Respect.

Apparently, when Maus first came out, there was a great deal of anger towards Art Spiegleman because of his depiction of the Holocaust through cartoons, which was initially seen as disrespectful to the magnitude of the event. As a result, I have been wondering recently, what exactly does respect mean? How can one define respect? Is respect the acknowledgement of the importance of something? Is it speaking of the Holocaust in hushed and reserved tones, or even not speaking of it at all? And if we don't speak about it, what effect does our silence have?

It is my opinion that we should, as a society, be careful to not use "respect" as an excuse not to talk about something we feel uncomfortable with. Ellie Wiezel spoke, in his nobel peace prize acceptance speech, of how silence benefits no one but the oppressor. If we were to look at Maus as a cartoon in the style of the Sunday paper, we would be ignoring all that the graphic novel can add in terms of attachment to the characters, as well as the effect that an image can have on the human mind. We can honor the memory of the Holocaust in ways that reach beyond the accepted academic studies, source materials, and photographs. While we must not be tasteless, suffering can be represented in more ways than merely the most realistic and dramatic.