“Nazi porn?”

That’s a term writer Ron Rosenbaum used in his Slate critique of this year’s film The Reader — “Don’t give an Oscar to The Reader.” Guess Rosenbaum was less than pleased to see a glowing Kate Winslet carry away a gold statue last Sunday for her starring role in the film.

In his scathing column, Rosenbaum summarized the film. While in prison for participating in the murder of 300 Jews, the protagonist, Hanna, taught herself to read. “What a heartwarming fable about the wonders of literacy and its ability to improve the life of an Auschwitz mass murderer!” he pronounced. “Get a load of those pages turning! Reading is fun!”

Clear and simple. The Reader, this critic says, is apologetic to a Nazi sympathizer who participated in the killing of Jews. And based on this, the film does not merit an Oscar.

And about that porn … ?

Rosenbaum broadens his argument. He lambastes Holocaust films for hiding real history under sensational tales of “personal triumph,” “false redemptiveness” and “sexual exploitiveness.” In other words — girl (Kate Winslet) is forced to face her past, overcomes her crippling illiteracy and manages to get naked a few times in the process: hence, “Nazi Porn.”

Rosenbaum certainly wasn’t short for material. Big-impact films, the kind destined for the Oscars, are always released around the end of the year. That’s why nothing says the holidays like movie theatres, popcorn, soda and Auschwitz.

The Reader

Valkyrie

Defiance

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Toyland

Adam Resurrected

2009. 65 years later. And Hollywood is obsessed. Why? Because a much larger battle is being played out on the Oscar stage.

What is notable about this season’s bunch is that a number of the flicks — Valkyrie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Reader — approach WWII through the eyes of the German. The Reader recounts the tale of an Auschwitz guard. Valkyrie’s vanguard is a bunch of top Nazis, albeit resistant ones. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas pursues a family associated with Hitler’s Third Reich.

This has led many to issue cautionary cries: “Revisionism abounds,” they forewarn! WWII is being rewritten! The Nazis are being vindicated, turned into the good guys!

In some cases, I think they’re right. Much of The Reader focuses on Hanna’s illiteracy, and how her inability to read, in part, led her down the road to Nazism. But there were others, literate and illiterate, who chose a different path.

Importantly, the Slate critique claims that the film originally had a scene that showed Hanna physically guarding the door of a church while 300 Jews burned to death inside. That scene was removed. Why did the filmmakers choose to leave that detail out?

The same kind of argument can be made of Valkyrie, whose Nazi protagonists come across, for the most part, as kind and gentlemanly. OK. They end up turning on Hitler. But I imagine they probably did something right along the way to end up with such high-ranking positions in the Nazi regime. Furthermore, their plan to kill Hitler wasn’t motivated wholly by a warm and fuzzy compassion towards Jews. It had a lot to do with restoring Germany’s greatness and national honor.

Gosh, it sure was easy to lose myself in Tom Cruise’s smoldering squint. And even though it’s a true story — and so I already knew the ending (spoiler alert: Hitler doesn’t die) — I couldn’t help but root for that hunky Commander Claus von Stauffenberg!

Still, a few aspects of the Commander’s character were underdeveloped … like maybe his participation in the brutal invasion of Poland and in bloody Operation Barbarossa … or the fact that he was so militarily successful, fighting on the Nazis’ behalf, that he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class.

What does the film industry owe Commander Claus von Stauffenberg? Or an Auschwitz guard?

Has the film industry vilified Germans so often, and for so long, that Nazis are now Hollywood’s underdog — targets worthy of automatic sympathy and respect … at the cost of history?

2009. 65 years later. Can yesterday’s oppressors also be today’s victims?

Revisionism? Maybe. But I think Rosenbaum misses an important point.

Nazis, bad. Everyone else, good. Guilty/innocent. Black/white. Swastika/yellow Star. These kinds of representations no longer hold.

OK. I think some of these films missed the historical mark. But maybe they also show that we’re at least trying to take a more nuanced look at history. And that’s productive. I think that we’re using these films to ask the questions that, fresh out of WWII, people were too scared or too scarred to consider.

What does it mean to be evil?

What power do individuals have to resist oppression?

What does it mean to be complicit with a government policy?

Who and what are we waiting for to come along and change things?

Maybe we needed 65 years of breathing time before these kinds of questions could be asked.

Paradoxically, I think this more sophisticated attitude towards conflict explains why our discussion about the Gaza clash has been so difficult.

Just like black/white dichotomy used to describe WWII is being challenged, we’re having a similar problem with symbolism today. Last week, a memorial to fallen lives was callously politicized; a line of black flags on the Arts Quad meant to commemorate Gaza deaths was rearranged, in the dead of night, into a Jewish star. It was later rearranged into a peace sign. This week, written signs stood where the black flags did.

Just like the point of view of these Holocaust Films is being debated, we’re having a hard time designating clear cut sides. Is supporting Palestine another way of sticking it to the status quo? An example of blindly backing the underdog? Is shoring up Israel a way to make a Zionist pitch? A roundabout means of backing U.S. foreign policy?

I’m not sure.

But maybe, the Gaza conflict is so hard to talk about precisely because we aren’t willing to make the same crude distinctions between “good” and “bad” that we used to. And that’s a good thing.

Because I’d hate to think that these flawed attempts at fruitful “discussion” — one-sided panel discussions, angry café gatherings and politicized commemorations — means we need another 65 years or so to think on it.

Who knows? Maybe that discussion will start on Hollywood Blvd.

But that’s a topic for another day. After all, this is a column about the Holocaust, not Gaza.