This mindless bit of dreck has caused a bit of a stir by claiming that Will Smith said "Hitler was a good person." What stands out to me is that anyone actually reading the article should immediately realize that there were no actual quotes to that effect.
Word to the wise folks: look for the quote marks. If you don't see them, then the reporter is making things up.
Eugene Volokh, Ilya Somin, and Dave Price all agree that Smith never said anything resembling the quote attributed to him.
Mr. Price seems to think that Smith displayed a certain degree of naivety for his general point of view, while the Volokh Conspiracy writers limited their skepticism to the idea that someone like Hitler could be "reprogrammed" or psychologically reshaped; a position with which I agree.
Smith's general point rang a bell with me, and it bothered me for a bit. For quite a while I've held to the belief that no one sees themselves as evil, but I couldn't recall the seed of that belief. Then it hit me: Heinlein, naturally!
Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate--and quickly.While the second part of that directive might prove problematical, I prefer Heinlein's formulation, especially his use of the word "villain" as opposed to "evil."
So maybe Will Smith isn't quite so naive after all.
Something that actors talk about in acting school all the time, and this is of course the most extreme example, is of how to portray a character like Adolf Hitler. It goes with out saying that Hitler was an awful, horrible, evil dictator, the lowest form of humanity. Everyone knows he was a callous and brutal mass murderer.
But as an actor, one has to make choices about how to portray a character to make that character believable.
Which is more frightening: to imagine Hitler as as an evil villain and play up his villainy or to imagine him as a person who believed that what he was doing was the right thing?
Will Smith was doing nothing more than regurgitating an often discussed topic among actors. People are over-reacting about nothing, as they are want to do.
Posted by: Ralph at December 25, 2007 10:47 PM