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From: jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Cabaret Question
Message-ID: <665@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Sep-85 05:12:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.665
Posted: Sun Sep 29 05:12:48 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Oct-85 08:15:46 EDT
References: <2239@ukma.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
Lines: 29

> 
>      In the movie Cabaret, is the character played by Joel Gray
>      a Nazi?
> 
> I seem to find scenes supporting both views.  What do you think?
> 
> 						Sean.

My opinion is that Joel Gray's character was a symbol of German decadence
in the period immediately preceding the rise to power of the Nazi party.
I don't think he was supposed to be a Nazi himself.  I remember the character
mainly for the cabaret act, and I don't think he did much else but leer.
At one point, he goosestepped around stage with a Hitler-style mustache,
but I took this to mean that he thought Naziism was great fun, not that he
was a Nazi himself (this would require him to hold a serious political
viewpoint, which is incompatible with the kind of decadence he portrayed).
In another number, he sang about a man married to a gorilla, where it was
implied that the gorilla was a Jew.  That fact that the Joel Gray character
took great glee in this meant to me that he was playing to the anti-semitism
of the audience, and that he shared in this anti-semitism.  This doesn't make
him a Nazi, though.  One of the themes of the movie is that the German people
were looking for a way out of their bad situation, and that they were willing
to let hoodlums take over the country in order to accomplish this.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..."

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