Simps combines a very, very low form of an already low-grade pop-historical knowledge of the Nazis and the Shoah with his fully typical and entirely parochial bigotry to bear on questions of why the Nazis murdered almost certainly more than six-million Jews for being Jews. I have come to believe the "six million" figure is too low as well as others often repeated.
The Nazis didn't think the Jews were not "white" that wasn't how they classified people on a Darwinian scale of fitness. They certainly didn't classify the Slavic people who they fully intended to exterminate - except for a fixed number to be kept as slaves - as "non-white" they classified them as "non-Aryan." That was the criterion they used to draw up their list of people to be murdered from the face of the Earth, a scale of fitness which Stupy's cartoon heroic, imaginary Darwin fully believed in, himself, if in a decidedly English instead of German flavor of that poison. He fully endorsed the first German exposition of that in Darwinian terms by the proto-Nazi Ernst Haeckel in his The History of Creation. He had a different list of who was to go from the ones the Nazis wrote up but he had one. I have no doubt that in the fullness of time, had they prevailed, they would have been constantly looking for new lists of people to murder. Certainly in Europe where the obviously white population would have been killed for not being linked to "Aryans". I suspect the Celts would have been one such group in later murders, Darwin would have certainly included the Irish in such a list of the biologically degraded, though, oddly, he didn't include the Celts in Scotland. Britain had already proved they were more than ready to kill off millions in Ireland before Hitler was born.
I've dealt with this exhaustively in posts Simels has combed to look for stuff he can make hay with, though he's clearly learned nothing from it. I would guess he's never looked up the voluminous documentation I provided, with links and long passages of quotes. The non-Jewish list of those to be exterminated - Hitler explicitly told the German officers who invaded Poland to murder every Pole, men, women and child - don't matter to him. Neither does a more complex history told in German and biological terms, not in terms of American pop-historical ones. But if you want to understand why the Nazis did what they did, that's what you've got to deal with, them and the science that was informing them.
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ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, you’re crying crocodile tears for Carl Reiner, a guy who who you couldn’t quote a single joke he was responsible for.
ReplyDeleteLet alone understand.
DeleteI don't cry for a 98 year old man who dies of natural causes, or one my age, really, Stupy, or even your age. Unlike you I believe he is in a better place. So, how many ways do you have to say, "I got nuthin'"? I loved his work since Your Show of Shows, I've seen a rather remarkable much of it, especially considering I gave up Hollywood in the 70s and TV a long time ago. I suspect he was pleasantly surprised to find out he was wrong about the afterlife. In fact, I'm sure of it.
DeleteStupy, you're a privileged, white, straight, American male from middle-class affluence, a beneficiary of the post-WWII boom in which even someone who chose post-literacy could have a . . . um . . . "writing" career. Or do you think Ben Shapiro, Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz, Steve Miller, etc. are blah like you?
Have you ever owned a 2000 Year Old Man Reiner/Brooks album?
ReplyDeleteIf not, shut your “I don’t understand comedy (particularly Jewish post-Holocaust comedy)” pie hole.
A book that is funny stops being funny if you read it too frequently. Though when someone is as attention deficient as you are and you didn't really pay attention or retain anything, maybe that's different. I'm talking about people of average or greater intelligence. Groucho said it best when Mike Nichols told him he'd watched Night At The Opera 17 times, "That's ridiculous, to see a picture 17 times." I'll stick by Groucho's advice, you stick your head where you keep it.
DeleteThat entire paragraph proves you have no sense of humor -- or even a remote concept of what humor is -- conclusively.
DeleteBut god bless you for having the lack of self-awareness to posit it.
Says someone who bombed at improv-nite and thought he was Carl Reiner.
DeleteSays the moron who told me that real Jews were offended by THE PRODUCERS.
ReplyDeleteYet another of the many things Steve Simels has made up for me to have said when I never said that. I never said anything remotely like that because, to start with, I'd never do what he does, I'D NEVER CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR "REAL JEWS". I liked the movie, I'd probably watch just about anything with Zero Mostel in it, I adored him. What I said was that I loved Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in the movie, I wasn't so fond of the "Springtime for Hitler" part of it. Unlike Simps I've never figured I was "Jews". I wondered if Holocaust survivors would find it as funny as some schmuck who grew up in the United States after the war was over who had never been in any real danger in his affluent, white privileged, straight white affluent male American life.
DeleteAnd you know that inmates of death camps were offended by Mel Brooks exactly how?
