An Open Letter to Steven Spielberg
by jamie whyte
Hi Steven,
Can you please stop directing films that have German soldiers in them. It is a problem with the baby boomer generation but anyone born post 1960 just doesn’t care about them. You on the other hand, appear to have a bizarre fascination, some might say a fetish with our grey uniformed Deutsche chums.
Here is your filmography and evidence of the amount of panzer based nonsense you’ve inflicted upon us all. Maybe you just like their motorbike sidecars and the helmets, I don’t know, but for your remaining years, could you please move on.
Please also avoid aliens as well.
Duel — big truck chases a man (allegory for das boot vs the allied solider)
Something Evil — some demon nonsense
The Sugarland Express — US based thriller
Jaws — German made shark terrorises local community
Close Encounters of the Third Kind — aliens with theme tune
1941 — have a guess what this refers to.. yup… Zee Germans!
Raiders of the Lost Ark — Nazis abound
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — Elliot harbours Ann Frank from Nazis on Halloween
Twilight Zone: The Movie — sci-fi thriller
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — Nazis are back with shriveled faces
The Color Purple — Whoopi!
Empire of the Sun — WWII with Japanese instead of Nazis — subtle
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - MORE NAZIS
Always — “comedy“
Hook — more comedy
Jurassic Park — British / Americans colonise island, Nazi dinos fight back
Schindler’s List — serious Nazi Nazi film, with Nazis
Amistad — Matthew McConaughey begins annoying movie goes worldwide
The Lost World: Jurassic Park — Nazi dinos stage full scale US invasion
Saving Private Ryan — More Nazis attack
A.I. Artificial Intelligence — swear the ending needed more Nazis
Catch Me If You Can — lol
Minority Report — totalitarian police state, much like another European state I once knew
The Terminal — “comedy“
War of the Worlds — stupid flu-ridden (Nazi) aliens stage invasion of US
Munich — WWII guerrilla spy drama set 30 years after WWII
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — ZEE NAZIS ARE BACK!!!
War Horse — German soldiers abound, prequel to your many other Nazis films
So 10/28 films are about Nazis… it’s 2012.… it’s been 67 years… one year older than you Steven. Let’s leave it now. I beg you. War Horse was by the numbers drivel, and we all know you only took the chance so you could get your German soldier fix. Why not join a reenactment group, live the past instead of inflicting it upon us time and time again.

Interesting but I think a deeper analysis suggests Spielberg’s real beef is with the Japanese — explicit in 1941 and Empire of the Sun, implicit in AI — we will be taken over by Japanese androids; Close Encounters — strange small people are playing with our minds to make us want them to come and abduct us; and none more so than in Jaws, where Quint’s monologue clearly ties the theme to the war in the Pacific. The ocean is deep, unknowable and has hidden terrors — like the Japanese. And what does Quint use to try to kill the shark? Yellow barrels — a cleverly sublimated homonym for ‘Yellow Peril’.