Diversity and Representation in Media

I think the gay holocaust isn't as touched upon as the Jewish holocaust, for instance, because the latter involved thousands of children in addition to adults, so it is even more dramatic for most audiences (generally our sympathies lean more radically in affairs that involve children). I also have to assume that for the nazis finding out someone was gay would have to be more difficult than finding out they were jewish, or affiliated to communism, and those things probably overlayed mutually anyway at times, so it is more complicated to portray on film, while it's easier and quicker to tell a story where the thrust is "they found my Jewish lineage and sent me to the concentration camp."

Especially since the gay holocaust involved the Allies who liberated the camps imprisoning them again when they found out they were in the camps for being gay.

Yeah, not much America Fuck Yeah to be had there.

You DO know there are LGBT kids, they are hated, discriminated and even killed, even today. There is no "Only the adults are gay."

Edited by AegisP on Apr 3rd 2024 at 5:50:38 AM

Yeah, I definitely understand the focus on the Jews affected by the Holocaust and don't think that there should be less films about them, just that it would be nice if there were additional films about the other groups (such as gay people) affected by the Holocaust, or at least additional references to the other groups in Jew-focused films (where it would be realistic, I don't know how much the groups were mixed, for example).

That's a very good (though depressing) point.

Edited by king15 on Apr 3rd 2024 at 1:01:01 PM

The issue tends to be that while antisemitism is generally treated as, you know, a bad thing nowadays, some of the prejudices towards other groups that were victimised by the Nazis are still very common.

Like... it's pretty much a punchline that even some pretty open-minded Europeans will say the most horrible shit about Romani people, for example.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Apr 3rd 2024 at 2:55:23 PM

>You DO know there are LGBT kids, they are hated, discriminated and even killed, even today. There is no "Only the adults are gay."

Look, we are discussing this in the context of Nazi Germany, and I highly doubt the Gestapo, evil as they were, took time in the middle of war efforts to track which ones of the children in elementary schools were gay. Like, let's be realistic here.

That's true.

It was only about a month ago that JK Rowling came under fire for denying that Nazis targeted trans people and burned research on transgenderism.

why can't jk rowling just shut up already and stop digging herself further?

She suffer a serious case of twetter adiction and even before her terf reputation consume it.

About gay holocaust not being talked....I think there is a issue that is to talk that the holocaust is being said as jewish issue(That means, that is focus on jewish only more than anything), this left the persecution of comunism, gays, romani, political oponent and a long list relegated to the background. Creating a sort of utterly morbid sense of "the holocaust is the thing doing to jewish people...and else".

Edited by unknowing on Apr 4th 2024 at 3:20:25 PM

Some of the prejudices are interconnected: The book burnings were of a Jewish Doctor's works, and Nazis thought Jews were behind people being gay in an attempt to undermine the master race, ect ect. It's also a bit of a joke that if an antisemite hates capitalism, Jews are capitalists, and if you hate communism Jews are communists. Of course, this also makes the lack of overlap or attention paid to others over all Holocaust movies a little more frustrating.

RE Romani, I am honestly hard pressed to find decent Roma representation in media. Florian went over a few cases of Roma in media, and noted that FMA had the best one.

I just rememebered the Nazi's destroyed the most sympathic clinic ever to Trans people. That's so awful.

This is actually a reason I've seen academics argue to use "Holocaust" only for the Jewish genocide, rather than any of the other genocides that the Nazis perpetrated at the same time. As an historical event, the Holocaust was not simply "the act of putting people in death camps" but also describes the cultural mentality and procedures with which victims were targeted. Slavs, Roma, queer people, disabled people, etc, even socialists were not given the same kind of importance or hunted down as thoroughly - the Nazis even went so far as to send letters to other Axis states asking them "please ship us your Jews so we can kill them", that didn't happen to other demographics - and the reasons for targeting them were often founded on underlying antisemitism.

(There's scholarly and political disagreement over whether that argument is persuasive, of course - Elie Wiesel made a different distinction, that "not all the victims of the Holocaust were Jewish, but all Jews were victims" - but I thought it was worth mentioning.)

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Apr 4th 2024 at 7:41:56 PM

I think that arguments a bit of a slippery slope. It feels that way of thinking could easily be used to try and invalidate the suffering of others in the Holocaust. Yes it was mainly focused on Jews, but I think saying that's it's only a Jewish genocide is unfair. Elie Wiesel's perceptive is probably the best one.

