"The movie swing kids provided me with an invaluable insight into the world of young people in Nazi Germany" Comment on the merit of this statement taking care to use relevant examples from the movie.

Essay by KentHigh School, 11th gradeA-, August 2004

download word file, 3 pages 0.0

Downloaded 17 times

Swing Kids is a feature film that covers the early years of Hitler coming to power between 1933 and 1939. Swing Kids, on its own doesn't give the viewer great insight into the Nazi regime. However, through background study into the topic, Swing Kids helped enhance my understanding of Nazi Germany. Swing Kids, is a microcosm of a major transformation in the circumstances of Germany around 1933 to 1939. The feature film seemed to belittle this transformation taking place in Germany in the 1930's. This is because, as Hitler is committing genocide and planning World War 2, the feature film followed a small group of kids who danced to illegal music. Although, read deeper into the feature film, this small group of kids is used as a symbol to portray the wide spread discontent at the transformation taking place in Germany. In other words, viewers that have no prior knowledge of Nazi Germany in 1933 to 1939 can be miss lead by the story line.

The reason why they are misled is because a lot of issues in the text are not directly addressed but implied in some supposedly irrelevant scenes.

Throughout the feature film the kids didn't seem extremely political. However, at the beginning it is seen that the kids are urinating on an anti-swing, pro Nazi poster. This alone can be overlooked by us as viewers. In modern context this act of urination can be seen as immature mischief, with no political message. However, in context of the political climate in Nazi Germany, viewers can be given an insight into how symbolic this act is This Urination demonstrates the kids showing a message pro-swing, pro Americanism, and anti Nazi Germany. It is a symbol of what would be happening in the wider culture of 1933...