This is a tale of two comedy shows that deal with the Holocaust in different ways, and one comedian who got angry when an episode of one of his shows was removed from a streamer.
The comedian is Nathan Fielder, a Canadian Jew known for his off-beat, often outrageous humor. Variety reported that in a recent episode of The Rehearsal, his new HBO series, he likened Paramount+ Germany to Nazis because its executives removed a 2015 episode of his Comedy Central series, Nathan for You, from its streaming platform.
The Nathan for You episode that was removed was about Holocaust denial. In the episode, Fielder gets upset because the Canadian company that manufactured his favorite jacket, Taiga, posted a tribute to Holocaust denier Doug Collins. Fielder started his own apparel brand, Summit Ice, to compete with Taiga, and promised to donate any profits to Holocaust education.
Fielder enlisted a rabbi to pitch Summit Ice clothing to a store with an over-the-top campaign, showing Summit Ice jackets behind a gate that looked like Auschwitz, festooned with swastika banners and a (fake) skeleton in an oven. The store owner turned him down, telling Fielder, “Find something else to do with your life, because you are not good at this.”
But Fielder fans made the Summit Ice brand a hit, and the company sold several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise in two months, which Fielder donated to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
The company is still up and running, and its website describes it as a not-for-profit company devoted to “producing premium outdoor apparel and promoting awareness of the Holocaust.” It also said that it has donated all of its profits to the Holocaust education center and other similar organizations. According to the website, it has sold millions of dollars’ worth of clothing over the past decade.
Holocaust education episode removed from Paramount+
In last Sunday’s episode of his new show, The Rehearsal, which examines how to prepare for stressful situations, he revealed that he learned two years ago that the Summit Ice episode of Nathan for You had been taken down from Paramount+, which streams the series.
Variety confirmed that the episode about Summit Ice had been removed Paramount+’s streaming platform, “following what a source describes as a ‘standards review.’” Variety said that the episode could be streamed on the Max platform.
Variety reported that Fielder said he emailed Paramount+ to ask why the episode was removed, and they claimed it was because of “sensitivities” and also wrote to him that, “A decision was made by Paramount+ Germany to remove the episode in their region after they became uncomfortable with what they called anything that touches on antisemitism in the aftermath of the Israel/Hamas attacks.”
Fielder claimed that Paramount+ Germany’s decision “triggered the attention of other European Paramount branches, and they, in turn, pulled the episode too. Before long, the ideology of Paramount+ Germany had spread to the entire globe, eliminating all Jewish content that made them uncomfortable.”
He displayed a map of Europe, showing different countries where Paramount+ streams also taking his episode down, in a parody of documentaries about World War II that show maps to illustrate the spread of Nazism.
Fielder reproduced the Paramount+ Germany offices in this episode of The Rehearsal and brought in an actor to play a German streaming executive, so he could rehearse what he would say to them if he could confront them again.
Fielder accused the company of “erasing” Jewish people, noting that there are 50 results for “Nazi” when you search the platform, 10 for “Hitler” and zero for “Judaism.” The actor improvised answers in the platform’s defense.
Paramount+ declined to comment on why the episode was taken down or what they thought of The Rehearsal episode when Variety reached out to them.
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