Talk:Mona Maris

Suggested correction to Mona Maris article
I suggest removing in its entirety a particular sentence in the article, specifically the last sentence of the fourth paragraph of the "Motion Pictures" section, which reads, "In 1940 she appeared in a nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew."

The sentence (and the purported fact it relates...) is extremely misleading at best, and, by some definitions, incorrect. The 1940 film "The Eternal Jew" was an anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film, replete with false claims, vile and incorrect accusations and racist and anti-Semitic ideology, produced solely to support the Nazi led persecution of Jews, and other targets of the Nazi party, and Mona Maris was one of many performers, artists, political figures, and others whose images are used in the film only through archive photograph or film footage, without prior knowledge of and without giving their consent for the use of their image, and in the case of Mona Maris, the footage of her in the film is part of a short segment, less than a minute in duration, about 41 minutes into the film, from a legitimate film she appeared in, early in her career as an actress, while working in Germany. (The footage of Mona Maris which is used in "The Eternal Jew" is from the 1927 film, "Der Furst Von Pappenheim," aka "The Masked Mannequin," a gender-bending comic film in which she co-starred with Curt Bois, a well known actor in German cinema, and it is Bois, not Mona Maris, who is the subject of the particular footage as it is used in "The Eternal Jew." In the brief footage from "Der Furst Von Pappenheim" which is shown in "The Eternal Jew," Bois and Mona Maris are costumed in drag, consistent with the plot of "Der Furst Von Pappenheim," but the narration and subtitles of "The Eternal Jew" which is used over their images incorrectly suggest that they indicate a sexual perversion typical of Jewish filmmakers and performers, and urges viewers to consider Jews in the arts as a threat, and Jewish artistic expression as depraved and dangerous.

In other words, it is only very brief archive footage of Mona Maris, from an earlier, legitimate film, which is used in "The Eternal Jew," and the use of that footage, focused not on Mona Maris but on her co-star in the earlier film, was not known to Mona Maris in advance, nor did she consent to its use, and was solely for propaganda purposes, with incorrect, anti-Semitic conclusions voiced by the narrator of "The Eternal Jew" based on that image. Accordingly, it is extremely misleading, and, by some definitions, incorrect, to suggest that Mona Maris "appeared" in "The Eternal Jew."

Based on this analysis, I am suggesting that the entire sentence be removed from the current Wikipedia article about Mona Maris. When I first read the article, after recently viewing a 1933 Hollywood movie she did "appear" in, and then turning to Wikipedia for more information about her, I was led to believe from that sentence in the article (incorrectly, as I have discussed...) that she willingly appeared as an actress in "The Eternal Jew," and therefore was likely a supporter of Nazi propaganda and ideology, until I did further research thru other sources about her and her life and career, and found that neither of those conclusions are the case, yet, as the article now stands, it is a reasonable (yet mistaken) conclusion I imagine other readers of the article would also reach, and leaving the sentence in the article as it now stands suggests an incorrect fact about Mona Maris, and an unjust smear on her reputation. For the sentence as it now stands to be clarified instead of completely removed, the entire discussion I have written here would need to be added, but since the sentence is misleading and incorrect as it now stands, and since the point of the sentence is relatively insignificant to her actual life and career, and since the current Wikipedia article otherwise mentions only two of the over 50 legitimate films that she did appear in as an actress, I feel that it should be removed in its entirety.

One additional note - the 1940 Nazi propaganda film "The Eternal Jew" also includes, without prior knowledge or consent, archive images from photographs or film footage of Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Ernst Lubitsch, Peter Lorre, Anna Sten, Rosa Luxemburg and a host of other well and lesser known people in the arts, politics, finance, law and other fields, yet it is doubtful that Wikipedia articles on those persons include references to their "appearing" in the film, as it would likewise be misleading/incorrect to do so. While it is true that the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB.com) and perhaps other film reference websites and resources, include "The Eternal Jew" as part of Mona Maris' filmography, and lists her and the other celebrities mentioned above in the cast listing for "The Eternal Jew," the Mona Maris listing on IMDB.com specifies that the inclusion refers to "archive footage," and many readers of IMDB.com are aware of the many ways "archive footage" can be used in a film, and the difference between that use and the suggestion that an actor or actress "appears" in a listed film. Furthermore, references to such archive footage might be of greater importance in the context of a website specifically devoted to film, in contrast to the biographical information suggested for inclusion in a Wikipedia article for a particular person.

I am not yet skilled enough to include the properly formatted links and references in the above discussion, but more information/verification about the 1940 film "The Eternal Jew" is already available on Wikipedia, and the film is available for viewing online. One would need to view the segment of that film as discussed above in order to verify what I have written here about the inclusion of the footage of Mona Maris. Information about "Der Furst Von Pappenheim" is available on its listing on IMDB.com, and at the link, below.

http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/giornate/questa_edizione/R&R_Furst_von_Pappenheim.html

Evetswal (talk) 13:05, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Made correction to article, as discussed above
As no challenges have appeared on this talk page to the edit I previously suggested, after two weeks since the edit was first proposed, I have now made the correction discussed above, by removing the entire sentence which was incorrect/misleading. --Evetswal (talk) 07:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

First film "Los Esclavos del Volga"
"Los Esclavos del Volga", which is called "Die Leibeigenen" was shot between August and November 1927. Very unlikly that this is her first film, since even "Der Fürst von Pappenheim" is shot earlier June to July 1927.

http://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/die-leibeigenen_ea43d4a6d3fb5006e03053d50b37753d http://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/der-fuerst-von-pappenheim_ea43d4a6f42b5006e03053d50b37753d — Preceding unsigned comment added by Magnus3000 (talk • contribs) 14:17, 23 October 2017 (UTC)