Hmmm... just a passing comment....

Annti knows I love me some Gollum from Lord of the Rings. And sent me a silly YouTube mash-up which used a certain speech from a movie about Hitler, and Gollum is doing the rant. There are a lot of mash-ups from that film on YouTube, and none of them are funny. At all.

I got out of there in twenty seconds, after realising what was going on there.

And said, that is why we have laws in Germany and Austria that prohibit any sort of glorification of 'him', or in some cases even making fun. Adi wasn't a joke.

She countered with the original film, 'The Producers', and Mel Brooks, and how it was justified.

And I said, 'Yes, that was, but it was his right to do so, just like it was Charlie Chaplin's right to do 'The Great Dictator', and both were right for their times.' 'And how I had taken Peter to see 'The Producers' at an art house cinema here, and how shocked he was. (It was with Gene Wilder and the incomparable Zero Mostel.)

I think the point is.... forty years later, the satire that shocked became kitsch. Satire has a shelf-life, you know? Today, 'Gulliver's Travels' is a nice, kitschy fairy tale for children, nowadays, for instance. But when it was written, it was a vicious satire about the state of government in the UK.

Things change, people like to forget, and some people like to re-write history, and make it into something 'funny'. But some people are always out there with their white supremicist attitooodes, and want to make something very dark harmless.

I can't wait for the cartoon books about 'Jolly Joe Stalin', and a Tarantino version of Pol Pot. And making fun of Kim Jong IL??? Makes me uncomfortable already, although I like the Daily Show well enough...

I guess what I am trying to say is... it is well and fine to do satire, and go for the jugular if you are threatened.

But if you are outside the culture, one really should take a hands off attitude, or tread more lightly.

It is like the South Park team taking on the Mohammed controversy, and then getting death threats. As happened last week. Publicity stunt? Who is being served by this shit?

If everyone pushes all the boundaries, all the time.... I do not see how that serves any good purpose.

No, am not getting conservative in my old age. But some of this doesn't make much sense to me...

And making Hitler 'harmless' and a crazy coot... sorry, but I cannot laugh.