Life

Type Has Something to Say

By Dan Friedman July 23, 2009

Fact One: People seem to have a lot more time on their hands than me.

Fact Two: Hitler is an excellent object of fun.

YouTube offers almost infinite testimony to those facts. One of the cult memes currently infesting the internet video portal is a series of alternative comedy subtitlings to Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2004 drama Der Untergang (The Downfall) — no, I’d never heard of it either.

This one (Hitler Gets a Cheap Font CD), although employing strong language that we would not tolerate here at the Forward, upholds the premise of our current article, A Bubbling Font of Creativity: Oded Ezer and His Hebrew Designs that typography is something more than just pretty letters, but is an inherent part of the design process.

This one (Hitler Finally Declares War on Hitler Parodies) is just as potty-mouthed as its earlier counterpart but funnier maybe because it is consciously part of the meme, self-reflective and sensitive to the action of the original film. It bears more relation to our other current piece, Sex and the Shoah, Through Survivor and Sons insofar as it asks how we, in the 21st century, should relate to the Nazis.

Insofar as the delightfully named AlbertHallProds (a reference, no doubt, to the wartime song which proposes the Albert Hall as a location for Hitler’s testicles) answers that question, he tells us that guerrilla subtitling should be undertaken only when it will be very, very funny indeed. Otherwise video posters will pay the ultimate price.

Dan Friedman is the former executive editor and whisky correspondent of the Forward, and is the author of a book about Tears for Fears, the ’80s emo rock band.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO