MovieChat Forums > Shining Through (1992) Discussion > WHAT IS HER HOLOCAUST STORY?

WHAT IS HER HOLOCAUST STORY?

posted 10 years ago by ib011f9545i
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I have always liked this film,and even liked Griffiths performance.

There are some comments that she did not know that the holocaust happened until making this film.
People make negative comments about Griffiths being stupid but I don't think people get how awareness of the holocaust has greatly increased since the 1970s.

I don't think that Griffiths comments should be such a shock,looking at her biography it seems she did not get much education,becoming a model as a teenager and being a wild person with men and drugs and alcohol.

I guess she did not have much time for studying history.

Even if she had completed high school I doubt that World War 2 and nazi Germany were big topics in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

History is my thing and I have always been obsessed by World War 2 and nazi Germany,but I think it is fair to say that while people knew about the holocaust from just after the war ended it was not the big topic it has become in the last 30 years,since the tv series HOLOCAUST?

THE WORLD AT WAR tv series,a factual masterpiece,had an episode about the holocaust and it stunned people when it was shown,it was shown in the USA although it was made in Britain.

I understand that the reasons why the holocaust is such a huge topic now and how people can be amazed that someone like her did not know about it but it was not greatly discussed in films and tv in the past as much as it is now.

I sometimes watch the American version of "who do you think you are"and have been amazed when someone of Jewish background is surprised that their jewish grandparents were killed in the holocaust,if I was jewish and had grandparents from europe I would be surprised if they had not been holocaust victims.

[–] HarveyManfredSinJohn 10 years ago

Most Jews are very aware of the Holocaust even if they're surprised to discover that their own family members were victims. It helps that, irrespective of their own personal relationship to Shoah, Ashkenazi Jews in particular tend to be very well-educated and informed.

By contrast, Melanie Griffith, a WASP from a wealthy family (mother a connected actress, father an advertising exec, family owned a large big cat reserve, attended a private school), clearly didn't place a high premium on education growing up judging by her ignorance with respect to the Holocaust. I appreciate that post-'Schindler's List' people are more aware of the deaths of 6 million Jews (along with 6 million others annihilated by the Nazis) but for a woman in her thirties to be so ignorant of the Holocaust in the year 1991/2 is still pretty pathetic.

I'm not saying Ms Griffith is a bad person for her ignorance, and it's arguably her own teachers that failed rather than her, but that level of ignorance for an adult is still fairly astounding and does rather raise the question of her suitability for this particular part.