I want to make it clear, I'm not saying that it was any less of a genocide of Jewish people or that it was any less terrible for them, just that there were other groups included in the genocide and I don't think they should be excluded from Holocaust discussions or media (not that that's necessarily what that argument is implying, but I think it could be taken that way).

Edited by king15 on Apr 4th 2024 at 6:53:36 PM

Seriously, are we looking to give all those other groups a separate but equal genocide?

Edited by Kayeka on Apr 4th 2024 at 9:00:51 PM

There are many more modern genocides and holocausts that we are overlooking in media representation because focusing on the Nazis steps on less toes.

That is not a call for less anti Nazism awareness, but for other such events to be given more focus as well, because sometimes it looks like we default to equal 'genocide' with 'thing that happened over sixty years ago'.

That's the thing really. It isn't an issue that there are so many movies that are about the Holocaust, but that there should be more along with those about other genocides (Rwanda, Armenia etc.). You're right about the toe thing as well: for example, bringing up the Armenian Genocide will cause controversy in Turkey.

Edited by king15 on Apr 4th 2024 at 7:48:31 PM

x4 I'm not entirely convinced of it myself - I tend to agree that historical use of "the Holocaust" tended to erase its other victims - but it was evidence validating the point about who the SS focused on.

x3 I think that's a bit harsh, though. (If anything, the point is that they weren't equal, and I don't think it's controversial to say the Nazis perpetrated plenty of civic violence that wasn't "the Holocaust". I'm not going to list the Strasserists as Holocaust victims, for the most extreme example.)

I mean, I've started refusing to watch most WWII films partly for that reason - I will happily say there are too many stories that cheaply mythologise the war in general because it's "safe" compared to other genocides or atrocities that might risk dividing the audience.

Oh good. ^_^'

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Apr 4th 2024 at 9:10:42 AM

"I'm not entirely convinced of it myself"

Yeah, I knew you were just sharing an alternative view that some have (sorry if I implied I thought that you have that view). It's good to see alternative viewpoints, even ones that I strongly disagree with.

Edited by king15 on Apr 4th 2024 at 8:06:06 AM

Just out of Monkey Man. Did not expect to see conflict between Hindi and Muslim Indians.

Do not fully get the politics, though. May need someone to help explain.

Only details I know is that Muslims conquered India and tried to forcibly convert them to Islam before the British arrived. Then after India gained its independence from Britain, tensions between Hindus and Muslims exploded to the point where Partition happened and the Muslims formed Pakistan. Partition was also an important background plot point in Ms Marvel.

I also don't know much about it, but wanted to mention that the partition is plot point of the Doctor Who episode: Demons of the Punjab (imo one of the best episodes of the Thirteenth Doctor era). While (according to the page at least) it does simplify the history, I think this episode demonstrates how media can help inform people about history: while I still can't say I'm an expert on the Partition, I barely knew it was a thing before this episode came out.

Edited by king15 on Apr 4th 2024 at 11:40:45 AM

Every time I think of Doctor Who trying to educate people about actual history (and thereby exploring diversity and representation) I'm reminded of their Rosa Parks episode,which was basically Rosa Park's history according to pop culture,so it came across as rather misleading.

Edited by Ultimatum on Apr 4th 2024 at 12:54:21 PM

Speaking as an Muslim NRI here, so I might also get some of the politics wrong, but yeah, Partition happened as the result of a bargain for more Muslim representation/power in the new government due to fears about being a religious minority (my understanding is actually that it was kind of a bluff? Like a threat that Jinnah was leveraging against the forming government, eg if Muslims don't get enough representation in Congress, we will secede, and they weren't actually expecting the British to agree to it? I could be completely wrong here though, I will admit I am not actually super knowledgeable on Indian history), and Partition was relegated to happening in a really short amount of time because the British really just wanted to wash their hands of the whole thing, which caused so much chaos and bloodshed due to the forced emigrations in such a short time period. This created Pakistan, and then later the Bangladesh Liberation War created Bangladesh from Pakistan due to vast cultural differences between Muslim Bengalis and the people in what is now Pakistan today, among other factors. Additionally a lot of the folks that migrated to Pakistan were not incredibly welcome there so there was also tension between the native Pakistanis and the Pakistani migrants. And not all the Muslims left India for Pakistan (gestures at my ancestors), so there's still a pretty sizable Muslim minority in India, I think the largest in population of Muslim minority in the world. And there's still a lot of tension between Hindus and Muslims in India, particularly with the rise of Hindutva and more right-wing parties in India. Not even mentioning the general tension between India and Pakistan.

Apparently there was also trans rep in Monkey Man too. Flew completely over my head but obvious in retrospect.