• Hitlerian Hilarity-Comments on Mel Brooks' 1983 film-To Be or Not to Be

  • Aug 9 2023
  • Length: 56 mins
  • Podcast

Hitlerian Hilarity-Comments on Mel Brooks' 1983 film-To Be or Not to Be

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  • Summary

  • Episode 76: Antisemitism, Humor, and the Holocaust:
    Lubitsch Vs. Brooks

    (Except for the introductory initial analysis of
    Shakespeare’s Shylock in the combined contexts of Antisemitism, Feminism, and the Jewish Humor Genre, this podcast will be of interest primarily to movie buffs who have seen the Ernst Lubitsch Classic comedy “To Be or Not To Be” starring Jack Benny, as well as Mel Brooks’ remake.)

    A lively debate is presented featuring two enthusiastic Rabbinic movie aficionados– Rabbi Joseph Kolakowski and Rabbi Avramel Kivelevitz – along with Yacov
    Freedman, Senior Podcast Producer at Turner Classic Movies -- as they contrast critically the cinematic virtues of the two comedy productions of To Be or Not
    to Be: the 1942 original directed by Ernst Lubitsch, co-starring Jack Benny with Carole Lombard and the
    1983 version produced by Mel Brooks, co-starring
    Brooks and Anne Bancroft. R. Kivelevitz introduces the screenplay as a daring approach to the Holocaust, the Nazis, Jewish persecution, and antisemitism.
    Before the movie buffs go at each other, Prof. Juni structures the session by demarcating the salient psychosocial factors which render Mel Brooks’ humorous treatment of a garb-bag of sensitive issues problematic. Juni’s first focus is on Shylock’s famous soliloquy: “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?
    If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Basing himself on Harold
    Bloom’s (1998) “Shakespeare: The Invention Of The Human,” Juni argues that, given Shakespeare’s
    antisemitic credentials, Shylock is intended to be played as an out-of-line villain and not as a sympathetic advocate for human rights. As such, Shylock is a money grubbing human caricature, who has grown too big for his britches – upon whom Shakespeare (on behalf of Christianity) then wreaks revenge that dwarfs the misery heaped upon
    Tevye the Milkman by the Gentile world. Juni then draws parallels to the depiction of Negro slaves as sub-human in the classics, and to the contemporary vilification of Women’s suffrage advocates. Another theme highlighted by Juni is the devaluation of women portrayed so boldly by Brooks’ casting of Anne Bancroft, his primary co-star, as a loose women
    with marginal values. Indeed, Brooks comes close to objectifying her as an object akin to that of Ann Dawson’s role in King Kong. The major flashpoint for Juni,however, is Brooks’ use of humor in dealing with Nazi atrocities – specifically,
    as he transforms evil inro buffoonery (continuing his approach from “The Producers”).
    Based on his extensive research on humor, Juni argues that the intent of humor is to
    tone down disapproval, instead of explicitly expressing unbridled frontal aggression. Reflecting the stance of a number of critics of Holocaust Humor,
    Juni argues that Brooks diminishes the atrocity of the Holocaust by portraying it as part of a cinematic farce. The Nazis and their heinous collaborators do not
    deserve the “kid gloves” finesse of humor, they should be subjected to the scorn they deserve.

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