Hunters

[peter]

Saw the first episode of this fantasy Nazi hunting drama on Amazon prime the other day and was reasonably entertained by it. This is not to damn it with faint praise however; the story was well constructed and the characters engaging. It had a fantasy element to it, in so far as it was extremely unrealistic - almost a 'Batman' thingishness about it - that I was slightly uncomfortable with in relation to such a tragic subject, but if you could get over, made for good viewing. The screenplay (what it looks like, if screenplay is the correct term for this) is colorful and eye-catching, very sixties in its appearance (I think that's when it is sort of set) and sits entirely at ease with the slightly fabricated content of the story. It's all a bit over the top - but in a sort of good way.

Most notable of the cast is Al Pacino, who plays an elderly Jewish camp survivor, now established in the US, fortune duly made and sitting in a huge mansion overseeing the activities of a group of off-radar Nazi hunting individuals who deal out fitting retribution to escaped members of the Third Reich who have established their post-war lives in the US.

The first episode follows the induction of a young Jewish lad into the group following the murder of his grandmother and during which we learn of the presence of a deeply embedded group of Fuhrer supporters within the US state apparatus itself. Presumably the rest of the series will see our heroes go on to root out and expose this evil in our midst with no doubt, many a thrill and spill in the process.

As I say, it is with a slightly uneasy feeling that I will go on to watch the rest of the series. I like what I've seen, I enjoyed it on a purely entertainment level - but should such a serious and tragic subject become the basis of what is essentially light entertainment.......on this I am far less than convinced.

[peter]

Two episodes in and I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with the series. In episode two the concentration camp elements of the story were upped, graphically, to provide emphasis (as if it were necessary) on "just how bad these guys were". This is then translated into our 'heroes' justification of what they are doing (with the additional intention that we, as viewers, are 'pulled onside' to accept whatever cruelties are inflicted upon these (historical) bastards by our (would be seen as) avenging angels. Hmmm.... It's a pretty shakey ground to base any moral or ethical rectitude on what we are being asked to accept, and just adds weight to the feeling I get that this series is overstepping the mark in the degree to which the Holocaust can be used as a backdrop for construction of pure entertainment. This series has no historical lesson to teach its younger viewers (other than the broadest one of 'some of this stuff actually happened'), makes no pretence of being anything other than entertainment for entertainments sake - and yet is prepared to utilize the factual tearing of children's teeth from their heads in the service of this. Is this morally right; I question it.

But........

This aside (and I don't know how much I can put it aside) the episode was entertaining enough. I think it was directed by a different person that episode 1, and on this occasion the episode was given an almost Tarrantino like feel as the young protagonist was drawn further into the activities of the group of nazi hunters he had fallen into. In fairness, the morality of the situation is somewhat adressed by the young man's struggling with what he is participating in (rather unimaginatively being represented by his being sick into a gutter) - but the program leaves us in no doubt as to where our sympathies (or rather absence of them) should be allowed to lie.

Another question that is being adressed is the complicity of the US in smuggling known war criminals to its shores in the aftermath of the war, simply on the basis of their scientific or other value. It's been long argued that it was nazi rocket technology that put the first men on the moon and the desire of the worlds scientific community in not wanting the results of experiments that could never be repeated (like how many blows of a rifle butt to the head of a child does it take to kill it) to be lost is well known, but these important questions are so wrapped up in an entertainment straight jacket here as to be all but invisible.

I'm going to watch another episode ...... I think......but unless the series can move in a more serious direction in respect of a consideration of it's awful backstory, I'm thinking I'll call it a day.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

The lessons being taught by shows or stories like this--and, by extension, even Inglorious Basterds--is that if the "bad guy" group is sufficiently bad then no atrocity visited upon them is actually wrong. Technically, that is also a morally wrong choice--visiting an atrocity upon someone who commits an atrocity is still an atrocity. This dovetails with the "capital punishment" thread, but where the two differ is that a nation is allowed to set up rules under which its citizens may be put to death while the idea in Hunters is that private citizens are taking the law or their ideas of justice into their own hands.

What if they are wrong?

Not that the show was historically accurate in any sense, but consider Sergeant Schultz from Hogan's Heroes. This guy was not in charge of killing Jews, he just happened to have enlisted in the army before all the shit went down then when the shit went down he got assigned to a post. Had he deserted or disobeyed orders then he, himself, would have been court-martialed and shot. The same applies to Private Zoller from Basterds--he was not in charge of anything (see his rank), just doing the job he had been assigned to do. Does that make him guilty of the Holocaust when he, personally, had nothing to do with it whatsoever?

That was always the morally gray question from Nuremberg--is a 19-year-old gate guard at Auschwitz truly guilty of crimes against humanity?

Now...where I was going originally....what happens if the group who comes into political power thinks that the group in which you are a member is now bad enough to be worthy of being hunted down out of a sense of moral duty? Who died and made the Hunters into God, setting themselves up into the position that they get to determine who dies?

[peter]

In respect of your Private Zoller comments Hashi, Jordan Peterson (of whom I know little, but I suspect we are politically distanced by some degree) made an interesting post on YouTube. He said that in the event of our being born into the situation of Hitler's Germany, the overwhelming likelihood is that you/I would have been a Nazi. You think you would have saved Anne Frank?, he asks. Rubbish! It takes, he said, an extraordinary rare type of individual to put their lives on the line - to put their families lives on the line, in such a circumstance. He mentions a book whose name I forget, detailing the journey of men into monsters; a first-hand account of being a member of the polish police who go from being ordinary coppers to taking pregnant Jewesses out into the woods and shooting them in the back of the head, detailing the devastating effect of this on the individual, how the psyche must be shattered and rebuilt in order to make the transition.

But for all of that.......

I think there are crimes so overwhelming from which your guilt by association is enough reason for your execution (by 'humane' method). The Holocaust would rank amongst them.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

That is not merely an intellectual discussion, by the way. Given how things are going, it is only a matter of time before someone suggests that "white supremacy" is also a "crime against humanity" and therefore, by extension, anyone seen as supporting "systemic racism"--which would necessarily include all law enforcement professionals as well as probably most upper-management folks in corporate settings--must be hunted down and killed for supporting "crimes against humanity".

NPR is already suggesting that declaring someone to be a "criminal" is, itself, racist because "criminality is a racist construct". The blm leader in Chicago is also saying that rioting is not a crime, but that needs to go to the Tank, not Andelain.

[peter]

Agreed.

In respect of your examples, yes - it all starts to get a bit silly when people start bending the rules to justify what they see as right action. Either you agree with and live according to the Rule of Law .......or you do not.

[Rigel]

Agreed.

In respect of your examples, yes - it all starts to get a bit silly when people start bending the rules to justify what they see as right action. Either you agree with and live according to the Rule of Law .......or you do not.

Honestly, that's why I couldn't get past the first episode of the new Watchmen series... So there's now an oppressive police force that beats up white supremacists instead of people of color? That's not any better, guys.

As for Hunters, I got two episodes in, but the cinematography was almost loving in its depiction of nazis killing jews. For a show called "Hunters," most of it was about them being hunted.