Here at Consumerist we’ve worked really hard to try to motivate Walmart to follow through on their promise to pull the Nazi paraphernalia from their store shelves. So far, we’ve failed. In honor of our failure, we’d like to announce the “Cat On A Walmart Nazi T-Shirt Contest.”
Official Rules:
Caption this picture of a cat on a Walmart Nazi T-shirt by leaving a comment on this post. If you’d like to create an image, use free image hosting and paste a link to the image in the comments of this post. The comments do not support the display of images. Post a link.
The author of the best caption will receive a $25 Target gift card.
Judging will be based solely on our own opinions with no regard to quality or good taste.
Thanks to Brian for supplying this image of his cat on his Walmart Nazi T-Shirt.
Walmart faces another volley of criticism when a shocking photo reveals they do indeed test products on animals.
And so Anne Frank’s family was hauled away…never knowing that it was the cat that ratted them out to the SS…
Stop riffing on nazis and the holocaust. You’re not funny. Indeed, threads like this undermine the moral high ground from which we decry Wal-Mart for having these shirts on their shelves. There’s plenty to draw humor from here. If your mind goes straight to genocide, please keep it to yourself.
Also, 2006 called. They want their “I’M IN UR” comments back.
Happiness is a warm nazi.
“There’s plenty to draw humor from here. If your mind goes straight to genocide, please keep it to yourself.”
Yeah, ’cause when I think “Nazi”, genocide doesn’t even occur to me.
Funny: Wal-Mart not being able to un-stock a T-Shirt.
Funny: Cats.
Not Funny: The shirt itself, Nazis, the Holocaust or Hitler.
We all feign outrage over Wal-Mart selling Nazi paraphernalia, yet here we are with a thread full of light-hearted jokes drawn from one of the darkest chapters in human history.
Re-read these comments imagining you’re looking at a leaked e-mail exchange between Wal-Mart executives. It would look pretty bad, wouldn’t it? So why is it okay for us to think this stuff is at all amusing?
(I should add that while I stand behind the sentiment in my statements, I’m mostly just trying to influence the judging. Once you disqualify all the people making jokes about Nazis, the field is narrowed significantly. And if my caption is selected, I’d like my prize (preferably cash, not gift card) donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Wal-Mart’s name.)
Mike_ Said:
Also, 2006 called. They want their “I’M IN UR” comments back.
The forest called. They want that stick up your butt back.
May I refer to this specific line in the original post:
Obviously, Nazi jokes are in bad taste. However, that only means that they are funny in a twisted way. After all, Tragedy + Time = Comedy. Threads like this show that reasonable people can have a sense of humor about things that are painful. If all we ever did was feel pain and not laugh about it later, then we would ALL want to kill ourselves.
well guess what “Mike_”? that isn’t in the rules at the top of the page. So, to quote Adam Sandler “YOU WILL LISTEN TO EVERY WORD I HAVE TO SAY!!”.
Mike_, people don’t think the holocaust is funny, trust me. It’s pretty tedious and pedantic of you to point it out. Kind of like assuming we don’t know that the sky is blue. No one is making jokes because they think the holocaust is funny, just like if someone jokes that whenever someone buys a walmart nazi T-shirt, god kills a puppy, they are not finding humor in either the holocaust, god, or puppy killing. Do you think Mel Brooks thought the holocaust was funny when he wrote “The Producers?”
Of course, you can always have offensive jokes. But humor and satire are also a devastating weapons, especially when they point out the absurdity of a symbol of evil being marketed to unwitting consumers across the country.
Touche morecoffee. I couldnt have said it better.
I’m just saying it would be hypocritical to ride Wal-Mart about these T-Shirts, and then turn around and hand out prizes for ill-conceived comical references to the atrocities that make these shirts so offensive. Wal-Mart’s gaffe was unintentional. I think it would be a mistake to knowingly endorse the spirit of many of these submissions.
Statements like “Ridin’ the sleepy train to ME-AUschwitz!” are not comparable to The Producers. Brooks (a Jewish American) uses Nazis as an intentionally offensive topic for a play, and then subjects them to ridicule as the basis for the protagonists’ success. It’s brilliant satire, executed with adequate sensitivity to the subject.
