(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . CA school district removes Nazi symbols from the Sound of Music [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-26 Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) expressing his opinion Millions of children — and their parents — have fallen in love with The Sound of Music. The songs — My Favorite Things, Do-Re-Me, Sixteen Going on Seventeen, Climb Every Mountain, and Edelweiss — are etched into our cultural consciousness. The movie, adjusted for inflation, is America's third highest-grossing film. The MPAA rated it ‘G’. But this universal acclaim did not prevent the Superintendent of the Fullerton School District, Bob Pletka, from taking a hatchet to the script. The Rolling Hills Elementary School chose The Sound of Music as the vehicle for their students to strut some time on the stage and entertain their relatives and loved ones. All was fine until Pletka put the kibosh on the Nazi symbols and out went the swastikas and straight-armed salutes. Given the conservative enthusiasm for book burning, it would be easy to assume that this was just more of the same — but Fullerton is not Florida. The city leans liberal. It voted for Biden in 2020. And it is split between CA’s 45th district, represented by a Republican, and CA 46, represented by a Democrat. I do not know what Pletka’s politics are. However, the evidence suggests that this was not the usual pattern of historical revisionist censorship at work. So I will let Pletka explain his reasoning. In a statement to a local TV station, NBC4, he said, “Two weeks ago, I learned that Rolling Hills intended to incorporate swastikas as props and have 11 and 12-year-old students perform the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute in their upcoming play. I felt responsible to take action.” He added that in the age of social media, there is a risk well-meaning parents and community members could share the images, leading to the kids being “vulnerable to the co-opting of these photographs by nefarious individuals or groups meant to mock or exploit our children for their own purpose.” “I made the decision to remove these signs and symbols associated with genocide from the play. By doing so, I aim to protect our children from the potential harm that could arise from their unknowing association with such destructive and harmful imagery. It is my responsibility and the responsibility of our whole staff to remain vigilant in fostering an environment that is safe, inclusive, and respectful for all members of our community,” He sounds reasonable. The independent observer will judge he is well-intentioned. In response, I offer the aphorism, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” If the musical has objectionable content, the solution is not to bowdlerize the work — cutting Naziism out of The Sound of Music is like putting a fig leaf on Michelengelo’s David — it is to do a different musical. It is not the best solution. If the issue is a concern that some damaged person might exploit the children, then let the kids and their parents decide. If enough young thespians volunteer for the Nazi parts, put on the show. If they do not, see above, perform a different work. Stop trying to figure out which classic literature might be offensive today. This sensitivity is not an isolated incident. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James Bond, Dr. Doolittle. and Huckleberry Finn are victims of this literary expurgation. Leave them alone. Why do adults forget how resilient they were as kids? I grew up in England. While kids in America absorbed the exploits of a plethora of good, evil, and morally ambiguous superheroes with superhuman abilities, their English contemporaries consumed war comics — with an emphasis on the noble Allied exploits against the sociopathic brutes populating the Axis powers. Popular titles for these jingoistic, chest-thumping propaganda efforts pointed clearly to their subject — “Commando,” “Battle,” and “War” — and they contained exactly what they promised. We reenacted these stories on the playing fields. Some boys had to be Nazis. However, in the egalitarian spirit of fair play, we switched around. One day you could be on the side of the angels, the next evil incarnate. And a good time was had by all. The lasting legacy of this is that we learned at an early age that fascism is a bad thing. However, even the young did not run into Germans vacationers on the Continent and assume they were Nazis in plain clothes. We knew early on the difference between history and current mores. The more intractable problem was that this one-sided celebration of WWII distorted our appreciation of our history. There was no reference to immoral behavior by the Allies. For instance, few criticized the 1945 Allied firebombing of Dresden. Time has raised questions. In that way, we learned history as contemporary conservatives would have American children learn it — sanitized. Ironically, The Sound of Music falls into this category — even before Pletka censored it. The original production never mentioned “Nazi,” “Hitler,” or “Holocaust.” It did mention “Gauleiter,” “Anschluss,” and “Third Reich.” So we can see where Rodgers and Hammerstein drew the line. The world is different from when I was a child. There are social media consequences for the youth of today. The solution is not to kowtow to vague fears. Wearing a Nazi armband in a classic work is not the same as wearing blackface at a drunken frat affair. People who find something wrong with kids playing a part in a musical will find something wrong no matter what. We cannot let them dictate what our children do on stage — or anywhere else. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/26/2171598/-CA-school-district-removes-Nazi-symbols-from-the-Sound-of-Music Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/