39,327
edits
No Swastikas: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (update links) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 45:
* In ''[[Black Lagoon]]'', the Neo-Nazi group that the cast fights against for two whole episodes is using the old SA logo, possibly a reference to Neo-Nazi groups evading the Swastika ban by using other symbols in real life. Their employer wears an SS wing, and in flashbacks to the event that launched the arc -- the last trip of a German Submarine after the war -- some Swastika flags are seen.
* One chapter of ''[[Apollo's Song]]'' has the main character incarnated as a young soldier in Nazi Germany, escorting a trainload of prisoners to a concentration camp. Naturally, there isn't a swastika to be found.
* Averted in ''[[Great Teacher Onizuka]]''. It confused many Westerners when in one episode where Onizuka brings back his old bike gang together, he is seen [http://twitpic.com/1ij6pp/full covering his face with a swastika]. It's not a square manji. It is a full on German right-facing diamond-shaped swastika (but roughly drawn and lacking the white circle). It is currently unknown how this was handled in Germany, as it is uncensored in the English dub ([[Moral Guardians|hard to believe, I know]]).
* The manga ''[[Blade of the Immortal]]'' has the ''Manji'' as the emblem of the main character, whose name is Manji also. Many of the collected manga have an explanation about it in the foreward.
Line 57:
== Comic Books ==
* Any appearances of the swastika are routinely edited out by German publishers of the medium. However, in an issue of the DC/Marvel crossover event "Amalgam Comics" (Namely, "Super Soldier", a mixture of [[Superman]] and [[Captain America (comics)]]), two thirds of a swastika on the edge of a panel were missed. This was apparently enough to warrant a thorough search of an unfortunate comic book store by the related authorities.
* American publishers generally prefer not to include swastikas on covers, though they're usually fine with having them in the interior artwork. One example: the third issue of Fury: Peacemaker, a Marvel Comics series set in World War II, features a Nazi officer on the cover. His outfit is drawn to be historically accurate, which means it includes a swastika on his hat. Rather than change the art, Marvel strategically placed the book's logo so it covered up the swastika. You can see the untouched artwork in the collected edition of the series.
Line 80:
'''Bialystock and Bloom:''' He didn't need our help! }}
* An early example of this appeared in 1936's ''[[Charlie Chan]] At The Olympics'', which were, of course, held in [[Nazi Germany|Berlin]] that year; all the numerous swastikas that appear (including on the ''[[Hindenburg]]'') are carefully [[Pixellation|blotted out]].
* The Judean People's Front Suicide Squad in [[Monty Python]]'s ''[[Life of Brian]]'' yet. They march around speaking in hacked up German accents wearing a swastika intertwined with a Star of David on their heads. A rare deleted scene (you can find it on some versions of the DVD) has Brian talking to the leader of the squad, Otto, who tells him that their mission is to create a 'pure Jewish society' without all the 'gypsies and gays and such like'. The whole gang is essentially reverse-Nazis... it's quite obvious why the scene was deleted.
** If you're accusing the Pythons of sensitivity, that's [[Dead Baby Comedy|not very likely]]. They've pretty much said that scene was cut because it was a waste of time and ruined the movie's pacing.
* When ''[[Sin City]]'' was released in France and other parts of Europe, scenes were edited to remove any trace of Miho's specialized shuriken because it resembled a swastika. The shuriken in question is technically shaped like a ''manji'' and has an Eastern origin, fitting the character. Apparently, European censors were unaware of this.
Line 123:
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield 1942]]'' uses imperial symbols for Nazi Germany; the German flag, for example, is the Imperial flag with an iron cross in the middle.
** It is also played straight in ''[[Battlefield Heroes]]'' -- it features the National and Royal Armies, modeled off the Allies and Axis respectively. However, they are stated ''not'' to be that -- they are armies fighting over, amusingly enough, Olympic cycling results. As such, despite the obviously [[World War II]] setting, there are no swastikas. There are instead black skulls-and-crossbones.
* A [http://www.rome.ro/lee_killough/memorabilia/swastika.shtml map area] in ''[[Doom (series)|Doom]]'' was originally a swastika as a homage to ''Wolfenstein 3D'' -- this was changed in v1.4.
** In ''[[Doom (series)|Doom]] 2'', the two secret levels are absent in the German version, as they are literally updated ports of two ''Wolfenstein 3D'' levels (see below), swastika-banners and all.
Line 168:
* ''1941: Counter Attack'' pits you against [[World War II]] Germany. However, you never see a single swastika or a reference to Hitler.
* ''[[Hidden And Dangerous]]'' simply avoided hanging swastika banners in the levels, and the enemy models aren't detailed enough to tell if they're present on uniforms or not. Portraits of the Fuhrer turn up a few times, however.
* ''[[The Saboteur]]'' completely averts this trope, featuring swastikas on flags, Zeppelins and on armbands of Nazi soldiers. However, no direct reference to Hitler is made (only ever "The Fuhrer") and from early release trailers, all swastikas were replaced with the Iron Cross. Also, when Sean disguises himself as a Nazi, the armband disappears.
** German version still plays this straight, even with removing the few lines of Hitler taken from an old speech. Also, the game has a list of all people you killed, with "neutralised Germans" instead of "killed Nazis". Strangely the list says "killed civilians" instead of neutralise.
