Thursday, September 19, 2013

ADL Protests Saudi TV 's "Inglorious Bastards" Promo Featuring Hitler

The ADL's Foxman is up in arms:
A Saudi satellite television network’s use of Adolf Hitler’s image to promote its September programming is drawing the ire of Jewish groups. 
The ad campaign for Dubai-based MBC Action features clips from the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film “Inglourious Basterds,” where the Nazi dictator is shown speaking in a room to other Nazi officials. 
Arabic subtitles inserted under the images focus on the television network’s new programming in September. Hitler is made to say, “Look at the achievements of MBC Action. They will control the entire region. They are preparing for a campaign called ‘September to Remember.’” 
“This offensive and outrageous campaign trivializes the Holocaust by turning Hitler into a cartoonish poster child,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. 
“Perhaps someone thought all of this was funny, but one wonders how it will play across the Arab World, where there is scant education about the murder of six million Jews and millions of others by Hitler and the Nazis and where Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism are rampant?” Foxman asks...
I'm pretty sure the Hitler promo will play very well in that part of the world. One wonders, though, what viewers will make of the Tarantino film, a bloody action flick wherein Jews exact revenge on Nazis. I have a feeling that, not only will they root for the Nazis, they will also see it as reaffirming their impression that Jews are innately vengeful and blood-thirsty. Which is to say, I know that Tarantino did not intend to create a cinematic blood libel, but it is almost inevitable that Jew-haters would view it as such. Which is to say, the problem here is not the Hitler ad. It's the worldview.

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