{"id":8640,"date":"2009-09-03T22:36:42","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T05:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8640"},"modified":"2009-09-03T22:36:42","modified_gmt":"2009-09-04T05:36:42","slug":"the-nice-nazi%e2%84%a2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8640","title":{"rendered":"The Nice Nazi\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following post contains an extended discussion of Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Inglourious Basterds<\/em>. There will be spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film, please enjoy this short video from the 1968 Mel Brooks film The Producers<\/i>. Otherwise, feel free to click below.<\/p>\n

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Quentin Tarantino is underrated as a feminist.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, he’s not perfect. He has his moments of exploitation and ham-handedness and lunk-headedness, like most anyone who’s got unexamined privilege does. But watching his work, one can’t help but feel that his heart’s in the right place.<\/p>\n

Tarantino is an action director whose female characters don’t exist solely as eye candy. Oh, they do appear as that sometime (though the body part Tarrantino lingers on most — feet — is at least atypical for the genre). But more than that, they’re fully-realized, living, breathing characters. Their conversation sparkles no less than the men’s, they are no less intrepid than men, they are no less capable than men — indeed, in his last five films, they’ve been more<\/em> capable than men. And if the women in his films face violence, including the threat of sexual violence, they live in no less dangerous a world than the men, and they are no more vulnerable.<\/p>\n

No, Tarantino isn’t perfect. But he’s more ally than enemy, and a powerful one at that. After all, Tarantino writes and directs films that are marketed to men, first and foremost. And yet they manage to slip through some deeply subversive views on women’s equality. Kill Bill<\/em> 1 & 2 <\/em>masquerades as an homage to grindhouse kung fu movies and spaghetti westerns, but it’s ultimately about a woman’s right to control her own reproductive destiny, to choose for herself whether and how to bear her child. Death Proof<\/em> is an inverted slasher flick, in which the poor vulnerable women end up brutally defeating their would-be killer. Jackie Brown<\/em> is a caper film with a strong African-American woman as the mastermind. And his latest, Inglourious Basterds<\/em>, is a film about a woman’s revenge on the regime that killed her family.<\/p>\n

Now, if you’ve watched the ads, you probably didn’t realize that. You probably assumed that the film was all about the Basterds going through France, killing Nazis. But the Basterds are just a subplot. No, the interesting story is that of Shoshanna Dreyfus, her escape from a charming, evil Nazi officer, and her ultimate revenge on the entire Nazi regime.<\/p>\n

I could spend several posts dissecting Inglourious Basterds<\/em>, and I may; if you want a good, complete, spoiler-laden review of the film, you can check out Amanda Marcotte’s post here<\/a>. But in this post, I simply wanted to talk about one thread of the film: the thread about the nice guy.<\/p>\n

Shoshanna Dreyfus escapes the murder of her entire family by Nazis, and runs to Paris. There, she establishes herself as Emmanuelle Mimieux, the owner of a cinema that she says she inherited from her aunt and uncle. We see Emmanuelle late one evening, changing out the marquee in preparation for the next film. As she stands on the ladder, removing the plastic letters, a young German soldier, Frederick Zoller, greets her and attempts to engage her in conversation. The scene — all in French — echoes a thousand other meet-cute rom-com scenes, with the earnest, friendly, handsome young man attempting to woo the icy, cool, disdainful woman. Zoller ignores Shoshanna’s anger and bitterness; he attempts to engage her in a discussion of cinema, but she’s barely civil to him. And why would she be? He’s a Nazi, a part of a force that’s occupying her country. When he asks her what her name is, she shows him her papers indignantly. She hates him, and everything he stands for.<\/p>\n

So needless to say, he’s smitten. And in a thousand similar rom-coms, the young man would begin to woo his intended, slowly but surely breaking down her defenses as he shows just how much he loves her.<\/p>\n

Tarantino mirrors the formula. Some time later, Shoshanna is reading a book in a caf\u00e9, and Frederick returns, trying to talk to her more about movies. She tells him, flatly, that she’s not interested, but he persists. Suddenly, a few German soldiers notice him, and they greet him warmly, telling him what an honor it is to meet him. After the interruption, Shoshanna asks him about it, and he says, with what appears to be embarrassment, that he was a sniper who killed 300 enemy soldiers during a siege, that his exploits got him noticed by Joseph Goebbels, who had cast Zoller as himself in a movie about the siege. He is almost apologetic about it, though he clearly is interested in the cinema. Here, again, we have a classic part of the formula — the pursuer is now not just some clod, but a guy who’s important, a guy who’s going places, a movie star and a war hero. And in a thousand rom-coms, Shoshanna dismisses him again, but this time thoughtfully.<\/p>\n

