Bontrager Christmas play is disgustingly anti-Semetic

[ladyamylynn]

After reading in a Maxwell thread that they attended the Bontrager family's "Live animal Christmas play" (who wants to bet their standards of animal safety and welfare are not high?) I went to their blog and read a few posts about it. You might be shocked to find out it's fucking gross and offensive. The plot revolves around a Jewish family escaping the Holocaust into Switzerland, being witnessed to by some (rather buxom) Swiss ladies, and converting to Christianity (sorry, accepting Jesus as their savior) after hearing the Christmas story. Barf. Complete with Midwestern white Christians in concentration camp drag.  http://bontragersingers.blogspot.com/2017/01/live-animal-christmas-play-2016-in.html?m=1

Snark away. 

[Black Aliss]

I expect the Maxwells found it every bit as authentic as the bathrobe revue walk through Bethlehem that they used to enjoy so much until they were not invited to torture the people waiting in line sing.

[JMO]

WTF.  Disgusting on so many levels.  I'm too tired to manage some snark.  Anyone else?

Wait, I take it back.  The bad use of smoke machines reminds me of when I saw Cats in the 80's.   The pictures make me ill.  They have the family escape the holocaust and find Jesus?!?  STFU.  Just STFU.  

[ViolaSebastian]

14 minutes ago, JMO said:

WTF.  Disgusting on so many levels.  I'm too tired to manage some snark.  Anyone else?

Wait, I take it back.  The bad use of smoke machines reminds me of when I saw Cats in the 80's.   The pictures make me ill.  They have the family escape the holocaust and find Jesus?!?  STFU.  Just STFU.  

Under no circumstances should a play involving the Holocaust have a smoke machine. 

On another note, the costumer seems to be completely unaware that people wore typical, western-style clothing in Europe in the 1940s. I promise you that the dirndals and leiderhosen were kept for traditional events and festivals. 

[purjolok84]

Gross.

Also - 'The Jewish family'? As opposed to the Swiss 'Detwiler family'? I suppose when you're not the right religion yet you don't get small defining details, like actual names.

Also, did anyone else think that play looks like it must have dragged on forever and ever?

[GeoBQn]

I'm pretty sure they either write a new script every year, or they rewrite the framing device.  Who the fuck approved this?

[Dandruff]

So since the ovens/bullets/starvation/etc. didn't destroy the family, a bunch of proselytizers finished the job of reducing the number of Jews in Europe.  The families who were party to this performance can go straight to hell.

[Soulhuntress]

Nothing about this hot mess is right.  But the audience for this crap is independent fundie baptists who will totally offend actual Jewish people (or anyone raised in or around the faith).  But they mean well or something.

SOTDRT sure does not teach accurate history.  Bless their trump loving hearts.

[nickelodeon]

^Actually it seems like the Bontragers are pretty anti-Trump, based on the daughter's blog.

Though I do wonder if they'd be willing to clasp present-day refugees to their bulging Swiss bosoms, or if their empathy toward such families only extends to history...

[Bad Wolf]

The whole story of Jesus from birth to death? It must have taken hours. Churches and temples in our town get together on projects to help the community. We don't care if you're Jewish, Catholic, Hindu or whatever. There's even room for an agnostic like me.

[Soulhuntress]

1 hour ago, nickelodeon said:

^Actually it seems like the Bontragers are pretty anti-Trump, based on the daughter's blog.

Though I do wonder if they'd be willing to clasp present-day refugees to their bulging Swiss bosoms, or if their empathy toward such families only extends to history...

Well that is one thing in their favor.  I am going with this whole fiasco is from a place of total ignorance of you know actual Jews not Baptists cosplaying.

[BlackberryGirl]

5 hours ago, ViolaSebastian said:

Under no circumstances should a play involving the Holocaust have a smoke machine. 

This made me think of the mini series "Holocaust" from the late 70's  Right after the scene where the commandant of Auschwitz was complaining that the smell from the ovens made it hard to enjoy his dinner, a commercial for Lysol came on.."One day Snoopy Sniffer came to our house..."  OMG  BlackBerryBoy and I stared at the tv  with slack jawed amazement

[Jillian]

4 hours ago, Soulhuntress said:

Nothing about this hot mess is right.  But the audience for this crap is independent fundie baptists who will totally offend actual Jewish people (or anyone raised in or around the faith).  But they mean well or something.

SOTDRT sure does not teach accurate history.  Bless their trump loving hearts.

For what it's worth, I went to an extremely conservative bible college (church of christ/christian church related, great lakes christian college specifically), and *none* of my friends I still have from there (as an atheist, married to an atheist (that I met in said bible college), with two lgbt kids, there isn't many) voted for trump.  The ones who are ministers professionally are the most vocally anti-trump of my friends, and that includes many atheist, extremely liberal, women's marchers...  Trump is seriously the opposite of jesus/striving to live a jesus-like life as is humanly possible, and some conservative christian realize that.  I even have a family (both went to college with us, he was my youth minister, she was (still kinda is) one of my husband's best friends) who are quiverfull who voted stein...cause they hated clinton, but were unwilling to vote trump, cause he is misrepresenting their religion.  I don't think most true conservative christians are trump lovers.  He just has all the bigoted christians on his side...which is sadly way more people than we should be ok with in our country, but I have no clue what to do about that.

