Went to see the premiere of the new Anne Frank mini-series at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. How do you admit you got bored by a story so morally significant? The film lasted three and a half hours, which was about two longer than I could really deal with. It wasn’t bad as such. With actors like Ben Kingsley and Brenda Blethyn doing their best to breathe life into two-dimensional roles, it had its diversions. But the rest of the time it was like a cross between Billy Elliott and Schindler’s List. It was too cutesy to be moving; and too serious to be entertaining. I’m beginning to come around to the idea that the Holocaust is probably unrepresentable. The reason Anne Frank’s diary is so unforgettable is that it isn’t a representation – it’s real. Perhaps we need popular renditions of the Holocaust to keep it alive in the minds of more people than can visit a Holocaust Museum. At the same time, I can’t help feeling that some of this pop-production cannot help but diminish the ineffable evil of the Final Solution. Even with this subject, less is sometimes more.
SCHOOL CHOICE II: Some readers have reminded me that public high schools are obliged to give equal access to different groups, and that denial of any one group’s request to use school property or funds is a punishment for that group’s First Amendment rights to self-expression. Hmmm. Is it really true that a school board could have no discretion in allowing many groups but saying no to, say, a youth chapter of the Ku Klux Klan? No, I’m not saying the Scouts are the equivalent of the Klan, but the Scouts do sadly practice discrimination against some members for simply being honest about their sexual orientation. And lets not get into the Scout-master issue here. What about the Scouts themselves? Would a group that banned black kids from being in their organization have a right to equal access to school property? I doubt it. Sorry, guys, but this is the fall-out of a perfectly Constitutional decision by the Scouts to impose discrimination on kids. It’s a crying shame, but when all is said and done, they asked for it.
The Dish 