological imperative. No choice, in other words. I disagree, unless someone can show me a cite for such an imperative. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/194 "2009-02-13T23:17:10Z")
> [@Jester](#): > > Mostly agreed, and that probably is a bad thing, but I would also contend that there is nothing inherently toxic about _Schindler’s List_’s message that makes its lasting memory _detrimental_ to society. It’s HUGELY detrimental if it becomes the default narrative of the Holocaust, which already to many people it is. ---
**Author:** ![Jester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jester/32/8223_2.png) [@Jester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jester)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/195 "2009-02-13T23:21:42Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > sorry, if you use the word “hardwired,” it implies a biological imperative. No choice, in other words. I disagree, unless someone can show me a cite for such an imperative. Fair enough, then; I’ll let **Alessan** provide a cite of her more semantically extreme argument if she wants to make a point of it. In the meantime, I’ll stick by my philosophically similar but aesthetically different statement, and be interested to hear your thoughts on it _vis a vis_ the conversation at hand. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/196 "2009-02-13T23:24:43Z")
Maybe we _should_ create another thread for the Holocaust and Art/Films? ---
**Author:** ![hawksgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ed655f/32.png) [@hawksgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawksgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/197 "2009-02-13T23:24:58Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > It’s HUGELY detrimental if it becomes the default narrative of the Holocaust, which already to many people it is. Who? i don’t know anyone who thinks the Holocaust was not that bad because they saw Schindler’s List. I think most people have heard or learned enough about the Holocaust to recognize that this is one story out of the many more tragic ones during that period. ---
**Author:** ![Jester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jester/32/8223_2.png) [@Jester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jester)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/198 "2009-02-13T23:25:36Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > It’s HUGELY detrimental if it becomes the default narrative of the Holocaust, which already to many people it is. Man, it’d really be great to have that other thread right about now…last one before I leave for work, I promise. I firmly believe that nobody thinks (or will ever think) that it is the default narrative of the Holocaust, and if you’re contending that people do then it’s my turn to ask for a cite. What it is, and what people think of it as, is _a_ narrative _from_ the Holocaust, telling a very specific story about a very specific (true) event and making no attempts to take it farther than that. There is no, and never will be any, default narrative for the Holocaust because the Holocaust was just too big and inclusive of so many different events. And if we reach a point in history where it can actually be diminished to a single, universal narrative, I am positive that a) it will be hundreds of years from now and b) that narrative won’t be _Schindler’s List_. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/199 "2009-02-13T23:36:02Z")
> [@Jester](#): > > Man, it’d really be great to have that other thread right about now…last one before I leave for work, I promise. I firmly believe that nobody thinks (or will ever think) that it is the default narrative of the Holocaust, and if you’re contending that people do then it’s my turn to ask for a cite. > > What it is, and what people think of it as, is _a_ narrative _from_ the Holocaust, telling a very specific story about a very specific (true) event and making no attempts to take it farther than that. There is no, and never will be any, default narrative for the Holocaust because the Holocaust was just too big and inclusive of so many different events. And if we reach a point in history where it can actually be diminished to a single, universal narrative, I am positive that a) it will be hundreds of years from now and b) that narrative won’t be _Schindler’s List_. My “cite” is simply that it’s taught in schools as history; that Richard Dreyfuss, in his speech at the Oscars that dreadful night, said something like “This movie isn’t just about history, it \*is \*history”; and the anecdotal evidence of seeing what movies rent to what customers and what questions they ask in this regard. And even if it’s not diminished to a “_single_, universal narrative,” to have the default narrative; the most widely experienced narrative; be a narrative in which a Holocaust denier would find nothing to object to, is horrifying to me. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550/200 "2009-02-14T01:27:17Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think that at the bottom of this debate are two very different ways at looking at the Holocaust. In a nutshell, most people take a “universal” approach to the Holocaust, and ask themselves “How can we prevent ourselves from doing this sort of thing again?” However, many Jews - such as myself and perhaps Spielberg - see the Shoah as a \*personal \*event. We study it not to understand the minds of the perpetrators, but rather those of the survivors - because we know it will happen again, and next time we want to be ready. You can’t prevent evil. You can only defeat it, or survive it. > > That’s what “Never again” means. It means, “That’s the last time we let you do that to us.” 400 kms away from my birthplace - San Miguel de Tucumán - are located the ruins of Quilmes. Although smaller they are as spectacular as Machu Pichu and just as beautiful. In 1666 the governor of Tucumán, Marquis Alonso de Mercado y Villacorta finished the final campaign against the Quilmes indians. Their city (now in ruins) was sieged and taken by assault, those that survived were sent away, 1500 kms to the south, to a place near Buenos Aires now called Quilmes. The ruins, that city and a popular beer are all that remain of those indians. The few survivors of the siege and of the trip refused to breed and their race is now extint. By saying “That’s the last time we let you do that to us” you show that you failed to learn about the holocaust (and history in general). Who is you? Who is us? The victims were simply humans… just as their killers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petty-rants-against-well-liked-movies/484550.md?page=11)