Leave it to Oliver Stone to come up with the idea of a miniseries to put the likes of Stalin and Hitler “in context.” Oh, and for good measure, let’s toss in Joe McCarthy, whose mission was to expose Communists in the U.S. government.
What makes him a natural for this kind of project is Stone’s admiration for Fidel Castro – his documentary about the Cuban dictator (shelved by HBO – kudos to them) attempted to “portray the human figure” – and Hugo Chavez (whom he “warmly embraced” when on some kind of fact-finding tour of Latin America).
What is it with Hollywoodites and dictators? Michael Medved tries to explain:
“Many people in the entertainment industry feel guilty about their own wealth. They know that they earned it in an arbitrary way, not because they are so much better than someone who’s still working as a waiter in Beverly Hills, but they earned it out of luck. They believe that all capitalism works that way – that people have goodies showered on them not because of their own hard work or creativity, but because of good fortune and luck. That guilt produces this fascination with socialism.”
Feeling guilty, guys? Why not give that excess money to a worthy charity? Or you could decline the big-buck paychecks and ask for something a little more in keeping with what, say, someone working at a convenience store would earn. But I digress.
Stone’s upcoming 10-part miniseries for Showtime, called “Secret History of America”…
…promises to focus on events that ‘at the time went under-reported, but crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history of the last 60 years.’ Subjects in ‘History’ include President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan and the origins of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Of the monsters Stalin and Hitler (and McCarthy!), Stone said,
“Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,” Stone told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour in Pasadena.
“Stalin has a complete other story,” Stone said. “Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any single person. We can’t judge people as only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’ Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He’s the product of a series of actions. It’s cause and effect … People in America don’t know the connection between WWI and WWII … I’ve been able to walk in Stalin’s shoes and Hitler’s shoes to understand their point of view. We’re going to educate our minds and liberalize them and broaden them. We want to move beyond opinions … Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM. Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated.”
Um, I am familiar with the connection between WWI and WWII. Bitter because they lost, bitter because they lost a lot of land, and bitter because they were ordered to pay billions in reparations that took a heavy toll on their economy (they could not afford to pay it all), Germans were ripe for exploitation, and Hitler was the “right man” at the “right time.” Not everyone in America is as in awe of your intellect as you are, Oliver.
I suppose we should have a pity party for Hitler. His dad was abusive, he didn’t do well in school due to his innate laziness, didn’t have lots of friends and he was rejected from art school. He also wasn’t very attractive and had a problem with flatulence, poor guy. Then again, there are plenty of ugly, gassy people whose relationship with their parents wasn’t the greatest who didn’t get into the school of their choice, but not everyone makes up for past failures by coming up with the “Final Solution,” killing six million Jews and other “undesirables,” and inciting a war that involved most of the world’s nations in one way or another and ended with over 70 million dead.
Couldn’t he have just gone on Oprah or Dr. Phil instead?
Will Joe Kennedy, patriarch of the “Kennedy Dynasty,” be included in the miniseries as a man who welcomed Hitler because he was a “welcome solution” to the problem of those pesky Jews? Just curious.
We could feel sorry for Stalin too. Imagine being saddled with the birth name Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili! Geez, how do you even say that? But Hollywood stars are in the habit of changing their names too, so maybe that’s one way they can relate. Stalin’s father was a cobbler (shoemaker) and an alcoholic, his mother was a maid, he contracted smallpox and he suffered from the same kind of poverty that most Russian peasants did in the late 1800s and early 1900s. (He earned better grades than Hitler did, though. Snap! Sounds pretty depressing.
But it’s not every pockmarked Russian peasant who can claim to have not only been a part of the group who toppled a royal dynasty, but also engineered a famine in Ukraine that killed some 7 million people because they dared to seek independence from his glorious rule. Gosh, who wouldn’t revel in the government seizure of all privately-owned land and livestock in a predominantly agricultural society?
And speaking of “context,” had we not dropped the bomb on Japan, the Japanese would have kept on fighting, keeping the war going on for who knows how much longer, until “all Japanese were killed.” And now we’re allies. Who would have predicted that in 1945? The world is a strange and wondrous place.
But fear not, patriotic Americans: Big Hollywood’s Kurt Schlichter has Oliver Stone’s number:
The real “Secret History” that Stone won’t disclose involves the identity of the Americans who actually thought the Nazis had quite a lot to offer with their collectivist, anti-capitalist vision, their refusal to let things like democracy stop their agenda, and their fondness for eugenics. Here’s a hint: It starts with a “P” and ends with a “rogressives.”
Hmmm…you mean that Sen. Joe McCarthy was right all along?
I wonder if that’s the kind of context Stone is looking for?
Somehow, I doubt it.