Completely different.

Welcome home. We missed you.

The reality is that good art/entertainment can touch on horrific topics, but approach it at an angle that truly criticizes the issue while still highlighting it. What good art/entertainment does is get at the core of issues and they “dress itself” in other superficialities connected with those issues to criticize things.

Bad entertainment/art never gets past the superficialities and just uses “shock” as an excuse to “stimulate discussion”.

Long way of saying this is unbelievable and makes me wonder what is it about South America’s culture that helps hide war criminals and somehow “inspires” so-called artists to create crap like this.

“Long way of saying this is unbelievable and makes me wonder what is it about South America’s culture that helps hide war criminals and somehow “inspires” so-called artists to create crap like this”.

The Holocaust float would have shown a pile of mannequins and have had no people dancing or singing alongside it. Viradouro’s creative director, Paulo Barros, said the float was a “very respectful” reminder of the Holocaust and a reminder that such an atrocity should never be repeated. “This an extremely serious work, and people think we’re mocking,” said Mr Barros, who was in tears as his team started dismantling the float.

From the same article:

They often pick social issues as a theme for their floats or costumes and this is not the first time it has attracted controversy. At the 1989 carnival, another samba school had to cover up a float which portrayed Rio’s statue of Christ the Redeemer as a homeless person.

As Jack has clearly demonstrated, people are free to write whatever misinformed opinions they’d like about the mass killing of Japanese people no matter how offensive their point might be to others.

Why should the Holocaust be treated any differently?

Or do you think Jack should be banned from writing a history book on Hiroshima as well?

If so …..

Who do you think we should put in charge of determining the ‘truth’?

Who do you think the gatekeepers should be that get to decide our ‘history’?

Who gets to decide what can only be talked about in pubs but not written about in books?

What do you think about terrorist Mohammed cartoons?

That’s bizarre taken out of context.

I understand dancing when they are exterminating you.

Regardless of the RIGHT to speak freely it is still within reason to determine that a particular float does not fit the overall theme of an event. Just as certain subject matter, though historically accurate, is not appropriate for children’s television.

Or, forget children’s programming. How about a video of an open heart surgery playing at a mall food court? It’s educational and serves the point to inform the public about the dangers of poor diet… but it’s still not appropriate for the venu.

I’m a racist when I call someone else an anti-Semite? I don’t even know the races of anyone posting here or ethnicity or anything.

But I’m glad I was able to stop your ability to talk and express yourself! I hope your keyboard recovers and you are able to express opinions afterwards… Wait… You DID!

Look, you when you bitch/moan about the Holocaust being held to some unnatural degree and then make unfounded claims of others speaking ill about other atrocities, you’ve dug your own straw man grave. The reality is that other genocides are talked about all the time and respected. I’ve never met one person who spoke lightly about Stalin’s “labor camps” or the Gulag’s. Provide some proof and your claim of me being a “racist” might hold some water.

But I’m not going to deny my right to call an anti-Semite an anti-Semite. Instead of complaining about how others “keep you down” and philosophical canards, how about you discuss real issues with real facts.

There are some people who think Brazil is a backwards country without free speech. This is untrue. Although there are many problems with basic freedoms here, free speech is a right granted by our Constitution, with the limits you usually see: slandering, for example, isn’t protected by free speech. I won’t tire you with the details, but there is a lot of freedom to badmouth politicians, for example. =P

For the sake of full disclosure, I must say that, personally, I believe Viradouro just wanted to make something shocking for shock’s sake and not much more. It would be pretty much in line with what they did and tried to do in past years’ parades.

Ok, so it’s bad art. That’s a fair allegation to make, but you seem to be implying that because it’s bad art, it somehow has less of a right to exist or be displayed in public. Like bad art is somehow /wrong/.

First off, that’s messed up. Secondly, I think you should always allow for the possibility that it’s not bad, you just don’t fully appreciate it. If you don’t grasp the deeper meaning of a piece of art, it’s easy to conclude that it must just exist to be offensive and piss you off.

That’s exactly what religious fundamentalists think about most contemporary art.

Isn’t that what the modern world is all about? (Been to a horror movie lately?)

I do know many “hack” artists who use shock instead of talent to get a message across—please reread my post #9 above—and in my opinion artists who touch on heavy topics with no grace or talent deserve the backlash they get.

It’s a ludicrous question that barely deserves this acknowledgement: If I didn’t agree with what I wrote I would not have written it.

