The anti-"Reader" argument

I'm still stunned that "The Reader" made it into the finals for the Oscar's top prize, but now Ron Rosenblum, the author of The Shakespeare Wars and Explaining Hitler really blisters the film in an article that appeared on Slate.com, calling the film "The Worst Holocaust Film Ever Made," even worse than "Life Is Beautiful."

The basic flaw with the film, Rosenblum writes, is that it demands sympathy for an unrepentant mass murderer and argues that illiteracy is a crime worst than mass murder.

Rosenblum argues that the German people knew exactly what Hitler was doing during the War. For someone not to know, he claims, "You had to be deaf, dumb, and blind, not merely illiterate, to miss what Kate Winslet's character seems to have missed (while serving as a guard at Auschwitz!). You'd have to be exceedingly stupid. As dumb as the Oscar voters who nominated 'The Reader' because it was a 'Holocaust film.'"

He concludes by begging Oscar voters not to vote for "The Reader" for best picture, despite Harvey Weinstein's heavy, heavy campaigning for exactly that to happen.