To the Editor:
In response to Professor Steve Swayne's article, "The Death of Laughter," in the Jan. 23 issue of The Dartmouth, I have to say that he misses the point entirely. I come from a Jewish family and saw "The Producers" (sans Nathan Lane) over this past Thanksgiving break with my mother and sister in New York. We are huge fans of the movie and enjoyed the theatrical version equally. Mel Brooks does not glorify or excuse Hitler or the audience; in fact, he actually does the complete opposite. Hitler is turned into a caricature that we laugh at, not with. He is belittled and humiliated. Brooks does not turn Hitler into the galvanizing orator and omnipotent leader that so many history books do, but shows him for what he really is: a scared, stupid little man that we must make fun of to diminish his stature in history even more. "The Producers" does not ask us to laugh at the Holocaust or World War Two, but to laugh at a man named Adolf Hitler, so that his stature can be diminished again and again.
