Since so many of you felt the need to be gratuitously rude in response to me having simply critiqued a museum, I get to respond because, honestly, I'm not afraid of you people. I'm glad some of you think the Holocaust museum is a well-designed museum. But I don't. And last time I checked it was still okay in America to criticize the layout of a museum, even if the museum is about - heaven forbid - the Holocaust.
So without further ado, your comments, my responses:
1. "The print is small because they don't care if people really read it."Yeah, I think that just about does it. I'm glad many of you enjoyed the museum. I think it's not very well done. And since George Bush still hasn't accomplished everything he wants, I can still say that in America.
That's absurd. Then don't print anything at all on the walls of the exhibit, but don't tell me its intentional that they post print that's nearly illegible because the font is too small and the lights too low.
2. "The museum is way too information heavy because the Holocaust is a big topic."
As a writer, and former student, I've heard that canard far too many times. I can't write a one-page briefing paper, Senator/professor, because the topic is too complicated, too important, etc. Yes, you can. And if you don't, you lose your audience, so why exist at all?
3. "The museum is not about you and whether you had a good time."
Oh, that's a cute cheap shot. And yes, I have stopped beating my wife.
Well, in fact the museum is all about me. The museum is about its visitors. It's about spreading a message, about informing the masses, and the vehicle is it's visitors. If the information is literally illegible to many of its visitors, how does the museum spread its message? If the information is simply on overload, so people can't even read it all, how does that spread the message? It's cute to say "this is about more than you," but I come from a world where I actually care about my message getting out there. If this is all about making YOU feel good that you have a museum, even if it doesn't get its message across as well as it can, well, then who's the one who really has a problem and a narcissism complex?
4. "Good Lord, John, more than 6,000,000 died at the hands of the Nazis in the the death camps, and YOU have the temerity to complain that you had a bad day?"
Good Lord, Mary, get that chip off your shoulder and drop the drama by about 50 decibels. A poorly written essay doesn't get an "A+" simply because the student chose to write about the Holocaust. Though I guess you could certainly put the deaths of 6 million Jews on the teacher who doesn't give you an A and see how they react.
5. "You want fun, go to DisneyWorld."
First, who was talking about "fun"? Do you always criticize people for things they didn't even say? And again, same answer as to #4. You don't get an A simply because you chose to write about the Holocaust. And I'd throw it back in your face. If you're going to screw up and do create a work that doesn't deserve an A, you better not have the hubris and the temerity to choose the Holocaust as your subject, because then YOU, if anyone, do the dead a disservice.
6. "I don't think that the decimation of a people group, in any setting, is meant to be fun, exciting or any other opposite of boring."
Yes, I've stopped beating my wife. Who said the museum was supposed to be fun? Having said that, no museum should be boring. This reminds me of a woman who wrote a horrible poem in a poetry class in my college and the class thought the poem was great. Why? Because the poem was really boring and the topic she was writing about was her boredom, so she evoked the topic perfectly by writing a really boring poem. Uh huh...
7. "'Homosexual' is akin to 'colored' or 'oriental.' Would you grow up? A museum dedicated to events in the 1940s needs to be on the cutting edge of 21st century slang?"
Ah, so you think museums about WWII should call blacks "niggers," or is that "negroes"? And I'm not talking the official documents from the era, I'm talking the museum's own literature.
8. "Also, why the need to specify Africa to give an example of animistic beliefs?"
Ah, now we get into far-left PC reverse bigotry. Uh, how about because African tribes are the only people I've ever heard of who believe that a picture steals their souls. I had no idea referring to factual things about Africa was now bigoted. Thanks for that clarification.
9. "...and calling the Roma 'gypsies' is just as bad cuz to them it's an insult."
See answer to question 8. And, the Holocaust Museum itself uses Roma and "gypsies." And finally, I could have just called them "Roma" and left 98% of the people here in the dark as to what the hell I was even talking about. But at least you'd be happy. Because, the lesson I've learned from some of you today is that getting your message across isn't important at all, it's simply having an important message that matters - regardless of whether anyone hears it, or how good a job you do of explaining it. And we wonder why we don't win elections.
