Netflix has drawn the ire of Jewish groups for a “tasteless” show featuring Adolf Hitler ‘roasting’ Anne Frank. The streaming giant responded that the show should “stimulate the debate on history.”
Hosted by Jewish comedian Jeffrey Ross, Netflix’ new series ‘Historical Roasts’ sees a cast of historical figures – including Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Freddie Mercury – insulted and ‘roasted’ by Ross and their contemporaries.
One episode, featuring Anne Frank getting roasted by a Hitler-mustache-wearing Gilbert Gottfried, has some people up in arms. In it, Hitler tells Frank that her famous diary, written while evading Nazi captivity in Amsterdam, “is by far the most flammable” of WWII.
“Everyone knows you as a hero and a best-selling author,” he continues, “But for me you always remain my little number 825060.”
The typically crass Gottfried played the Hitler role with relish, joking that before he was sent to hell, Hitler hid out in Brazil with infamous Nazi scientist Dr. Josef Mengele, “drinking pina coladas and gluing midgets together.”
The Anne Frank Center in Amsterdam called the episode “tasteless satire,” while the Information and Documentation Center on Israel, a Dutch anti-Semitism watchdog, also condemned the sketch.
The outrage continued on Twitter, where Dutch commenters were furious at seeing their country’s past ridiculed.
Ross himself stood by his decision to roast the teenage Holocaust victim.
“Roasting Anne Frank sounds outlandish, it sounds risky, but to me, the riskier move would be to ignore the most provocative and the most emotional stories,” he told the Jewish Journal. “I use Anne Frank not just as a hero from World War II but as a cautionary tale of today and anti-Semitism.”
Outrage aside, some viewers enjoyed the show’s dark humor.
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