Remember the plot device in
The Boys From Brazil? A society of former Nazis plan to use cloning methods to bring Adolf Hitler back to life. They needn't have gone to all that trouble. Given the number of times Adolf Hitler's name and image are invoked nowadays, you would think he really did conquer the world and that Josef Goebbels was running the international ministry of propaganda. During the Bush administration, left wing wackos routinely compared the president to Hitler for invading Iraq and now right wing lunatics are doing the same to President Obama (over a health care plan, yet!). This week marked the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII and American political pundit Pat Buchanan
wrote a column saying Hitler had rather benign intentions but was pushed into war by Churchill! Not be outdone, an AIDS prevention group has caused controversy by producing a public service ad in Germany that depicts a couple having torrid sex. (The ad is far too provocative to be shown on American TV). As they disrobe and get down to doin' the dirty, the man looks into the camera and we see it's Hitler. This is followed by the on-screen message "AIDS is Mass Murder. Protect Yourself."Â Predictably, the ad has caused outrage with even other AIDS prevention groups saying it presents a distracting and garbled message, not the least of which is that HIV automatically leads to AIDS and death. That was true in the early days of the disease, but as we now know, with proper treatment, HIV is no longer a death sentence. The ad unintentionally also trivializes one of the worst mass murderers in human history. Historians believe that Hitler's sex life was virtually non-existent, even with his mistress Eva Braun. He placed himself on a higher plane and prided himself in not indulging in the vices that tempted every day people. Watching Hitler and his lover rip each other's clothes off like scene from
Porky's minimizes the horror he is associated with. Not helping matters is the fact that the chap who plays Der Fuhrer looks a bit like Dick Shawn's character from
The Producers. Here's a message to everyone who wishes to invoke Hitler's image or name to make a political or socially significant point: don't do it because it will almost guarantee that your original message will be lost in a sidebar of controversy. To view the ad
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