Inglorious Basterds: Torture Porn For The Masses

We truly live a in sick world, and Hollywood makes it sicker each day.We are so cleverly manipulated and influenced by the media and establishments on both the right and left, that the truth has become hopelessly lost in semantics.

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There I was in the theater watching a clip of “Aldo Raine” (BradPitt sporting a cartoonish moustache and Southern accent) telling aWehrmacht officer, “If you ever want to eat a Sauerkraut sandwichagain, take your Wiener schnitzel of a finger and point out on this mapwhat I wanna know.” Raine, of course, wants to know the whereabouts ofmore “Nazis,” whom he and his boys could brutally torture (though it’sclear by the context that Raine is terrorizing Army officers.) Thestoic German honorably refuses, and Brad Pitt summons one of his“basterds” with the line, “Gots a German here who wants to die forcountry. ObligeHostel, a classic in the genre of “torture porn,” so I’m told. And his character is named “Bear Jew,” an evocation of the gay slang term for the fat, hairy, leather-clad men who’re “on top” in S&M.) him.” A thug in a sweat-stained wife-beateremerges and proceeds to bash the officer’s head in with a Louisvilleslugger.

(This basterd is portrayed by a one Eli Roth, the man behind Hostel, a classic in the genre of “torture porn,” so I’m told. And his character is named “Bear Jew,” an evocation of the gay slang term for the fat, hairy, leather-clad men who’re “on top” in S&M.)

Obviously, the scene is, at a basic level, puerile gross-out. But myquestion while watching it, both during the preview and the real thing,was this: With whom, exactly, are we supposed to be sympathizing? Continue…

2010-02-27