‘Producers’: Comic or Tragic?

In his commentary on Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” Thane Rosenbaum uses the word “Holocaust” eight times and makes more than half a dozen additional references to Hitler’s Final Solution with such words as “genocide,” “Auschwitz,” etc. (“Those Hilarious Nazis,” May 20). His thesis is that modern sensibilities have grown so jaded that we’re actually able to laugh without guilt at the man who perpetrated these almost inconceivable crimes against humanity.

The irony is that, in both his 1968 film and his 2001 musical update, Brooks never once refers to the Holocaust. And, although there are numerous Yiddishisms in the new Broadway libretto, the word “Jew” appears only once (to my knowledge).

The fact is, the “Hitler” alluded to in “Springtime for Hitler” is a power-hungry megalomaniac bent on world domination, but not mass extermination. The image being parodied is far closer to that mocked in “The Great Dictator” and “To Be or Not to Be,” both films mentioned by Rosenbaum without the caveat that they were conceived and released years before the true horror of the Nazi genocide was known to the general public.

Despite Rosenbaum’s contention that to today’s audience nothing is sacred, I would propose that Brooks knows full well that the Holocaust is still holy ground for his audience--both Jewish and Gentile--and it’s a line he dare not cross. Nor do I believe he ever wished to.

ALLEN B. URY

Costa Mesa

*

I was fortunate to see the show twice while in New York. I thought I was the only one who was not overjoyed with the glorification of Hitler. It was harmless fun, but there can be no comedy and “amusement” over Adolf Hitler. Certainly he was a fool, a clown and a buffoon, but a sick, insane and very dangerous one; certainly nothing to have “fun” over.

CHARLES McCOLLISTER

Simi Valley

*

I fail to see how “The Producers” “diminishes the crimes of the Nazis by turning them into money-making entertainment.” Laughter is an excellent weapon to use against Nazis. But maybe I shouldn’t talk, since I managed to watch “Hogan’s Heroes” on television regularly in my youth without coming away thinking that all Nazis were like Col. Klink.

JEFF KLEIN

Irvine

*

To suggest that Brooks might “redefine and shatter the memory of just who the Nazis really were” as some sort of long-term, money-grubbing goal is as incredibly insulting to Brooks and American audiences in general as it is addleheaded. Even to suggest that prancing Nazis have more to do with the huge popularity of “The Producers” than the thwarted connivings of Broadway scalawags is to wonder if Rosenbaum even saw the musical--or did his knee-jerk piety just kick right in, blinders intact?

BOB WRIGHT

Los Angeles

*

I would like to reassure Rosenbaum that while I was laughing uproariously at the new production, I was not operating “without human conscience or moral boundaries.”

On the contrary, I could not help thinking: “Here, I am a Jew, laughing at this mockery of Hitler. I’m here and he’s gone.” I never felt this way while reading or watching most of the other Holocaust movies, books, plays and articles, all of which usually elicit either horror or anger.

In this instance, Brooks offers a more life-affirming response to a dark era in human history.

MASHEY BERNSTEIN

Santa Barbara