ReplyDeleteBecause of your reading of the splendid historical research of Dr. Otto Yerasss?
I never said I knew what they thought, you're the one who makes that kind of statement putting it into the mouths of other people and pretending they said it. I said I doubted they'd have found it funny. That's the difference between me and you, I'm not disgustingly egomaniacal and stupid enough to think I could decide that for anyone else, you do it all the time.
DeleteYour mommy and daddy spoiled you, yours is the kind of character defect that can only come from a deep seated Trumpian kind of retarded development from a really bad case of the terrible-twos. And now you're the same age of Trump and, well, you're so stupid you display it and have to depend on some of the dumber Eschatots to pretend not to notice.
Here's a clue, shithead -- what you know about the Holocaust is what you know about what's funny.
ReplyDeleteWhich is to say -- nothing.
You thought Berlin Diary was about the "final solution" when the book ends before that officially began. You didn't know about ht T4 practice run for it until I told you about it, you may have had some vague notion about the other millions killed in the Nazi genocides, not that you cared about them because you figured you couldn't make those all about you. I know it's no laughing matter. I believe Mel Brooks said the same thing, I'm not sure about Reiner but I can't imagine he thought it was a fit topic for comedy. Your boy Seth would go there, I'm sure of it.
DeleteThe raison d'etre of the movie is the swindle of mounting a flop so they can make a bundle on the insurance, how stupid are you? They make that obvious in the movie or were you just dazzled by the singing-dancing and costumes? You're a stereotype of a gay sissy, you know that, Simps?
ReplyDeleteAnd you with a degree in theater arts from an accredited American cornflake college have to have what a movie plot is explained to you by a music major. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE MEL BROOKS GOT HIS IDEA FOR THE PLOT, THE PLOT IS THE THING. "SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER" IS A PLOT DEVICE CREATED TO SUPPORT, IT IS THE "GUARANTEED BOMB" THAT THE FRAUDSTERS CHOOSE FOR THEIR INSURANCE SCAM. Geesh, Stupy, how stupid do you have to be. "Springtime for Hitler" was not the raison d'etre for the movie, he could have easily had the same plot with some other guaranteed bomb. Your claim that he stole the plot from another comedy only shows that it could have been any number of equally bad musicals. Mel Brooks certainly had a wide range of experience of knowing about absolute turkeys that were guaranteed to fold, the kind of insurance he depended on for his plot wouldn't have been invented if those didn't exist. ALL of the comedy that Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder perform in the movie revolves around the swindle and their grift as well as Bialystok's typical show-biz sleaze.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder no one wanted you in the theater, Simps, you literally don't know the first thing about how it works. I must have learned more playing piano for the few shows I did that for than you learned from "studying" "theater arts". It might also account for how I gave up on the movies because so many of them suck so much while you didn't notice.
The point of the movie is SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER. That's why Mel made it.
ReplyDeleteJeebus, it's like trying to explain something to one of the lower mollusks.
"Springtime for Hitler" only works as a plot device, it would be as appalling as Bialystok considered it to be if it existed without that context. It being a "hit" in the movie is certainly based on Brooks expecting his fictitious audience finding it as absurd as it would be. Considering, though, the course of American comedy and theater, not to mention the fucking movies, to promote racism, other forms of bigotry, militarism and fascism, his idea that an audience would have HAD TO find it ridiculous instead of persuasive is a rather stupid assumption. It may have seemed a safe one to make in Brooks' milieu in the mid 1960s, the intervening half-century proved how wrong he was, as, indeed, the entire history of the movie industry had already by that time. It's a funny movie but its central premise and assumptions are dangerously wrong.
DeleteDid I say one of the lower mollusks? I should have said a paramecium.
ReplyDeleteStupy, you forget, I know you know nothing about biology except for a few items of recognition vocabulary. And apparently you don't know what a plot is, as well. I remember a friend of mine who was getting her BA in music the same time I was, she was what you are not, very well read, very intelligent, very funny and witty, she told me that her education (she was Phi Beta Kappa in science) had mostly prepared her to say a few words, and, really, Simps, she had one whereas you and the Eschatots mostly just have paper.
DeleteHere’s a clue, Sparky — you have to be witty to recognize wit in others. Obviously, that leaves you out.
ReplyDeleteSparky: "Which explains why you don't get my sense of humor"
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the world: "Sparky has a sense of humor? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
You really think that that's going to bother me. That's funny. Mildly funny but unintentionally funny. That you think it's going to bother me. Let me guess, Simps, you thought Dennis Miller was funny when he was on SNL. Because he was on SNL. You probably thought Chevy Chase was a comic genius too, didn't you.