I’m a big fan of offensive jokes. Sarah Silverman is, in my opinion, one of the funniest people alive. But there’s a difference between being offensive and funny, and being offensive while trying to be funny. It’s a thin line to walk, and very few people can pull it off. If you try and fail, you’re not just a bad comic. You’re an asshole.
I don’t see anything here that rises to the level of satire as a weapon. I see a bunch of juvenile one-liners from people who really aren’t as funny as they think they are (sorry, folks). We can do better than that. Or, if we can’t, we probably shouldn’t even try.
“Totenkompfy!”
“Do you expect me to shut up about the Nazi shirt?” “No, Mr. Consumer, I expect you to BUY!”
So, who won?
If only we could all be as funny as Mike_ with his “Baxter Fluffington” line. If only we had such a marvelous grasp of satire as he does. But alas, we are all just offensive, even though he is the only person to post a comment objecting to the many and varied “offensive jokes” that have been posted in this caption contest.
Hmm…. When you are the only person offended by something by which lots of other people are amused, maybe you should quit digging yourself a hole by calling everyone else assholes who are being “offensive while trying to be funny.”
I shilled for Edelman and all I got was this lousy t-shirt
Mike_: Not Funny: The shirt itself, Nazis, the Holocaust or Hitler.
I am going back in time to tell Mel Brooks and Charlie Chaplin to halt production immediately.
Someone had already pointed to Mel Brooks, and that sucks..
So let me submit an alternate to my original, tailored for Mike_:
“Zee Goggles, Zey do Nossing!”
adamondi, I never claimed to be a humorist.
…
Am I really the only one who recognizes the dissonance here? When Wal-Mart inadvertently stocks a t-shirt featuring an obscure Nazi emblem, we rake them over the coals for weeks. But when The Consumerist posts this caption contest, we get page after page of “LOLZ! HITLER KILLED TEH JEWS AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT!”, and no one seems to see a problem.
Seriously, if this is how you guys feel, you’ve got no business berating Wal-Mart over their lingering t-shirt inventory. It doesn’t make sense. You can’t flip out about a t-shirt, and then go crack Nazi jokes in the next thread. Either you’re outraged, or you’re not. And if this thread is any indication, really, you’re not.
Am I alone here?
“I’ve seen this T-shirt on consumerist.com so many times I can’t even bear to look at it any more! -meow.”
Did I miss the deadline?
And when did Nazis and the Holocaust become such a touchy issue?
Mike_, I’m trying to understand exactly what you’re objecting to. At first it seemed to be having the holocaust and humor connected in any way. But you said, no, you think that can be OK, even good, e.g. Sarah Silverman’s work. Since our intent here is satirical, I don’t see a conflict, anymore than if Sarah Silverman objected to say, some company profiting from selling racist t-shirts, even though she jokes about race in her act (and, yeah, I have her album).
So your other objection seems to be that we’re not talented enough to use satire as a weapon. Fair enough, we’re only idiot commenters, not pros, so we’re not necessarily rising to the level of good satire. But it doesn’t make us hypocritical or anti-semitic.
I think it’s more of an issue to poke at the complete ineptitude of a major retailer (especially Wal-Mart since we all like to poke at them), to simply remove one item from store shelves. Is it really that hard?
morecoffee,
Sarah Silverman says some pretty vile things. Outside of the context of her act, and absent her expert delivery, there’s nothing funny about much of what she says. When she puts it all together, the end result is brilliant. (She’s skilfully satirizing racism.)
That’s not what’s happening here. These one-liners either fail to in any way acknowledge that the subject is troublesome, or they attempt to draw wit from simply being patently offensive. I’m having a hard time seeing any humor in it at all. I do enjoy the irony of 3 months of shaming Wal-Mart over Nazi T-Shirts followed by an entire thread devoted to light-hearted wise-cracking about the same subject.
I’ll be disappointed if the editors ignore the contradiction when they render a verdict. But I can also see that I’m pretty much alone here. I’m starting to find the discussion tiresome, so I hope I’ve made my point.
Ben, please donate the prize to charity.
“Stop selling this shirt or we’ll put this cat in an oven.”
Headline: Cat Takes Great Offense to Walmart Nazi Insignia (Note: The cat is Jewish)