‘Forward’ Kills Comments on Klum-Nazi Blog Post

Sara Ivry — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:01:36 +0000

When we wrote yesterday about the Forward’s Sisterhood blog musing on Heidi Klum’s German-ness and how close it is to Nazi-ness, we mentioned comments on the Forward site that both called the post racist and questioned the paper’s decision to publish it. Yesterday afternoon, those comments disappeared from the Forward site. Today, blogger Rebecca Honig Friedman offers a follow-up . “My point was not to attack Klum,” she writes, “but to acknowledge the associations that I, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, sometimes have—politically incorrect as they are—between ordinary Germans and Nazis…. After years of Holocaust education, if we can call it that, certain images and stereotypes have been so ingrained that I can’t help but think of them, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.” Fair enough, though Friedman fails to note that the disputatious comments were removed from her earlier entry. So we called her to ask why. Editors, not the writer, made that decision, Friedman said, “because they wanted to, I guess, keep the discussion a little bit on a certain plane of not attacking the writer. On the other hand I think that the comments section is a place for free speech as well. So I’m conflicted. But I would go to them for their rationale.” So we asked Gabrielle Birkner, a founding editor of the Sisterhood blog. She replied with an official statement: “We’re going to keep our own counsel on matters of editorial decision-making. We invite readers to post responses, in line with our usual commenting policy, in the comments section of Rebecca’s follow-up blog entry or to email us at sisterhood@forward.com.” But what about the issue of censoring speech? The Forward editors would only repeat their statement.

About That Heidi Klum Post [Forward]
Earlier: Is Heidi Klum a Nazi ‘Project Runway’ Host?

Is Heidi Klum a Nazi ‘Project Runway’ Host?

Sara Ivry — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:00:40 +0000

Tablet Magazine doesn’t often focus on Heidi Klum—she hasn’t renamed herself Miriam to join the celeb Kabbalah crew or made her position known on the prompt shuttering of Brighton Beach Memoirs. But a blogger at the Forward has overcome that problem, observing today that in Klum’s role as Project Runway host, she relishes announcing the fate of contestants who are “‘eliminated’ (eliminated!).” See, the Nazis eliminated people too, and they were German, just like Klum, so therefore there’s some sort of Nazi aura encircling Klum, and the blogger, Rebecca Honig Friedman, taking Jewish paranoia to ridiculously childish heights, has a hard time with that projected aura. In fact, confesses Friedman (whom we’ve met, and who seems a reasonable, nice gal), whenever Klum “announces to the panel of quaking designers, in her German accent, ‘One of you will be in, and one of you will be out,’ either my husband or I will mock, in our own fake German accents, ‘One of you will go to the right, and one of you will go to the left.’” (That joke has got to be stale by now—Project Runway is currently in its sixth season). Furthermore, Friedman notes, Klum doesn’t say “please” to the competitors—unlike the sultrier Padma Lakshmi on Top Chef, giving proof of her lack of compassion, obvs a Nazi trait. Sure, Friedman acknowledges she’s making a leap—but, hey, a leap never stopped a person from comparing supermodels to fascists, or from indulging in stereotypes, or from revealing how a sense of victimhood can color something as addictive and inane as a reality show.

We’ll leave the charges that Friedman’s post is racist to her commenters.

‘In or Out’: Why Heidi Klum Makes Me Nervous [Forward]

Tablet Magazine » Rebecca Honig Friedman

‘Forward’ Kills Comments on Klum-Nazi Blog Post

Is Heidi Klum a Nazi ‘Project Runway’ Host?