In Swing Kids: The Hitler Jugend

The "right thing" is, by nature, something that is an opinionated concept. Many people could be doing something they see as correct while other people believe that thing could be awful. Take, for example, the holocaust in Germany. Adolf Hitler was in charge of Germany and made many statements supporting the mass genocide of jewish people. Looking back at it today, most people will see this as something horrible. Supporting the mass genocide of a group of people without any real reason seems completely ludicrous. However, in that era of Germany, many people supported the idea. They had the Hitler Jugend, also known as the Hitler Youth, who were training to become a Nazi and fight for what Hitler was supporting. "Heil Hitler" was a common greeting
in Germany. Honestly, it doesn't seem to farfetched for them to believe him at the time, either. In theory, Adolf Hitler was a genius in the terms of public speaking, convincing millions of people to strive to kill a large group of people. That cannot be an easy task whatsoever, and he did it quite easily. Many people had thought, because of his speaking and the propaganda, that the genocide of jewish people was the "right thing." However, there were also many people in Germany that were against this, most specifically the people known as "swing kids." The swing kids were a group of people in Germany who were very fond of swing music. This enraged the Nazi's and H.J's, mostly because a large number of swing musicians were either black or jewish. In the sense, most swing kids were against what Hitler was saying, showcased by their saying "swing heil." In the movie Swing Kids, the main character Peter is a member of this group. Peter is a swing kid who got in trouble quite frequently. After stealing a radio off the street and getting caught, he is forced to become an H.J because of the idea that it would make him a better kid. Right off the bat, they introduce to Peter the idea that the only way to be a good kid is to be a militarized teenager with the goal of one day becoming a Nazi and executing jewish people. Peter's friend Thomas joins the H.J with him because he didn't want Peter to go through it alone. This provides a comparison basis for the viewer in the sense that both people didn't want to join the H.J. There ended up being different results, however. Slowly through the movie, Thomas starts to drift away from the swing kid ways while Peter stays a swing kid despite being a Hitler Youth. Peter ultimately decides to sacrifice himself for the swing kids because he believed it was the best thing to do morally. Another instance of something similar is in the greek play Antigone. In this play, the main character Antigone buries her brother against specific orders that he could not be buried. She did this because she believed it was the moral thing. In both of these cases, I believe that the people making the decisions made the right call. In Swing Kids, it's very clear that in the end, Peter ends up losing his fight. After going to a swing club, he starts physically fighting the H.J's who were invading the party to throw everyone out. In this scene, one of the H.J's Peter ends up getting in a fight with is his friend Thomas. Thomas beat Peter senseless despite being really good friends with him. Peter gets sent to a work camp and the movie ends there. It's very clear that Peter didn't intend to win this battle, however. Peter read a letter from his father, who himself was taken away by the Nazis, that said that if you don't voice your outrage, you are helping the ones you're against. This inspired him to do what he did. He knew that his father was an inspiration by losing this battle, which is exactly why Peter retaliated during the invasion of the club. Likewise, Antigone also loses her battle. After admitting to burying her brother, she gets the death sentence. Her sister attempted to put blame on herself as well, but Antigone refused to let this happen because she wanted to be the sole person responsible for making this statement. She was showing how she disagreed with the opinion of the king, and thus broke the law to do so. She lost the battle with her life, but that loss impacted people in a way that seemed to be the cause of many other actions, including the death of her fiance and in turn the death of his mother, who was also the queen. In this case, it seems as though both sides lose, since the king is ultimately losing his wife and son as a result of the death of Antigone, which was ultimately a loss on her end. Sometimes, losing a battle results in the right thing happening, which was the case in both Antigone and Swing Kids. In Swing Kids, a large focus of the movie is on the influence of swing music.
Swing music is a faster form of jazz music widely popular in this era. Swing was very easy to dance to, as very evident in this movie. Many swing dances were structured and designed for two people to dance. This fast music definitely inspired some actions taken by the swing kids. First of all, the music itself was obviously adorned by these kids. This meant that they also loved the people making the music. This was controversial in Germany because of people like Benny Goodman, a jewish swing artist that is widely regarded as the "king of swing." H.J's would often harassed and attack swing kids on the street because of this. The music reflect the lives of the kids because they like to live life in the moment as opposed living for the future like the H.J's and most other people were doing in this time period. One scene in Swing Kids that showcases this is the scene in the music shop. Peter is in the music shop searching through music when he notices a girl he likes also browsing music. He brings her into the listening room to listen to a song and they end up dancing with the door open outside, having a good time. They both get yelled at by the store owner because Peter never intended on actually purchasing the music, but he instead wanted just to listen and dance for fun. This shows the influence of swing music because it shows that Peter didn't want to be in an orderly way, instead he wanted to follow the
music. In Antigone, Antigone has to make a very bold decision. She has to choose between following the law and not burying her brother, or bury her brother. She has to basically choose between legality and morality. If she chose to follow the law, the she would be disrespecting her brother who fought hard in the war and deserved a burial. If she chose to follow her heart and mind, then she would have been punished by death. Ultimately, she chose to bury her brother because of morality purposes. She decided that instead of doing what other people believed was the right thing, she did what she thought was the right thing. She decided that her brother deserved this thing they weren't providing, so she took it into her own hands. This is an act similar to a lot of acts that have occurred since the time period this play would have taken place, particularly in the civil rights movements. One particular case is the case of Rosa Parks. Parks knew that sitting in the front of the bus was against the law. However, she knew that it was unjust for that to be the case, so she broke the law to protest against it and show that she did deserve to sit there, similar to what Antigone did with her brother. Most of the time, it makes a lot of sense to break the law if it means the moral and right things is going to happen. Despite all of this, it's good to be reminded that what's correct is an opinion. My opinion on correct may be different than Antigone's or Peter's or others. However, the end goal for everybody is to achieve what they believe to be the right and moral outcome. My opinion is that what both Antigone and Peter did was the right thing, but many people disagreed with that in the play and movie. My opinion still stands on the side of Peter and Antigone, and I believe morality should always be chosen over legality.