MovieChat Forums > The Winds of War (1983) Discussion > Anachronistic joke at Warren's wedding

Anachronistic joke at Warren's wedding

posted 8 years ago by AureliaBuendia
2 replies | jump to latest

Just rewatching the series on YouTube and enjoying reading the comments here (which you couldn't do first time around). At the bridal party's table, I think it was Janice's father told a joke about a Jewish family at a filling station complaining they couldn't get gas and everyone laughs. Now, although the Nazis had started euthanasing physically and mentally handicapped patients, at that time they hadn't begun building gas chambers and even when they did, the Allies didn't know about the Final Solution till very late in the War. So what did this joke imply?

[–] Stevicus-2 8 years ago

I thought it was just a play on words, since the joke has them at a gas station in the South. The attendant asks "Juice?" which is a slang term for gasoline. He was asking them if they wanted to get gas. But the way he pronounces it, it comes out as "Jews?"

I think the joke was meant to imply that there was still a fair degree of anti-semitism in the United States, and jokes about various ethnic and religious groups were still pretty common back in those days. It also showed the degree of isolationism at the time, as represented in the character of Ike Lacouture.

An interesting sidenote about this scene is that after the joke is told, you can see Byron slightly smirking at the joke, just before he leaves the table with Natalie.

[–] pickriot 8 years ago

Ya--OP is reading too much into the joke--Juice and and a play on the word Jew. Back in the day juice was slang for gas