* ''[[Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin]]'' ''supposedly'' takes place during ''[[World War II]]'', but the game goes out of its way to avoid mentioning this. About the only time you'll be aware of the period is when one of the bosses kill off some [[Red Shirt]] soldiers.
Line 186:
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode ''The Passion of the Jew'', Cartman starts a Nazi-like group disguised as simply a "[[Mel Gibson]] fanclub" to eliminate Jews. The group includes all sorts of Nazi paraphernalia, such as uniforms and flags, with the Swastika omitted. Of course, ''South Park'' [[Crosses the Line Twice|has no problem with offending people]], so the lack of the swastika was probably to make the group's real intentions less obvious to the people in the show.
** Although considering the obviousness of Cartman's outfit, marches, and chanting in <s>German</s> "Aramaic", [[Adults Are Useless|one wonders if they'd have noticed]].
* The writers of ''[[The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes]]'' decided to create an alternate timeline with HYDRA as an enemy of the Allies during WWII, assisted by villains traditionally associated with Nazis. [[Word of God]] stated that this was the result of an ultimatum from Standards And Practices: they could avert either this trope or [[Family-Friendly Firearms]], and they chose the latter. The head writer also tried to justify the change [http://www.medinnus.com/AEMH/yost_01.html here] by saying HYDRA served as merely a branch of the Nazis. In the episode "Meet [[Captain America (comics)]]", the Red Skull's SS uniform suggests the Nazis existed in this universe, but the opening newsreel only shows HYDRA taking over Europe. (As a result, viewers who have not read these [[Word of God]] statements tend to assume this series disregarded the existence of Nazis altogether.) Unfortunately, the fact that HYDRA is still pretty powerful in the present suggests the Allies failed to eliminate the threat of another Axis takeover.
* Used a couple of times in ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' first in "Maddog Hoek" when their wrestling opponents dress them in Nazi uniforms telling them they are the enemy the symbols on their arms and hats are x's (notably this scene was cut in the German dub), and in "Ren's Bitter Half" near the end Ren's evil side is dressed in a uniform reminiscent of a Nazi uniform and the symbol on his armband is an "R".
* ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]'' follows this trope during Granny's [[World War 2]] flashback.
Line 213:
* There's a small town called 'Swastika' in Northern Ontario which refused to change the name of the town during WWII because A) They had the name first. B) Swastikas are for good luck.
** The government actually [[wikipedia:Swastika, Ontario#World War II|tried to change the name]] to "Winston" (in honour of Churchill), but the locals kept removing and changing the sign back, which has made them the butt of quite a few jokes.
* [[wikipedia:Raëlism|Raëlism]], the UFO religion founded in the 1970s, has attempted to reclaim the swastika by using it in their official symbol - all the more controversial (and somewhat ironic) as they intertwine the swastika with the Star of David. In the 1970s they attempted to build an embassy in Jerusalem for their alien gods and wanted to use that symbol on their building. When the Israeli government informed Rael he could not do that the aliens told him that it was okay to change their symbol to something less objectionable to the Israelis.
* According to Unicode.org's [http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=842c Unihan search engine], one of the three possible ideograms for ''wàn'' (ten thousand or countless) is an anticlockwise swastika, hence this is the only one of the three which you won't see on [[Mahjong]] Characters tiles (at least in the Western Hemisphere). However, this may be why some Mahjong authorities claim that the ''wàn'' character means "good luck" (although in this context, "ten thousand" is a more accurate interpretation).
* On a very popular writers' forum called Absolute Write, one of the members had an ancient Buddhist symbol in their signature to signify their coping with the loss of their father. It was mistaken for a swastika (which it looks like, turned 45 degrees) by a blogger and caused quite an uproar. In the end, the board let it stay due to its nature as a healing symbol.
Line 219:
** Which is somewhat ironic when you consider the fact that Finland was an ally of the Nazis during World War II.
*** Not really, since it would actually be ironic if they had been fighting ''against'' the Germans (which, incidentally, they did following their making peace with the Soviets). Besides, the swastikas were arranged differently or otherwise were designed to not resemble the Nazi swastika (that's actually true for a lot of swastikas, such as the reverse one, which often get confused with the Nazi symbol since in the public imagination [Swastika=Nazi] regardless of how it looks).
* On Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese maps, swastikas are often used to indicate the location of Buddhist temples. Yes, this also applies to Google Maps, which startles quite a few western people when they first see it.
* [[Rudyard Kipling]] adopted the swastika as part of his personal bookplate, inspired by his time in India. However, after the Nazis came to power, he had it removed from his published works.
* Visit some pre-WWII hotels in areas like South Dakota. The swatstika was a common symbol among the Native Americans. Buildings that include the shape will either have obliterated or modified the symbol, or will spend a lot of time explaining it to tourists.
* Also known as the 'fylfot', swastikas dating from 1920 appear on the floor of the entrance hall to the Customs House in Sydney, Australia, now home of the City of Sydney Library. There's an explanatory plaque nearby.
** This was a quite common practice in many regions prior to WWII. It's a simple to create and fairly attractive symbol in tile flooring (if you can get past the Nazi appropriation of it, that is).
* The Serbo-Croatian word for "sister-in-law" is "Svastika." YMMV as to whether it applies in your personal case or not....
* The CU(Credit Union) Service Center has [[media:cuswirl_4481.gif|a swastika that is tilted at a 45 degree angle (like the Nazi swastika), but has curved spokes that come to a point (unlike the Nazi swastika)]] as its symbol.
| |||