Being of an historical bent, I can appreciate the desire of the high school band director to be historically accurate.
But I’m not sure that a “Visions of World War II” half-time show by the Paris HS Band (Texas) was the place for historical accuracy [free registration required].
Particularly when it included a kid running across the field with a flag of Nazi Germany, to the Haydn tune that was the Reich’s national anthem, Deutschland Uber Alles.
Particularly, I suppose, on the evening of Rosh Hashana.
“We were booed,” he said Monday. “We had things thrown at us. We were cursed.” Mr. Grissom apologized for the incident, which nearly caused a melee at halftime of Friday night’s football game at Franklin Field.
“We had an error in judgment; it was certainly not to disrespect anyone,” he said. “Our intent was never to cause any harm.” He added, “We understand there was a sensitivity we didn’t know about going in. … We didn’t do our homework.”
Um … yeah.
The show also included the flags and music of Britain, France, the US, and Japan. No word on whether any folks of Chinese or Korean descent in the audience were less-than-pleased by the Imperial Japanese flag flying again for their entertainment.
Also no word on why the Soviet Russian flag was absent, given their pivitol role in WWII.
I’m all for history, and was quite the WWII nut for a while. But some folks still have personal, painful ties to that conflict, and waving around the flag (and playing the anthem) of a regime that committed the atrocities that the Third Reich did does not seem, to my mind, appropriate for a football halftime show, let alone one on the Jewish New Year. I suspect they wouldn’t have been surprised if a reenactment of the War Between the States drew some criticism.
(Interestingly enough, the show has been being worked on since August for a band show coming up later this month. It was performed a week earlier after the homecoming game, and garnered no protest. Of course, if it was after the homecoming game, it probably garnered no audience, either.)
(via Daimnation)
But, it was Paris, Texas! Those darned French!
Seriously, though, that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve read in a while.
Marching bands are among the least sensitive groups on the planet. Right after Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America crown because of posing nude in Playboy, the Stanford marching band visited Oklahoma. The band did a tribute to Vanessa Williams that started out with a V period W period. The V was turned upside-down and the periods then went insid the W. This was probably the first and only time there was dead silence in Norman.
Yeah, well, that’s the Stanford Marching Band for you. Yeesh.