Russian Holocaust ice-skating routine slammed as 'unbelievably tasteless'

[kebob]

Source: CNN

By Ben Westcott, CNN
Updated 10:24 PM ET, Sun November 27, 2016



(CNN) A Holocaust-themed ice skating routine on a Russian reality television show, involving the wife of a high-level aide to President Vladimir Putin, has sparked outrage around the world.

The act was based on the award-winning 1997 Italian film, "Life is Beautiful," which tells the story of a Jewish father who tries to hide his son from the horrors of the Holocaust through humor and games.

In the routine, set to Israeli singer Noa's "Beautiful That Way" from the film's soundtrack, former Olympic ice skater Tatiana Navka and her dance partner Andrei Burkovsky dance in the striped pajamas and yellow six-pointed stars which Jewish victims of Nazi concentration camps were forced to wear.

At the end, Burkovsky is heard being shot as Navka stands alone, looking grieved.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/europe/russian-ice-skating-holocaust-trnd/index.html

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The full video is viewable at the link, but I'll be fucking well damned if I'm gonna post it!

[bravenak]

1. Horrifying

[msongs]

2. Russia's anti jews behavior predated any nazi invasion. nt

[LisaL]

18. This routine is not anti-Semitic.

They are not making fun of anyone, they are portraying parents of a child (they were all send to concentration camp) and pretending everything is fine.

[Hortensis]

24. Right. Antisemitic is pretending it didn't happen,

preferring to deny one's own behavior might have any similarities to behaviors a couple generations before.

A dramatic statement before the world that it did and that it still matters is brave. Just WHO are those claiming loudest that it's in such bad "taste"?

[Chakab]

3. This kept popping up on my Twitter feed last night. I assumed that it was from some kind of sketch

comedy show until I actually read the tweets that it was embedded in.

[NanceGreggs]

4. Another Bialystock & Bloom production?

[area51]

5. What. The. Fuck.

[smirkymonkey]

6. What is going on in this world?

Seriously, just WTF?

[Bad Dog]

7. It's still not as tasteless as what the Russians are doing in Aleppo.

I don't think they give a monkey's about Western opinion. And, like the blackface artists of the past, they can claim it's not an insult, but a tribute. The only reason the West can't see it is because it's intolerant.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

8. Well, some Brits produced a Holocaust musical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_This

That had to be a bigger deal than some ice-skate choreography on "Russia's got Talent".

[Sunlei]

9. I found the skate very moving. I recognized the music from "Life is Beautiful"

[astral]

11. 2nd attempt to post a reply

This was a beautifully-done routine and I do not understand what the problem is. Is it taboo to remember that the holocaust even happened? Why?

Nothing tasteless about it. Don't paint yourself into a corner by refusing to see.

[haele]

12. The taboo is in the point the dance routine was making.

Some people think the routine was disrespectful to the WWII Holocaust/work camp victims.
But I also suspect some people saw the routine as subversive - that society is turning a blind eye to the increasingly Facist, Nationalist and/or separatist societal situations (that many people suspect Russia is involved in promoting for their own political interests); that there's a significant amount of the majority - protected "citizens" - going about pretending "Life is Beautiful" while others are being marginalized into dis-enfranchisement, prisons and potentially social extermination as undesirables.

Good art is always subversive - no matter if it's a simple still life, or the depiction of a historic event.

Haele

[Grins]

13. Agree. "Nothing tasteless about it."

I don't see where this excuses the Holocaust or its perpetrators.

[Generator]

14. Here's the deal

TOO FUCKING SOON or maybe because all those of the generation are almost dead. We have a fucking neo-Nazi scum adviser moving into the white house and nothing is going to be done to get him out of there.

It doesn't excuse the Holocaust but it makes it entertainment. It's not entertainment. It's like RAPE jokes. If you had been raped you wouldn't find it funny or entertainment. The Holocaust, Nazi's are like some joke-some big play. It happened. It'a happening again with Trump and Bannon and Breitbart. There were swastikas painted on my elementary school in OREGON. A supposedly blue state near Portland. I'm not Jewish but it's not entertainment,. It's a horror. It's just appalling and if you don't get that then I don't get you.

You don't get it actually happened do you? You don't get it.

Also Putin is anti-GAY anti-Democracy anti-journalists and helped make Trump president. Anything happening in Russia is suspect. I do not trust the Russians. Wake up and damn some googling. Maybe then you'll understand.
And Russia hated Jews for decades. Learn some damn history.

[Generator]

15. Also I want to say

If I came back to DU to find people this insensitive and uneducated maybe it's the wrong place for me. Have a nice life everybody!

[crim son]

19. It could be the wrong place for you.

Definitely, have a nice life.

[Danmel]

21. I get it generator and I agree with you

But please stay.
When my father was liberated from the Plattling Concentration camp by Patton's third army, he weighed 89 pounds and had typhus. The ñuns who were the nurses there said in German (my dad was polish but spoke polish, German, Yiddish and later of course English), nothing will come from him. There were sureb that he wasn't going to survive. He lost his parents, sister, sister in-law, 6 year old nephew, and countless friend, neighbors, teachers and on and on.
I doubt too many starving, sick prisoners would be up to a skating routine. It is offensive to me.

[LisaL]

17. So US never made movies about Holocaust?

[LisaL]

16. I don't understand the problem either. They are not trying to offend anyone.

They are portraying roles in a movie, where parents (they play the parents) cheer on a child, pretending everything is great.

[kebob]

20. Have You SEEN The Video?

Or, even more importantly, HEARD it?

[Nederland]

23. Yes

The routine shows two Jewish parents trying to shield their child from the horrors of living in a concentration camp. At the end, the husband is shot. The song is taken from the movie 'Life is Beautiful', and was nominated for an Oscar.

What exactly is offensive about that?

[Nederland]

22. Unbelievably tasteless alright

I am offended that anyone would dare to remind us that in our recent past Jews were rounded up, placed in concentration camps and killed.

Can't we all just pretend that it never happened?