I’m in a mood so I figured I’d rant for awhile about why I hate Schindler’s List and think it’s basically Jewish suffering porn designed to make Americans feel comfortably righteous.

1. It’s pandering bullshit.

Spielberg does an excellent job shielding the viewer from any sense that they could possibly have ever gotten caught up in all that hideous Jew-killing nonsense - why, it’s so uncivilized! GASP! Clutch those pearls harder!!!

We see pretty much the whole fucking movie through the POV of a straight white male capitalist who saves 1k Jewish people through the power of capitalism.

“Oh but he’s based on a real person!”

Yes. He was a real person, and I want to be very clear that my problem is SPECIFICALLY w/how Spielberg chose to tell that story.

The scene of the ghetto “liquidation” is pretty typical. Shot primarily through Schindler’s POV, we are transfixed by the sight of the little girl in the red coat. Like him, we are heartbroken at our helplessness to save her.

I need to take a moment here for some context/backstory, because I really need to try to express what an absolute social juggernaut Schindler’s List was.

The movie came out at a special time, in 1993, when there was a LOT of extremely high profile awareness of the Holocaust. I think it had to do w/a few things:

1. Someone looked around and realized most Holocaust survivors were in their 70’s and 80’s.

2. Survivors’ children were at the point where they were having their own children, so a LOT of people in America grew up w/the trauma of the Holocaust scratched deep into their brain. It was something you got in your gut.

3. It may sound silly, but I do think authors like Judy Blume & Jane Yolen did a LOT to gently introduce children (girls especially) to what it’s like being Jewish American, and that included dealing w/the Holocaust.

I’m sure there are a lot of other things I’m forgetting about that joined together, but end result the Holocaust was a BFD and this is the atmosphere Schindler’s List dropped into.

The last time I remember seeing people be so absolutely frantic about a movie was Gibson’s execrable Passion of the Christ. SL was the kind of movie people took entire classrooms of children to. People came out of it all fucked up, weeping and wailing—

“—OH WE JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND, how could this have been allowed to happen??? How could someone NOT SAVE THAT ADORABLE TINY CHILD!!??? ONLY A HEARTLESS MONSTER.”

And that pretty much ended America’s conversation about the Holocaust in most people’s eyes. I have always felt that the movie offered NON JEWS a way to expiate their white supremacist guilt, by reassuring themselves OF COURSE WE WOULD BE ONE OF THE GOOD ONES.

And the truth is, no, you probably wouldn’t. The vast majority of people DIDN’T help save their Jewish neighbors/coworkers/family members.

And boom, here we are, w/the people who survived that fucking war still with us, and people are perfectly happy to march down the same jackboot lined street.

It’s like Spielberg’s OTHER White American Passion Play, Amistad, which allows the viewer AGAIN to be reassured that 1. They would NEVER EVER HAVE SUPPORTED SLAVERY if THEY lived back then! 2. The American Justice system will carry us through by upholding the law.

And my response to that bullshit has always been: 1. Most people weren’t abolitionists. Most people looked down on abolitionists. Most people thought they were walking jokes at best and the 1800’s version of dangerous commie bastards at worst.

So I think we can agree the vast majority of people WHO BENEFIT from the unjust system would, if living 150 years ago instead of now, probably UPHOLDING THE UNJUST SYSTEM.

So with that in mind, I’ve always been very suspicious/annoyed by Schindler’s List/Amistad. I think they present themselves as one thing but actually have the opposite effect on the viewer.