1. Bad Art?: I agree with #14 the most. Whether the art is in ‘bad taste’ or not does not subject to censorship, since evoking disgust or depression can certainly be a form of art. And the fact that one does not understand the deeper meaning of the a piece does not equate the art to be bad. But of course, whether the message is clear or effective is a different question. In fact, by reading the judge’s statement, it seems she wants the art in the carnival to be in bad taste, i.e. the ‘lesson’ portrayed in the float needs to be as clear as a propaganda (and politically correct).

It is hard to define good or bad art, and there is a very fine line between the two. Nevertheless, the art being bad does not equate a ban.

In terms of craftsmanship, the float seems very well made from what I can see in the photo. All the gore is clearly depicted.

2. Contextual?: Some said that the float is to macabre for the parade comparing the rest, so that it is inappropriate. This is easily false because all art is contextual no matter what, as even antagonism is a form of context and juxtaposition.

And as #24 had mentioned, their parade is not exact like the ones in America, which portrays politically-neutral subjects and commercial products. It seems quite contextual, as massacres are similar to slavery in terms of expressing the evils of our society. Either way, contextualism does not equal a ban.

3. Racism? Hate crime?: It’s hard to tell if the piece is really made against a certain race, unless the artist himself admits it, or at least had a record of doing such. Simply because an art is made to re-enact a historical event does not necessarily mean the artist agrees with a particular party in that event.

(Personal note: When I first saw “Miss Saigon”, I found the portrayal of the characters pretty racist, but nevertheless it gives me another point of view to understand the event, and besides, who cares in America is some Chinese or Vietnamese newspaper wrote a sensationalist article about the hypocrisy.)

I am trying to think about the topic from my own perspective. For Chinese, the Nanjing massacre is a big deal (as #35 said). But no matter it were to be re-enacted by Chinese, Japanese or any other race, the only thing that matters seem to be whether or not the artist is glorifying the killing or the evil. While people who are easily offended would dismiss any re-enactment as evil, it seems the ultimate answer is still to ask the artist, in which the news report hardly touches on.

4. Censorship?: It seems that the judge’s statement of the carnival “should not be used as a tool for the cult of hate” is hypocritical, as I looked at the slideshow on MSNBC and saw President Bush placed inside a bird cage. I guess it’s like Amazon.com, in the way that things would not change unless somebody complains about it.

I’d like to read about what determined the float to be a tool for the cult of hate. While I agree that hate crime should be banned, it is also very easy for one to manipulate the law to get anything banned just because a subject is controversial. A lot of other ways can be used to express such angst, and there were a lot of good examples, from boycotting Abercrombie racist t-shirts to burning Marilyn Manson CDs. Using a legal ban to prevent others from expression is an overkill.

Anyway, I like the discussions going on in this thread here so far.

Both Takuan and I have asked you direct, non-hostile, relevant questions and you’ve kind of screamed at both of us. We’re not attacking you.

Who owns the Holocaust?

Carnival parades in Rio are a complex matter. Each samba school comes up with a topic and tells a story following a non-linear plot. Each float and group of dancers is supposed to be a chapter of that story, much like Medieval street theatre. Paradoxical images are created in the process: scenes of tortures and massacres are represented by people dancing, just because everything is represented by people dancing. For example, many times events in the history of slavery in Brazil were represented that way — since samba schools are essencially black culture, telling the history of slavery was a “natural” topic.

Samba schools are then judged in several categories (a bit like the Oscars): music, art direction, plot, etc, and then one is granted the prize of best school that year.

Since the 80s, samba schools don’t shy away from controversial, “dark” themes. Violence, poverty, injustice, villains of all kids are always clad in bright, colourful costumes. They always dance — not dancing is not even allowed by the rules.

I know nothing about the specifics of this case, though.

And the straw man in this case is the claim I did not “answer” your question by providing you with a debate based on a false premise. I have not yelled at you or anyone and I have answered the questions posed.

If your preference in answer is that I follow your straw men down the road to a flame war, I’m not following that path. That’s true choice, and true freedom. So please look at yourselves before accusing anyone of anything.

“The intent of another is a question I cannot answer” Agreed,neither can I. How about the benefit of the doubt? Or just asking them ? Presumed innocence? Assumption of simple error rather than malice? Will you consider it?

“The road to hell etc.” just another proverb,sometimes true, sometimes not.

“Self-justification” Whose? Mine? I have no axe to grind here. Theirs? I see no evidence.

“your logic” I haven’t said enough for you to derive a pattern,much less “my logic”.

Please reconsider, assume nothing.

Elnico, the other side of town looks a lot like Sebastopol, CA. It’s rainy, cold, and full of people who talk intensively about identity, social networks, moderation hacks, and alphabet soup.