Of Course Will Smith Doesn’t 'Love' Hitler

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Will Smith, America's next top Scientologist, is in the news because of some comments he made to a Scottish reporter about Adolf Hitler. (Why are celebrities discussing Hitler in their press junkets?)

Smith told Scotland's Daily Record: "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today. I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was good. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming."

Okay, the "reprogramming" comment sounds a little bit like Scientology. We know that Smith and Tom Cruise are buddies and that in order to be a friend of Cruise you at least have to look down the rabbit hole.

What about Scientology do you embrace?” Access Hollywood’s Shaun Robinson asked the “I Am Legend” star.

“When I sit and I talk with Tom Cruise, he is one of the greatest spirits that I’ve ever met – someone who is committed to making the world better,” Will said. “You have people [that] are attacking and wanna fight that don’t know nothing — how you gonna not know nothing about Scientology and attack somebody? It’s dangerous and it’s ignorant.

“How can I condemn someone for what they believe and I believe that God was born from a pregnant virgin?” Will continued.

Before I go on with my original point, let me stop here. "Don't know nothing?" "How you gonna not know nothing…?" Will Smith, those questions, posed in the double negative, have plagued many seekers for years. Thanks for bringing them up. I personally don’t know how I'm not gonna know nothing about no Scientology and still attack somebody - it's not not dangerous and ignorant, that's not not for sure.

But bad grammar and friendships founded on brainwash aside, I'm actually here to defend Will Smith a tiny bit.

Many groups are up in arms about Will's comments.

The Jewish Defense League is calling on Barack Obama to repudiate Smith's comments, and wants theaters to pull Smith's new flick "I Am Legend" from their screens.

Smith's words, say the JDL, "spit on the memory of every person murdered by the Nazis. His disgusting words stick a knife in the backs of every veteran who fought (and sometimes died) to save the world from the intentions of Adolf Hitler."

I see their point. Imagine that at your shitty public school, the Holocaust is no longer part of the curriculum. Imagine that you only seem to hear about the Holocaust when celebrities are interviewed for their press junkets. (Again, why?) Imagine that Will Smith talks of a heady concept of getting into the origins of evil in a one-sentence sound bite which almost, humanizes Hitler so much that you never get to fully absorb the atrocity that his regime caused. The concept that all people are basically born good is a little too mature for young minds (and apparently older minds too who are freaking out about his comments.)

Will Smith should avoid pontificating about Hitler's intentions when doing press junkets but what he said isn't completely off-base from a psychological (sorry Scientologists, we know you don’t approve of it) standpoint. Most evil is really the result of fear and ignorance and some diabolical need to control.

Most world religions do tip-toe around the idea that (unfortunately) God loves everybody, from the organic farmer to the dictator. We don’t know if there is Heaven or Hell or God or anything. Evil humans might be "born" evil. Evil humans might pay for their sins in some kind of afterlife scenario. Evil humans may just die with no consequence to their soul. Evil humans might be reincarnated into a tapeworm. We don’t know but it's always interesting to turn over in our minds but let's save that for when we're drunk, high, or writing a college paper, not in the press.


But I think Will was trying to have a semi-philosophical discussion around the fact that the origin of evil or evil-doing might not always be in the front lobe of the evil-doers conscience. I think it is important to think about what might have stopped Hitler - perhaps we can use it to stop the obliteration of democracy in our own countries. I do think it is irresponsible to think of what might have stopped Hitler in terms of his personal daily mental health regime. Of course we can psychoanalyze Hitler to death and popular culture has attempted this many times, but what is more important is to look at what the apathetic people who fell under his spell - allowing him to come to power.

Will did eventually try to explain away his statement:

"It is an awful and disgusting lie," Smith said in a statement Monday provided by his publicist. "It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation."

"Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet," read the statement.

I think Will Smith's biggest mistakes here are:

1.) Trying to have a philosophical discussion with a reporter about the mind of a man who commits genocide.

2.) Hanging out with Tom Cruise and rehashing that sophomoric argument that 'all religions are basically messed up fairy tales so what's wrong with Scientology?'

I don’t see what good it's going to do to have Barack Obama come to the rescue or for the masses to boycott I Am Legend. It seems like Will Smith is just another victim of Tom Cruise's web of influence. Let's all say a prayer to Xenu that this thetan will come around eventually and be the everyman we once loved.

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