Biographical moves/TV series: Should there be guidelines?

For a series that covers four hours and is constrained to history, this was not only educational but gripping drama too. I disagree with the popular pronouncement that this is some attempt to humanize Hitler. Hitler doesn't need humanizing, he was human and all that is necessary to fear somebody like Hitler is to understand his personal history better. This movie goes a long way towards doing that.

An important point that the series makes is that Hitler was not all there was to Nazi Germany, there was the Nazi party too and the social, historical and cultural forces that brought it into being. All these things are nicely fitted in to the story.

Unless I miss my guess, you seem to be criticising the series for portraying Hitler as merely and trivially 'evil'. Curiously, this reviewer at Imdb seems to think that, contrary to what, apparently, some critics alleged, the series did not "humanise" Hitler.

Shows, perhaps, that a sufficiently nuanced drama is capable of multiple interpretations?

Quote:

For a series that covers four hours and is constrained to history, this was not only educational but gripping drama too. I disagree with the popular pronouncement that this is some attempt to humanize Hitler. Hitler doesn't need humanizing, he was human and all that is necessary to fear somebody like Hitler is to understand his personal history better. This movie goes a long way towards doing that.

An important point that the series makes is that Hitler was not all there was to Nazi Germany, there was the Nazi party too and the social, historical and cultural forces that brought it into being. All these things are nicely fitted in to the story.

I realize the title of this topic sounds somewhat vague, and I sincerely apologize. I have no clue on how to address my topic more succinct then this.

I have just watched the TV series (2 parts) titled

Hitler: the rise of evil

As the title already suggests, Hitler is depicted as an 'evil' man. For those not familiar with this particular series, it depicts the life of Hitler from his youth up to the moment where he is chosen as Reichspresident.

I'll be brief and say that this series does not place him in a particularly favorable light. They place him squarely at the centre point of every move made by the Nazi party, and make him out as some sort of paranoid, delusional man who, despite his shortcomings, manages to control, twist and steer every person surrounding him, resulting in him becoming Chancellor and later on president.

But is this not dangerous? Is it not perilous to look back on the life of this one man, and show it from a morally slanted point of view? It's certainly a comfortable thought, to a) blame one individual for the rise of the Nazi party and World War II and b) make this person out to be some sort of villainous, disturbed mastermind.

I fear that this lulls us into a false sense of security. By making this one person out as evil, the director in effect distances his audience from this person. He lacks moral fiber, he has no redeeming qualities. In effect, they make him out as less then human, and that is the danger, because Hitler, of course, was just as human as you or I. He was no monster per se. Perhaps he was a bit disturbed, but he was a product of his times.
Just as we are a product of our times.

Can we afford to distance ourselves from this man? He was not some sort of monster. He was a man, of flesh and blood. So was Charles Manson, so was Ted Bundy. When we look at them through a moral lense, they become monsters. And in labelling them as such, we forget that they are, first and foremost, men. People with dreams and goals of their own, just like every one of us has.

My question is: Can we afford to vilify people in our history? Is it not wiser and safer for our society at large to depict such people not as villains but as... people? So that we always get that hidden warning to be aware that it could happen in our time as well, and that we should always be alert?

I couldn't agree with you more...and not just "historical" figures.


I am constantly shocked here on A2k, for instance, at what I see as a psychological defence mechanism, played out again and again, as various people (eg paedophiles, terrorists, muslims etc.) are denounced as non-human, deserving of being raped in prison, tortured etc...because people do not like what they have done. (Usually what they have done is about similarly not acknowledging and empathising with the feelings, rights and humanity of others, and acting upon this failure, so it all becomes very Orouborous-like, and self-sustaining.)


The thing about this (to my mind) extremely primitive defence, is that it is a way of denying our own capacity for evil and harmful behaviour, and I think that acknowledging the humanity of evil, and our own capacity for it, is a damn fine step towards NOT acting upon our baser impulses.....similarly, I think, for countries and leaders to deny THEIR capacity for appalling behaviour, and acting as though evil is contained only in those they happen to be against at the time, is a recipe for both leaders like Hitler, Saddam, and for acts like the American invasion of Iraq.



I do not think regarding the Hitlers etc as simple evocations of evil, and not seeking to understand not only what created them and allowed them to flourish, but also our own inner Hitlers, is a position of any usefulness or merit.