Tussauds, Hitler, David Mitchell and failing to have the "what you did" conversation

At the Guardian website, David Mitchell has stuck his oar in over the statement by Madame Tussauds concerning visitors' "interaction" with the Hitler waxwork, namely, posing next to it with Nazi salutes.

Ignoring Mitchell's "grammar-police" approach to the language of the statement (which I find amusing given the main theme of his argument), we get to the following passage:

An Israeli couple visiting the attraction ... were horrified both by the fact that there was a likeness of Hitler at all and that people were posing next to it doing fascist gestures.

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They wrote in their complaint: "We are the grandchildren of concentration camp survivors – the very people that Hitler tried to kill." Of course I can understand why they might consider tourists frolicking with his likeness to be a display of inappropriate levity. But their complaint went further than that, claiming that the Nazi gestures and crying of "Heil Hitler!" were "an unequivocal demonstration of antisemitism and bigotry".

I just don't think that's true. The couple actually photographed two young tourists heil-Hitlering next to the waxwork and one of them is doing the moustache with her other hand. I'm pretty sure that neo-Nazis don't do the moustache. They certainly didn't do the moustache at the Nuremberg rallies. What those kids in the picture are doing, I'm willing to bet, is taking the piss out of Hitler.

And right there, you see that we are having the "what you are" conversation instead of the "what you did" conversation.

Mr Mitchell's approach to the situation is to argue:

I was disappointed that Lord Janner, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, did not. He said: "I'm appalled at Madame Tussauds' insensitive comments defending such activity, as surely they have a responsibility to ensure visitors behave appropriately and respectfully at their museum."

Respectfully of what? Hitler? Does he think the girl shouldn't have done the moustache? Or does he think Madame Tussauds should ban a specific arm gesture when people are standing next to the Hitler waxwork? Or ban it in general so they can't do it next to Margaret Thatcher, Sting or Timmy Mallett either?

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When you ban something like this, you only dignify it with significance. You spoil the harmless piss-takers' harmless fun and you justify fascists in their feelings of oppression. You take a stupid gesture out of the realm of mockery and you give it illicit cachet. Whereas, in general, freedom engenders freedom. If you let people do what they like, human decency usually prevails. Anyone doing a Nazi salute and saying "Heil Hitler" for reasons other than a joke is unlikely to garner sympathy. There are always evil, oppressive forces at work on any society but they'll be found wanting in guile if they come at us goose-stepping and shouting "Sieg Heil!" for a second time. The only thing that could make that seem attractive or worth following, even to an idiot, is if it were banned.

Perhaps Mr Mitchell thinks that visitors to Madame Tussauds, by opting to visit such a place, have given up their right to receive respect from those around them? That seems to be the thrust of remarks such as one I snipped earlier:

("attraction" is the word people use, right? Rather than "museum" or "racket". "Attraction" as in: "I really can't understand the…")

The respect that people might be requested to show is not towards the figures represented in effigy at places such as Madame Tussauds, but rather to the living, breathing, thinking and feeling people who are also visiting those places at the same time.

I am sure that we can agree that performing a "comedy Hitler-impersonation" inside, or just outside, a synagogue would probably mark one out as a bit of an arsehole, and no amount of pleading that, "I'm taking the piss out of Hitler, I'm not hating Jews!" would wash away the arseholishness of the behaviour. I think we can probably agree that goose-stepping down the high street with "the finger-moustache" and the salute and shouting "Heil!" in a ridiculous squawk - while obviously intended as a joke - would also be in pretty poor taste, and might very well cause a lot of complaints, and could conceivably (though not necessarily veyr likely) result in being arrested for disturbing the peace. (Bear in mind, also, that the most likely people to do this are privileged White men who have somewhat overindulged of alcoholic beverages!)

Given these points, we can perhaps observe that public spaces in general are possibly not the best place for ridiculing Hitler and the Nazis, because of the high probability of offending someone who doesn't get the joke.

Mr Mitchell notes that:

Many second world war veterans were accustomed to joking about Hitler. Spike Milligan and his contemporaries founded a comic tradition of making fun of the Nazis which has given us Peter Sellers's performance in Dr Strangelove, "The Germans" episode of Fawlty Towers, Dad's Army, 'Allo 'Allo!, endless YouTube resubtitlings of Downfall and Prince Harry's party gear.

But (with the exception of Prince Harry's costume, which we may recall also caused a huge furore for similar reasons to those in this case) all these are examples of comedy in a specifically humorous context - things that are framed as comedy (they are given a "comedy box", like the "fantasy box" I discussed in respect of ethical porn content) The same is not true of the synagogue, the high street, or even Madame Tussauds.

Yes, it is important to use the power of ridicule, and to keep in mind that Hitler was (in Mr Mitchell's words), "a posturing little prick" and a "risible little twerp". Again, I agree with Mr Mitchell that:

It's perfectly possible – and important to our understanding of the human condition – to find that amusing, to laugh at the goose-stepping, the shouting and the pomposity, while simultaneously holding in our heads the tragic murderous consequences of Nazi power. That's what makes the joke bite and also what reminds us that the massive disaster was human.

It is possible to do that with some distance and some immunity from the problem. But we cannot expect - or demand - that other people should also "get the joke", when it's about bad shit that happened to them, or to people close to them. That means that there are places where it is appropriate to focus on the ridicule, and there are other places where it is appropriate to focus on the "tragic murderous consequences".

The gestures of the visitors posing with the Hitler waxwork were not meant in an anti-Semitic way, but nevertheless, they were anti-Semitic, because they dismissed the emotional suffering that they could cause in the here and now to people who had a close relationship with the events that the gestures were intended to ridicule. This also reveals the bigotry that exists in hidden form in society. Again, the gestures weren't meant in a bigoted way, but they still communicated bigotry. The problem is not with the people, but with the gestures themselves and the fact that they were in that space.

This should not be a "what you are" debate, but a "what you did" debate, just like the hypothetical scenarios I described above.

There is also the separate debate over freedom of speech, and my comment policy tells you how I feel about that. My policy is to say, "You ave the right to offend me, and I have the right to state unequivocally that I think your exercising that right makes you a complete arsehole and a risible little twerp". Madame Tussauds won't restrict the right to cause offence, and good on them for sticking by that policy. But we have to recognise that in doing so, we must also respond approvingly of anyone stating, "that behaviour is arseholish." I think Madame Tussauds can add to their "encouragement" of people to interact with the waxworks, a reminder to be sensitive of others' feelings, without restricting free speech.