Jillian Cantor’s ‘Margot’: Stop Writing Anne Frank Fan-Fiction

By Jason Diamond on Sep 6, 2013 Flavorwire

There was a point when I found myself uncomfortable with Neutral Milk Hotel’s album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea — an album that I, like many of you, once listened to over and over — after someone pointed out to me that Jeff Mangum used a victim of the Holocaust as its inspiration. But I kept listening, concluding that Mangum’s motives, while maybe a little too whimsical about a subject like a dead teenage girl, were not exploitative, and at least he succeeded at celebrating Anne Frank’s short life in his own strange way. Indeed, I think there are ways to successfully talk, write, and make music and films about horrific atrocities like the Holocaust. … Read More