The Hipster phenomenon’s lockstep adherence to fashion underscores a deeper resonance, namely that between fashion and fascist.
Hipsters are likely too young to remember the ‘80s Gay Clone, Tom Selleck’s, earlier attempt to resurrect the ‘stache, ostensibly to hide stretchmarks from too many blowjobs. And while some observers chalked the Clone up to a fetishization of the working man, that explanation circles me back to the fact that Nazis called themselves National Socialists, the most brazen mind fuck of all.
Meanwhile, this cute little Hitler ‘toon takes a novel approach in humanizing Der Fuhrer, for what purpose I know not. Rabid Ultra-Zionists have no doubt already drawn a paranoid parallel between the semiotic Hipster favoring of Kafia-as-accessory and an imagined affinity between Palestine and The Third Reich.
I’ve always found hipsters to be quite sexy, and although my love of the knish will never allow me entry into their man-orexic ranks, I can’t help but theorize that in Auschwitz everybody could squeeze into skinny jeans.
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About the Author
Gonzo Gonick's films explore a variety of iconoclastic issues and positions surrounding sexuality and radical politics, including Utopian hippie cults, Aboriginal street gangs, labor uprisings, stockbroker meltdowns, and prison architecture. He has screened films at Venice and Sundance, is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Canada. http://vimeo.com/noamgonick
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13 comments
Jessica
Aug 30, 2010
as a rabid post zionist, could you please explain to me the hipster love of the kaffia?
Noam Gonick
Aug 31, 2010
Not sure, but I use mine as a table cloth at the cabin.
Hojannat Chebelali
Sep 1, 2010
‘Rabid Ultra-Zionists’, as you say, don’t have to ‘imagine an affinity between Palestine and The Third Reich’.
What you call an ‘affinity between Palestine and The Third Reich’ has indeed historically taken place, with the palestinian ‘gand’ mufti of Jerusalem (Mohammad Amin al-Husayni) who was an active nazi, recruiting palestinians and tens of thousands of other muslims as SS-soldiers, and who was Adolf Eichmann’s close friend and met Hitler several times.
I could also mention the fact that Goebbels, Hitler, Eichmann, and al-Husayni all head a common swiss banker (François Genoud), who later financed south american ex-nazi-organisations like (‘Odessa’, ‘Still Hilfe’) and palestinian terrorist organisations (PLO, FPLP) likewise.
Not mentioning the numerous ex-nazis involved in the ‘Final Solution’ who fled to arab countries and became high-level officials (Alois Brunner in Syria, Aribert Heim in Egypt) or even former high SS-officers who became military training officers in palestinian camps (Erich Altern, Baurnann, Wilhelm Boerner).
They all turned muslim, by the way.
Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ is a bestseller, and for Hamas’ official charta directly refers to the so-colled ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’.
Yup, guys, you may just ignore it, but the nazi heritage in the arab world is quite significant.
Noam Gonick
Sep 2, 2010
Thanks for this. I will put your information in the same brain quadrant occupied by the swastika/Buddhist sun-symbol connection (apparently not a fluke –Yoga Hitler, here we come). Jewish Nazi-sympathizer and literary lesbian Gertrude Stein is also in there, sunning herself in the mountains throughout the Vichy regime.
Hojannat Chebelali
Sep 2, 2010
Ehmm… What so-called ‘Jewish Nazi-Sympathizer’ do you know, Noam ? Give me just 1 example…
Gertrude Stein ?
She might not quite be a convincing example, as ‘sunning herself in the mountains throughout the Vichy regime’ is not quite really what she did. She actually fled around from Nazi persecutions, and luckily got saved & hidden by the Vichy regime’s official library director. Not a unique example; for your information, 80% of the Vichy regime’s administrative staff were former socialist who decided to collaborate for the sake of pacifism, sacrifying the french Jews, but not ideologically antisemitic.
Is Gertrude Stein who you try to compare with the tens of thousands of muslims who volunteered as SS-soldiers ?
How about opening a history book time and again ? I know Heeb as a ‘progressive’ Jewish-American magazine, but so far recognized only your ‘American’ side…
Is Baruchowitz still working at Heeb ? A good guy, but man, is he dumb.
Sara
Sep 3, 2010
I don’t know about others but I laughed so hard when I read those comics I nearly pee-ed myself. It certainly didn’t humanize the actual historical Hitler it draws upon, just allows me to laugh at what a putz he is.
mike
Sep 6, 2010
Alright, if people can’t take a joke at something like this, then wtf your life. Chill.
Hojannat Chebelali
Sep 7, 2010
It’s not a problem to take a joke ‘at something like this’, hence the (quote) ‘cute little Hitler ‘toon’.
It’s much more problematic if there’s a comment below suggesting only ‘rabid ultra-zionists’ (wonder who knows what that’s supposed to be) would imagine affinity between Palestine and the 3rd Reich, while this ‘affinity’ (euphemism) indeed existed, for instance in the person of the palestinian ‘grand’ mufti of Jerusalem who actively took part in the jewish genocide, who was Eichmann’s close friend (even had the same swiss banker than him & Hitler) and recruited tens of thousands of muslim SS.
Or in the anti-jewish pogrom in Irak in 1942 of pro-nazi iraqi nationalists.
Or the high-ranking ex-nazis organizing the jewish genocide who later became high-ranking state officials in Syria, in Egypt, in Irak, or became even military instructors in palestinian camps…
According to you, a competent historian probably a ‘rabid ultra-zionist’…
Then he comes with Gertrude Stein, who fled nazi persecutions and miraculously got saved by a Vichy official, and he compares her with the tens of thousands muslim SS-soldiers…
Yeah. That must be the ‘progressive’ side of Heeb…
Chaim Perelstein
Sep 17, 2010
I found that last line, about skinny-jeans in concentration camps to be quite offensive.
Hojannat Chebelali
Sep 19, 2010
They try to be funny and ‘progressive’, while they’re just ignorant and dumb, and try to hide with a systematic 2nd degree statement nobody laughs about.
Noam Gonick
Sep 19, 2010
Offense or laughter – both cool reactions by me. Haunted by the shoah courtesy of early childhood Hebrew School programming, I feel a certain freedom to address the topic in non-traditional ways. Although I’m no Gertrude Stein scholar, it’s fairly common knowledge that she wrote editorials in US daily papers extolling the virtues of Hitler. This from her Wikipedia entry: “I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize, because he is removing all the elements of contest and of struggle from Germany. By driving out the Jews and the democratic and Left element, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace … By suppressing Jews … he was ending struggle in Germany” (New York Times Magazine, May 6, 1934)* So I relate the complex image of lesbian saloniste Gertrude Stein, whom I respect for her contributions to English language, being simultaneously an industrial heiress cheering on the crushing the left (and Jews) with the image of Hipsters, whom I revere for their skinny jeans and youthful beauty (and indifference), playfully creating a Hitler of their own. And I thank Hojannat Chebelali for showing us the historical links between Palestinians and Nazism, however, I can’t help but romanticize their freedom fight as Jean Genet did when he went and hung out in their tents.
* Perhaps she was being ironic, but I don’t think so – she got to chillax in the mountains of France for WWII, not too many of our people did.
Dave
Dec 16, 2010
Yea no Muslims were SS. The SS were the most elite of the German army and we picked on their idealistic Aryan characteristics. Dont get it twisted!
Hipster Hitler t-shirt printer sacked by own lawyers
May 14, 2011
http://firmspy.com/law-disorder/5613/exclusive-oh-heil-arnold-bloch-leibler-represents-company-spruiking-neo-nazi-propaganda