UPDATED: ACTOR WILL SMITH: "GOOD" IN HITLER
Will Smith sees 'good' in Hitler (JTA)
Actor Will Smith said in an interview that Hitler set out to do what he thought was "good."
"Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today,'" Smith told Scotland's Daily Record in an interview. "I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' Stuff like that just needs reprogramming."
Smith is currently starring in the new movie "I am Legend."
Smith on Hitler (Contentions)
Will Smith probably doesn’t know what hit him. Everyone is freaking out about the interview he gave to the Daily Record, a Scottish newspaper, in which he seems to have said that Hitler was essentially a good person. Here’s the direct quote:
Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today’ . . . I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.
So a lot of people will scream about his (astonishingly poor) PR judgment, or will misread him to be approving of the Holocaust, which he is not. Even when the newspaper says Smith called Hitler “basically good,” this is not a direct quote, but the Record’s paraphrase of his gist, and there he applies it to all human beings.
The problem with Will Smith is not how he said it, what ought not to have been said, or what he is misread to have said. The problem is what he actually said. Most evil people do not “wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’” No, they just do really bad things, for whatever reason, and we need to be able to call them by their name. The star of Men In Black and Independence Day seems to believe everyone is essentially good, or that they are good so long as their intentions are good in their own eyes. It’s a small step from there to reducing the most horrendous regime in history to mere “stuff” that “just needs reprogramming,” like a bug in your software. All this does is desensitize us to both the evil and the good in our world. Which might explain why the bad guys in his films are so often from outer space.
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10 comments:
Yes, your misinterpretation of the quote is actually worse than the mainstream press version. However, it's still a gross misinterpretation. Even if you read the original quote in vacuum, it's clear that Smith is allegorically stating that people don't consider themselves or their actions evil, instead they can find a way to rationalize even the worst atrocities in their own minds. His later statements make it very clear that he does not consider them any less responsible or evil as a result; it's simply an insightful statement on human behavior. Personally, I'm impressed that Smith has such a salient grasp of a subtlety that's ignored in most of his rather two-dimensional action films.
In case that explanation was lost on you, I'll provide another example that's a bit closer to home. You probably don't consider yourself evil in your choice to willfully reinterpret Smith's statement into something bordering on libel. I'm sure simply applied some twisted, backwards logic that made your actions seem perfectly justified and reasonable. However, that doesn't make your statements any less wrong, or remove your culpability for them.
A little reminder that Mr. Smith has been hanging out with Mr. Cruise and learning/exploring...
So reprogramming is Scientology...So what he has said is that he believes there is good in all of us and poor Adolph, if only Scientology had been invented and able to recruit/reprogram and CLEAR him this would never have happened...
Interesting he used Hitler as the Germans are seriously against Scientology, wanting to make it illegal there.
Ah, if only Scientologists could have had a go at the poor misguided soul there would have been no Holocaust. Let's open more centers...Dafur, Bagdad anyone?
Let's remember that Mr. Smith has been hanging out with Mr. Cruise and learning absorbing from him.
Reprogramming is Scientology speak.
What I hear is that all people are good and that poor Adolph, if only Scientology had been invented. He could have been recruited/reprogrammed and CLEARED. And then we never would have to deal with this.
And why use Hitler for this example. Well Germany is publicly against Scientology. Wants to make it illegal. How misguided the Germans are. If only, then they would not have this bit of history to deal with.
And on to Dafur, Bagdad and the rest of the world!
Just say yes to reprogramming!
Please remember that Mr. Smith has been hanging out/observing and learning from Tom Cruise.
Reprogramming is Scientology speak..
What I hear is that poor Adolph was inherently good, but misguided. If only Scientology had been invented and Adolph recruited/reprogrammed and CLEARED. Then this would not have happened.
And why use Hitler as the example. Well Germany is on record, trying to outlaw Scientology. So, if we would only embrace Scientology then...
On to Dafur, Bagdad....
You say so many people are freaking out, yet the only people I see freaking out is a few article writers like you.
People like you try to pick up a message that you think will have a bandwagon effect and make you popular. People like you disgust me, its like you don't even have an opinion of your own. You just copy what you see in the main news sites without thinking.
You're just a bunch of meat puppets looking for some way to be relevant in a world full of people brighter and more sentient than you.
Well said anonymous. Its obvious that a lot of people
need to go back to school and take a reading comprehension course. Will Smith did make a mistake. He assumed the majority of the population was actually educated enough to correctly interpret what he said.
"Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good [to himself]."
Hitler was a good man, to his own kind, for he knew how to rob the Jews to pay the whites. But Will, he's not even a mixed breed. He's 100% black, which Hitler would be happy to rob from.
Ironically, they're giving Smith a hard time for exercising the kind of thoughtfulness that Hitler failed to. The crazy Fuehrer believed that certain kinds of people in the world were INHERENTLY evil and had to be eradicated.
Ironically, they're giving Smith a hard time for exercising the kind of thoughtfulness that Hitler failed to. The crazy Fuehrer believed that certain kinds of people in the world were INHERENTLY evil and had to be eradicated.
Something that actors talk about in acting school all the time, and this is of course the most extreme example, is of how to portray a character like Adolf Hitler. It goes with out saying that Hitler was an awful, horrible, evil dictator, the lowest form of humanity. Everyone knows he was a callous and brutal mass murderer.
But as an actor, one has to make choices about how to portray a character to make that character believable.
Which is more frightening: to imagine Hitler as as an evil villain and play up his villainy or to imagine him as a person who believed that what he was doing was the right thing?
Will Smith was doing nothing more than regurgitating an often discussed topic among actors. Congratulations on over-reacting to nothing.
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