Tarantino / Hip Deep in Hyperbole

Why we may love Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" at our peril

One - Having just read "When Jews Attack," a very clever Newsweek review of Quentin Tarantino's recent "Inglourious Basterds," I thought about whether I would go and see this latest frothy tankard of Hollywood soft-core porn. I want to, because friends have said it's a lot of fun. But having read that review, I wonder if it might be a "Fun With Scapegoats!" kind of fun rather than a relaxing, an uplifting, an ennobling, enlightening, perhaps even bringing-the-human-race-together kind of fun. I wonder if it's the kind of fun I used to have when I stuck caterpillars down ant holes and watched them flail for their lives as the ants dragged them inexorably into their horrible tunnels. I couldn't exactly call those caterpillars Nazis (much less the ants), but I'm sure I could come up with something in order to justify the fun I was having - they're evil bugs, they destroy the plants we love and enjoy, er, something like that. There needs to be some reasonable rationalization in place in order to shut up that "hey, wait, isn't this wrong?" voice. In like fashion scapegoating truly works wonders, and Nazis have been making easy ones since before V-E day. A textbook case, they're easy to hate without compunction, dehumanize without consequence, and eliminate on film without guilt. They did it to themselves, you might say. Hm - am I just imagining I heard something like that in a dodgy translation of a scratchy old Hitler speech?

Hitler sure got people going. You could say he went from mixed-media to mass media in one grand, scheming leap. If you know German, aren't put off by his ludicrous posturing, and overlook his historical reputation as one of Satan's tools on Earth (if you'll pardon the incongruous-for-me Christian-flavoring), he gives the outward appearance of an inspiring figure, fighting for the rights of a beleaguered, trod-upon and indignant people. Factoring for the lies and maneuvering, he tailored his message for his audience in a time of great opportunity and got all the political power with which that audience felt like rewarding him. Of course, it wasn't just his audience who paid dearly for that zealous caprice.

Two - So Tarantino has learned his craft to at least the same degree of technical proficiency. Similarly, he has always used anger and vengeance as both vehicle and subtext in his work, and his final solutions are also similar, though small in scale, and incomparably more personal. But he's a fantasist, not a demagogue. Due simply to his tools, his methods, and the effect of his work, could you ever say Tarantino's a highly successful imp of Satan as well? Such an argument would surely imply that it's lucky his political ambitions are limited - and that he has a clear idea (up to now) of the dividing line between entertainment and incitement. And of course I say that as a card-carrying agnostic. So perhaps if I believed in Satan, and if Quentin Tarantino's campaign played rousing clips of his films to cheering supporters during a successful run for president, I'd have to conclude the Prince of Darkness was proud of his brown-eyed boy. But not yet, bub.

Three - Why would I malign an American success story this way, who once was a video store clerk, and who now commands such cultural power? I'd have to go with an ends-justify-means argument there. Do you really have to see such glorification of violence, or could you get by with a slightly less potent and clinically devastating brew for your cinematic grog? I say clinically devastating here because if the research hasn't yet been done to establish the likely damage to psyches and societies, it probably should be. So let me go out on a limb and assert that justifying violence (even as satisfying entertainment) is probably not a reliable way of addressing society's ills. It's got a bit of a reputation, hasn't it?

Four - So am I advocating censorship of this (or any) film? Hell no - but at the other extreme I don't advocate cigarettes for babies, either. I'm getting to be a big fan of balance and moderation the longer I inhabit the planet; maybe I'm actually learning something, or maybe I'm just getting more deeply invested in the process, I don't know. But I think people ought to have a clue what they're gorging on if it's going to change their brain chemistry (as the research does in fact show for intensely violent images).

I think you should know as much about what people are doing to you as the people who are doing it. That way you can use any part of your brain you like (not just your amygdala) as you're considering whether to vote the Pulp Fiction Party straight ticket.

Ok, I know, we're hip deep in hyperbole. But to twist the phrase "better the devil you know" - I would observe, better you know the devil. Speaking, as I mentioned, agnostically of course.

Hm. He's got a new one called "The Hateful Eight." Want to bet it caters to the Vengeance Instinct?