DeleteWell, then I'm way ahead of you because everything about you is the stupidest thing.
DeleteGet back to me when anybody thinks you're remotely a good writer.
DeleteAgain you prove what I said, I've never mistaken myself for a writer and it doesn't bother me one bit to have a post-literate boob like you say that.
Delete"Je ne suis pas aveugle, got her howling with laughter during a rehearsal once."
ReplyDeleteA knee slapper in any language.
What was that you were saying -- that you have a sense of humor? Or any concept of what comedy is?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, dear. I have to teach you about the humor of context as well? And you the Clown of Klown Kollege, the Eschaton Aethenaeum, Duncan's Dunce. I won't tell you about what I said to one of the more obnoxious music majors the day she showed up with a hicky on her neck. That got some laughs, though it was the joke of a c. 20 year old. I'd never be that mean to even an obnoxious teenager now. An obnoxious geezer who acts like a 12-year-old, on the other hand, I've got no problem with mocking. You know as much about comedy as you do what you're supposed to like in 1960s white-bread pop music. And that's ALL you know about it. You're so stupid you don't even know the most obvious thing about it, age withers it, familiarity stales it, it needs infinite variety of a kind you are incapable of. As it turns out most comedians can't keep it up consistently. Even the best ones find it hard, Carl Reiner when he stood in for Dick Cavett once, I watched his opening monologue which was just awful, and he was very capable of being funny decades after that. You, on the other hand, I saw the original, the third tier knock-off is just stale. The only reason anyone at Eschaton thinks those old routines are amusing is because a lot of them are as post-literate as you are, only in your case they're more post-videocy. If you were ten years younger than me, I wouldn't have seen the same things you do a take on because I stopped watching when I realized it was a waste of time and it wasn't funny to start with. Gilda Radner just barely made it into my period of TV watching, and I didn't think she was all that funny. None of those jerks on SNL were.
Delete"age withers it [comedy], familiarity stales it"
ReplyDeleteRight, shithead. That's why people are still howling with laughter over A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, 85 years after it opened.
Depends, I laughed but didn't howl at it when I saw it. I don't think I saw it more than once. I'd imagine people still laugh when they see it the first time while it's still fresh for them. If they watched it 17 times and howled I'd suspect their memory was slipping seriously or they were as stupid as a Simels. Duck Soup is a movie I might watch again but I saw it enough times so it didn't seem fresh to me the last time I saw it. Even the best movies of WC Fields and Mae West and Charlie Chaplin don't stand too many viewings. Many of them didn't even stand the test of time the first time I saw them. I remember a talkie with Buster Keaton Parlor Bedroom and Bath that I couldn't take and I adore Buster Keaton. I'll bet you howled at Animal House, didn't you.
DeleteAnybody who doesn’t think ANIMAL HOUSE is hilarious is too stupid to be allowed to cut their own meat. Elmer Bernstein’s orchestral score alone is comedy gold.
Delete''We wanted to treat young people with dignity, to show that they have feelings, that they're as confused and questioning as adults. Sure, young people identify with movies like 'Porky's,' but they can also relate to a sweet film like this. I don't think there's been a film like this for a long time.''
ReplyDelete''I wouldn't know how to make a 'Porky's' or an 'Animal House' even if I wanted to,'' he said. '' 'Animal House' showed the raucous side of youth and made a lot of money in the process, so of course there were more films which showed only that one side of youth. 'The Sure Thing' says, yes, there's something else going on with young people. They're serious,deep- thinking and they do care who they sleep with.''
THE SURE THING is a lovely film.
ReplyDeleteWhat possible difference does that make to the fact that ANIMAL HOUSE -- which, BTW, was a period piece, unlike THE SURE THING -- is a profane, hilarious comedy masterpiece?
The answer is: No difference. Enjoy your stupidity.
You aren't a comedian, Simps, you're a symptom of the mental illness of post-literacy. Animal House Is a hymn to stupidity. It is a hymn to asshole affluent white male supremacy and the irresponsibility of privilege made by men who wish that wasn't passing for men like you. It is a hymn to the kind of guy Trump was as hero.
DeleteJohn Belushi was never very funny he, as well, was a symptom, Bill Murray is funnier but that's because he c can act too. And he's healthily disdainful of Hollywood. The Blues Brothers was funnier than Animal House but it was the musicians who carried it. I wouldn't watch it for most of the comedy.