And I Thought Spanish Civil War-Themed Video Games Were Tasteless

I thought I had seen the limit when I read about the Spanish Civil War-Themed video game (see earlier post under "Memory and Amnesia")

And I knew I should have logged out of the Reuters news site and sashayed over to my new sofa to watch that fascist asshole Giuliani get trounced in Florida. But no. The promise of schadenfreude wasn't enough. Curiosity got the better of me. And so I read with disbelief: "Holocaust-Themed Carnival Float Causes Strain."

According to the article, the Viradouro samba school has created a float depicting piles of dead bodies as part of their broader program related to "shock." There is a photo in the article but I find it so nauseating that I cannot upload it here. The samba school folks seem aggrieved to know that they have offended Jewish people in Brazil. (and obviously it offends any person, anywhere, who learns of this)

Here is a quote from the article:


"Viradouro's parade theme is "Shockers" and it includes floats depicting the shock of birth, the shock of horror and the shock of cold. Barros said the Holocaust float would be the only one without dancers on top. "If we had people dancing on top of dead bodies that would indeed be disrespectful," he told Reuters"


I love how the representative of the Samba school, a Mr. Barros, deems himself to be the arbiter of where to draw boundaries between good and bad taste. And so according to him women in sequin-trimmed bras and g-strings gyrating on top of the holocaust-themed float would be in poor taste. But not the float itself.


Here is the link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN2955554720080129?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

FOLLOW UP Feb. 1

A judge barred the samba school from taking out the float, and from bringing out a dancer dressed as Adolf Hitler. I just love how the guy from the samba school who claimed they were being respectful by not dancing on top of the float depicting dead bodies of holocaust victims omitted the detail that a dancer dressed as the Nazi dictator would be accompanying the float.

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN3131385820080131?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN3131385820080131?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true