But a paen…..I’d like to think not. I’m still tempted to give Tarantino some credit, but I may be blinded by his encyclopedic film referential geekery and mistaking that for self-awareness. Perhaps as you say it’s just pomo-showmanship masking a kind of racist anger (if I read you correctly).

I read the Nazi as Ubermensch in the film as a restaging of the cultural work WW2 films did (not the war but the post-war hollywood propaganda machine), which was to raise up this straw-Ubermensch and displace all America’s racist ideology (mainly the south, represented by Raine) onto the fetish Nazi and kill it. Not exactly a scapegoat (since that demands an innocent victim in a way) but the same mechanism. And I’m giving Tarantino’s film credit for re-staging that. I think the film is aware of the politics–at least as shot if not by intent. I mean, yes the blue eyed dude who gets his head bashed in is stoic (I thought he might be the Steve McQueen character) but Butz is all too quick to give up his comrades. Not every Nazi is glorified.

On Frederick Zoller. I’m pretty sure he’s clueless she’s Jewish (only Landa knows that as he toys with her, ordering her milk). But he is the only one who flinches when looking in the mirror of his violence (during the film screening). His character tempts us (as viewers) to do the same–the film asks us are we better than a Nazi. The answer, I think, is no.

In this film no one is evil or good because of what they do but because of who they are. This seems quite contemporary given the political climate. And I think the criticism goes both left and right–Raine’s forehead carvings change nothing…it’s a kind of meta commentary on the film (and liberalism) also.

When you think of the way that Fascism stages power (Nazis were nothing if not theatrical), one wonders if Tarantino doesn’t see power in that but also repulsive on some level.