Shoshanna is tending her theater again. After a few moments’ discussion with her co-worker and lover, a Francophone African named Marcel, she goes to work on the marquee, when a car pulls up. A German soldier orders her brusquely inside. She goes, scared witless, sure that her masquerade has been seen through, that she’s been caught out, that she’s to be executed like her family before. Instead, she’s taken to lunch with Goebbels himself, a meeting arranged by Frederick, who has insisted that the Parisian premier of his film, Stolz der Nation<\/em>, be held at Shoshanna’s theater. It isn’t really presented as a question, but more as a directive. Frederick is sure that the woman he knows as Emmanuelle will be thrilled. He’s sure this will win her heart, her love. And in a thousand rom-coms, the grand gesture would get him closer.<\/p>\n

Shoshanna stays after the meal to discuss security with Hans Landa, a German officer who led the execution of her family; throughout the lunch he appears to drop clues that he knows who she is (ordering her milk, as she was hiding on a dairy farm; ordering her str\u00fcsel, but imploring her to “wait for the cream,” and asking probing questions about how she came to operate a theater). When he finally leaves, Shoshanna dissolves, finally, into tears or terror, tears she had held back throughout the ordeal. When she returns to the theater and Marcel, she has decided on a course of action; she will hold the premier, and she and Marcel will burn the theater to the ground with the German high command inside. She will get her revenge.<\/p>\n

She and Marcel film a new ending to the film, one in which she proclaims her actions to be the vengeance of the Jews murdered by the Nazis. As she operates the projector, Marcel waits behind the screen, waiting to set the cinema’s entire library of highly flammable film ablaze.<\/p>\n

Zoller watches the film in the private box of Hitler and Goebels. He appears, during the film, to be discomfited by the film, to be upset by the bloodshed he caused. He’s sensitive, you see. He asks permission to leave. And he heads up to the projectionist’s room, where he makes his intentions toward Shoshanna clear.<\/p>\n

In a thousand other rom-coms, the hard work and sensitivity of Frederick Zoller would lead Emmanuelle Mimeux to fall for him. But she doesn’t; she rejects him.<\/p>\n

And Zoller lashes out. He tells her he’s not the sort of person you reject, that there are 300 dead soldiers who know that. He tells her all the things he’s done for her, the emotional support he’s given her, and Shoshanna relents, just long enough to distract him, grab her gun, and shoot him.<\/p>\n

There is one more inversion left. After shooting him, as he falls, Shoshanna feels something. Not love — there is no indication it is love. But pity. She goes to roll him over so that he can die in peace. And Frederick Zoller, who has through his dogged pursuit of Shoshanna shown nothing but the Hollywood version of love, shoots her dead.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if Quentin Tarantino would know what a Nice Guy\u2122 is, but he sure as hell created one, and had things act out exactly as they do in real life. Zoller was never in love with Shoshanna; he was intrigued by her. He found her attractive. He decided he would have her. And he behaved throughout as movie conventions tell us he should.<\/p>\n

But Zoller never loved Shoshanna, never cared a whit about her. He ignored her feelings, ignored her rejection, and in the end, threatened violence against her for rejecting him. And when Shoshanna relented, just a little bit, showed him the slightest bit of kindness? He made it his dying act to kill her for it.<\/p>\n

It is a perfect inversion of the trope, the exact opposite of what is “supposed” to happen when a earnest, handsome young war hero starts to woo an icy, cold woman. But Shoshanna was not icy or cold — she was clearly in love with Marcel, and there was nothing but warmth between them.<\/p>\n

She just didn’t love Frederick Zoller. And rightly so.<\/p>\n

There is a happy ending to the film. The man who truly loves Shoshanna, Marcel, sets the film ablaze right on schedule, as the redone ending of the film clicks on. Shoshanna’s face on the screen — and later, projected like an apparition onto the smoke — is the last thing the laughing Nazis see before they die. And as you’ve no doubt heard, that includes Adolf Hitler, whose death is moved from Berlin in 1945, on his own terms, to Paris in 1944, at the hands of the people who he set out to wipe of the face of the Earth. (The Basterds help, but ultimately weren’t necessary to the victory.) In death, Shoshanna wins. A French, Jewish farmer’s daughter, with the help of an African, bring down the Aryans. She and Marcel consummate their love in victory over horrible oppression. And Frederick dies, without gaining her love. And though the fanboys who went to the theater hoping for ultraviolence might not understand that outright, the seed will be planted in the back of their minds that the Nice Guy\u2122 doesn’t always get the girl, and indeed, the Nice Guy\u2122 actually turned out to be a tremendous douche. It’s a powerfully feminist message — and one that is rather amazing to see in film, even as one knows it’s the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following post contains an extended discussion of Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Inglourious Basterds. There will be spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film, please enjoy this short video from the 1968 Mel Brooks film The Producers. Otherwise, feel free … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-popular-and-unpopular-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}