Goose-Stepping to victory!
tomatobubble.com
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AFTER THANKSGIVING DAY OF 2013
It had been many years, decades really, since I last watched Laurel & Hardy's, 'March of the Wooden Soldiers' (aka 'Babes in Toyland'). The stirring climax in which the heroic wooden soldiers drive the evil Silas Barnaby and his 'bogeymen' out of Toyland would always make the child version of your righteous author-to-be here jump up and down while fist-pumping and cheering. I have always hated the 'bad guys!'
This past Thanksgiving Day, having sworn off the now overtly politicized NFL (National Football League) once and for all, I opted to channel-surf instead of watching football. Stumbling across this film took me back to my childhood days, so I parked the dial on New York Channel 11 in eager anticipation of watching a colorized version of the film whose storyline I had long since forgotten, and probably never truly understood, in terms of its hidden meaning.
The "anti-Semitic" TM (whatever that term really means) and the anti-moneylender message struck the older and informed version of yours truly upside the head like a bolt of thunder. I was not at all expecting to revert to the jumping, fist-pumping and cheering of childhood; but that is exactly how I ended up, much to the bewildered amusement of those clueless family members we were compelled to break bread with on "Holidays."
Yes, your paranoid author here pleads guilty to having an overly active, overly suspicious imagination at times; but as it turns out, others have made the same observation. Let's have a closer look at the key elements of the 1934 film, and decide for yourself if the theory of "anti-Semitic" TM wooden soldiers is "crazy".
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Toyland is a peaceful, healthy and happy community; in which the people and animals all know and care for one another. The setting is very similar to an 18th or 19th century Germanic village.
The predatory moneylender of Toyland with the Jewish-sounding name, Silas Barnaby, covets the young blonde maiden, 'Little Bo Peep'. Barnaby is always dressed in black, resembles Jewish-Communist Leon Trotsky, and has a side-kick who wears what appears to be a