Posted 05 May 2009 - 06:31 PM
Edit: I'm not speaking my mind very clearly n this post. I'm distracted and don't have time to rewrite it. Assume that if something sounds deliberately offensive to you, either you misunderstood my point or tone, or I mispoke. I'm trying to discuss here, not troll. That said....
Someone has to be the bad guys in a war movie. Once you've decided the war you will make a movie about is WWII, the choices of who is going to get gunned down are limited.
I can understand your frustration. WWII is probably the most popular war to make movies and games about, and the Germans are the bad guys in every one. I can see how that could get old. That being said, I don't know how much stock I put in the "Nazi with a heart of gold" idea. Sure, they weren't all evil, many were just regular guys, but they were doing the dirty work for the Fuhrer. "I was only taking orders" will only go so far.
I hope you understand that I am not talking about all Germans, either past or present. I'm talking about soldiers and party members during WWII. Hitler was pretty up front about a lot of his anti-semitic ideas and it was pretty clear once things got rolling that he was planning some major invasions. Sure there were some who were just born on the wrong side and just wanted to rebuild the country and fix the economy and whatnot, but I bet a lot of the the nazis knew that invading defenseless countries and systematic racism was not very nice but they joined up anyways.
Here's an analogy that may or may not work. Think of modern movies featuring american indians. The US government has been repeatedly shown in movies as being "bad" towards the indians, what with all the genocide and all. (Think dances with Wolves.) By now, I kind of feel like "ok, I get it, we were mean to them." However, I'm not going to claim that this depiction is unfair. It's fair as hell. The government, and the physical manifestation of its will the US army, did some evil stuff. If Tarantino made a movie about a bunch of nerdy indians (depicted as the good guys) who went and fought the US army (depicted as the bad guys) I think he would have a legit point. I understand that many of the US soldiers were just born into their circumstances, or had reasons they felt what they were doing was morally acceptable. However, that doesn't change the fact that in the context of that conflict, the US army were the bad guys. You won't see many movies (anymore) showing the Indians as the bad guys and the US government as the good guys.
I'm not saying that all Germans were or are Nazis. A war movie can show both sides in shades of grey, or have clear cut White Hats vs. Black Hats. If your movie is going to show a lot of slaughter, it will be easier to accept by an audience if they can somehow feel that the guys getting shot deserved it. It's just that if you want a war in recent memory with a clear cut bad and good side, WWII is probably the route you will take. The Nazis were the bad guys.
Hell, forget recent memory, I'm having trouble thinking of many wars EVER with such a clear distinction between the goodies and the baddies. One side has a goal of genocide and world domination through military invasion. The other side just wants to stop that from happening. Guess which side audiences would rather see get shot in a movie?
Sorry about longpost. I sometimes get diarrhea of the keyboard.
For the record, I've got quite a bit of German in me myself. The wife is Polish.
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