Here is the list of events that you are not allowed to make light of:
1) The Holocaust
2) Rwandan Genocide
3) The list goes on…
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce to you the new London musical, Imagine This, which takes place in 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto.
This article tries to argue that it isn’t as offensive as it sounds, with the writer even claiming that it isn’t about the Holocaust.
Listen, I’m all for plays and books and movies about the Holocaust. I also don’t think that a musical necessarily has to be funny or light-hearted. But putting them together, in whatever context, simply doesn’t work.
Why? Because a musical is supposed to be catchy. When I walk out of a musical I want to have the songs in my head. Do you ever see people walking down the street whistling the Partisanim song? Obviously not (though it is catchy).
The producers can hype this all they want as non-offensive, but at the end of the show, no one will be cheering like they did at Springtime for Hitler.