[Grimalkin]

     One of the many fucked up things here is the fact it's probably one of the top three most  thrilling nights of Sarah Maxwells year.

[Hane]

Because NO Jewish people in 1940s Europe had the slightest clue that Christianity even existed...[/rolls eyes]

[JillyO]

Holy fucking shit. What the fuck did I just read.

[nastyhobbitses]

12 hours ago, ViolaSebastian said:

Under no circumstances should a play involving the Holocaust have a smoke machine. 

On another note, the costumer seems to be completely unaware that people wore typical, western-style clothing in Europe in the 1940s. I promise you that the dirndals and leiderhosen were kept for traditional events and festivals. 

Yup, it's essentially like assuming that everyone in (modern) Japan wears a kimono all the time.

And as a Jew, I'm just pissed the hell off about this. Especially given that forced conversion, while not a part of the Holocaust (since Jews were seen as a race and race is an intrinsic quality), was commonly inflicted on Jews, especially in Spain. You could have had (though you probably would have fucked it up too) a perfectly nice story about a Christian family who takes in a Jewish family and saves them and befriends them. Also, fuck that "nice Nazi" shit. Fuck you, Bontragers. Fuck you and your tacky-ass play.

(And did they sing songs they wrote themselves, or am I totally off-base in assuming that the "Deliver Us" number was lifted from The Prince of Egypt?)

[nastyhobbitses]

11 hours ago, Dandruff said:

So since the ovens/bullets/starvation/etc. didn't destroy the family, a bunch of proselytizers finished the job of reducing the number of Jews in Europe.  The families who were party to this performance can go straight to hell.

I know it's a bit of a false equivalency, but I would love to tell them that their play is essentially like if someone made a play about the Underground Railroad (oh god please don't give them ideas for next Christmas), and the happy ending involved the whole escaped slave family getting their skin bleached, and everyone's happy because they're not black anymore.

[FloraKitty35]

1 hour ago, nastyhobbitses said:

I know it's a bit of a false equivalency, but I would love to tell them that their play is essentially like if someone made a play about the Underground Railroad (oh god please don't give them ideas for next Christmas), and the happy ending involved the whole escaped slave family getting their skin bleached, and everyone's happy because they're not black anymore.

And they find employment on Fox News.

[HereticHick]

14 hours ago, nickelodeon said:

^Actually it seems like the Bontragers are pretty anti-Trump, based on the daughter's blog.

Though I do wonder if they'd be willing to clasp present-day refugees to their bulging Swiss bosoms, or if their empathy toward such families only extends to history...

Yep-- they were huge Cruz supporters--daddy Bontrager was on some homeschoolers for Cruz committee.

[JermajestyDuggar]

11 hours ago, Jillian said:

For what it's worth, I went to an extremely conservative bible college (church of christ/christian church related, great lakes christian college specifically), and *none* of my friends I still have from there (as an atheist, married to an atheist (that I met in said bible college), with two lgbt kids, there isn't many) voted for trump.  The ones who are ministers professionally are the most vocally anti-trump of my friends, and that includes many atheist, extremely liberal, women's marchers...  Trump is seriously the opposite of jesus/striving to live a jesus-like life as is humanly possible, and some conservative christian realize that.  I even have a family (both went to college with us, he was my youth minister, she was (still kinda is) one of my husband's best friends) who are quiverfull who voted stein...cause they hated clinton, but were unwilling to vote trump, cause he is misrepresenting their religion.  I don't think most true conservative christians are trump lovers.  He just has all the bigoted christians on his side...which is sadly way more people than we should be ok with in our country, but I have no clue what to do about that.

No but they all LOVE them some Pence. So many of them voted for Trump hoping that Pence would have a lot of influence.

If you want to read something fun on the Bontrager blog, go back to a post from last summer about rebel children and then read the comment section. The Bontragers have a nephew that went to public school and decided to debate their ridiculousness on the blog section. He actually doesn't say anything offensive or crazy. He makes sense and the Bontragers eventually put a stop to it by inviting him over to their house to talk about it. Lol! 

[Four is Enough]

Thank you God, that I didn't have to actually sit through that. Because reading it just about did me in. How can these people get it so wrong?

[nausicaa]

Quote

I (Chelsy) was privileged to again have the opportunity to coordinate the outfits for these first scene actors. The time period was little more difficult to authentically put everything together, but the finished product was very worth the extra time! Special thanks goes to the gentlemen who were gracious enough to appear in lederhosen despite their personal preferences. =)

Um...well you might have wanted to do a little more research Chelsy. As others have pointed out, Swiss people in the 1940s didn't look as if they had stepped off of a Hummel limited edition porcelain plate. For a play that seems to have a pretty high budget, the obviously poor historical research abounds, from Mary's layered and highlighted hair, to the giant poster board Stars of David on the Jewish family's clothes. 

I'm not even going to get into the plot.

 

[anachronistic]

They'll never approve my comment, but........wow. How awful. 

[anachronistic]

Reading their blog. Apparently last July they had a concert in MY city, (which they incorrectly identified as a suburb) toured Boston, etc. all while saying what heathens/apostates we are. Too bad I was busy volunteering all weekend I would have gladly joined in the cursing they received.