# Who's buying the Schindler's List DVD? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 6, 2004, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845 "2004-03-06T13:30:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Teelo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@Teelo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teelo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/21 "2004-03-08T00:46:19Z")
Ahem… I’ll rent it, because I can hardly remember it. ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/22 "2004-03-08T12:03:14Z")
> [@Monkeypants](#): > > Your choice of words suggests that Jews have intentionally tried to hide the fact that homosexuals, the disabled, Roma, Russians, and Poles were murdered in the millions, when this is completely untrue. Schindler’s List is not intended to be an all-encompassing historical lesson about the Holocaust. Perhaps you’re right, but Spielberg missed his chance to correct a lot of widely-believed fallacies about the Holocaust. How difficult would it have been to mention, if only in passing, that the Nazis were killing non-Jewish minorities as well? But I guess it’s only human nature that leads filmmakers to subjects that affect them and their own ethnic history. For instance (looking at **Wumpus** ’s List, heh) _Ararat_ was made by an exiled Armenian. (Nice film, too – I never knew about the Armenian genocide before I saw it.) And how likely is it that _Killing Fields_ would have been made, if the story didn’t center on two American journalists, including Dith Pran? And kindly take your anti-Semetic accusations elsewhere, please. Being critical of the motivations of any particular ethnic/racial group is NOT prejudice, despite what the P.C. crowd wants to believe. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/23 "2004-03-08T14:26:43Z")
> [@KGS](#): > > Perhaps you’re right, but Spielberg missed his chance to correct a lot of widely-believed fallacies about the Holocaust. How difficult would it have been to mention, if only in passing, that the Nazis were killing non-Jewish minorities as well? Frankly, any attempt to do that would have been very out of character for ANYONE in the movie. Schindler, in particular, was, as I’ve said before, one hell of a cold fish, and until the Holocaust affected him personally by making him realize that those fleshy automatons in his factory were actually humans with redeeming qualities he didn’t care. He had to be metaphorically hit over the head to realize what was going on was wrong. IMNSHO a movie’s first, foremost responsibility is to entertain, and when you try to make your characters say something that’s that far out of line with the rest of their nature, you set up cognitive dissonance - which usually kills the suspension of willful disbelief that any story needs to be accepted. > [@KGS](#): > > But I guess it’s only human nature that leads filmmakers to subjects that affect them and their own ethnic history. For instance (looking at **Wumpus** ’s List, heh) _Ararat_ was made by an exiled Armenian. (Nice film, too – I never knew about the Armenian genocide before I saw it.) And how likely is it that _Killing Fields_ would have been made, if the story didn’t center on two American journalists, including Dith Pran? True. However, that’s not the point that your first post seemed to make. And the decision to have **The Killing Fields** focus on two Americans seems far more an attempt to make the story more immediate, and accessible, to one of the more provincial audiences in the world - the American film going public - rather than a lack of interest or concern about the Cambodian genocide. > [@KGS](#): > > And kindly take your anti-Semetic accusations elsewhere, please. Being critical of the motivations of any particular ethnic/racial group is NOT prejudice, despite what the P.C. crowd wants to believe. Being critical is different from attacking, and to my mind, your previous comments did read like an attack, rather than a criticism. It is a matter of tone, not necessarily content. If you want to be critical, take the effort to make your comments read as a criticism. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/24 "2004-03-08T14:30:38Z")
> [@KGS](#): > > Perhaps you’re right, but Spielberg missed his chance to correct a lot of widely-believed fallacies about the Holocaust. How difficult would it have been to mention, if only in passing, that the Nazis were killing non-Jewish minorities as well? Because the film is not about the Holocaust as a whole, but rather about one man, Oskar Schindler, who made a difference by saving _Jews_, not non-Jews. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/25 "2004-03-08T14:53:24Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > Buy the DVD, don’t buy it, who cares? > What’s the purpose of getting weepy over the grim fate meted out to Jews murdered decades before most of us were born, when we ignore the mass destruction of innocents happening today? > > **Schindler’s List** means nothing because we’ve learned nothing from it. > > You want to do something useful? Take the 20 bucks you would have paid for the DVD and send it to the International Red Cross for Haitian and Iraqi relief. My we are very serious aren’t we? How about wanting to own it becasue it’s a fine example of movie making. Why weep? Well it’s bloody heartbreaking that’s why. I’ve bought lots of historical movies not just for the intellectual content but for the entertainment level. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/26 "2004-03-08T15:46:03Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > My we are very serious aren’t we? > > How about wanting to own it becasue it’s a fine example of movie making. > > Why weep? Well it’s bloody heartbreaking that’s why. > > I’ve bought lots of historical movies not just for the intellectual content but for the entertainment level. Meh, I wrote that post at 3 in the morning and I was thinking Very Dark Thoughts. I’m over it now, so buy the DVD, make some popcorn, and enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![beajerry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@beajerry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beajerry)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/27 "2004-03-08T16:27:38Z")
Who’s buying the Schindler’s List DVD? Not Mel Gibson’s dad! ---
**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:** [March 8, 2004, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/28 "2004-03-08T16:48:21Z")
I’m on gobear’s side (rare as that may be 😉 ). Schindler’s List is an atrocity that minimizes the Holocaust. In MY darker thought, gobear, I’d posit that Schindler’s List has done more to \*enable \* the horrors you enumerate than to discourage them. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845/29 "2004-03-08T21:16:41Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > I’m on gobear’s side (rare as that may be 😉 ). Schindler’s List is an atrocity that minimizes the Holocaust. In MY darker thought, gobear, I’d posit that Schindler’s List has done more to \*enable \* the horrors you enumerate than to discourage them. Ummmm… what? Can you flesh out thes seemingly outrageous claims with any more details or arguments? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whos-buying-the-schindlers-list-dvd/232845.md?page=1)