Ana Villalba

Dr. Gould
Masterpieces of Film
7 May 2015
The Concept of Justice in Propaganda Films
Quentin Tarantinos Inglourious Basterds (2009), known as a love letter to the Leonestyle spaghetti western, had the attention of the public, critics and simple filmgoers, once it
came out (Joy). A first inspection, it was another movie about Allies figuring out way to defeat
the Nazis during the World War II. In the movie, Americans, British, and even a young French
Jew woman, plot to kill Hitler and his collaborators, as a way to stop the Third Reich and end the
war. However, after a deeper analysis, it is possible to see that there is something else that the
film is stating between lines. Inglourious Basterds shows how the concept of justice becomes a
subjective idea in cases such as propaganda films. In a Machiavellian way, in their pursuit of
obtaining justice, the good characters here become the reflection of those who are to be
punished, but they are not judged for their actions because of a simple reason: they are not Nazis;
they are the Allies.
The way Tarantino plays with the idea of subjective justice in propaganda film is by
taking the model of the Nazi as a stock character that has effectively been stripped of his
historical context and been transformed into an all-purpose villain, a vessel into which any artist
can pour his desired message, as Weston Sabo mentions in his article Do You Find Me
Sadistic? Tarantinos Inglourious Basterds. Having identified the villain in the movie,
Tarantino, helped with the assumption that no rational person, who thinks him- or herself to be

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moral, wants anything to do with the Nazis, creates a story in which the heroes are the
Americans (helped by the Allies), as hundreds of films have done before him (Joy).
However, it is there were similitudes between Tarantinos film and the other hundreds of
films more end; it is there where Tarantinos a satire about propaganda films starts. He makes a
critique in the way audience gets manipulated by this type of movies to stretch their concept of
justice to accommodate the message they are receiving. Tarantino is well-known for his use of
crude violence in movies, and this film is not the exception, in which the more brutal the
violence is shown, the stronger his statement becomes. In the film, there are only two scenes in
which Nazis are shown killing people. The first one is when Col. Hans Landa and his men kill
Shoshannas family at the beginning of the movie; the second one is the shooting at the French
bar when the British spy gives himself away after doing an incorrect hand gesture. Other than
that, the Basterds are the authors of the most bloody, violent scenes in the movie. As John Rieder
asserts in his article Race and revenge fantasies in Avatar, District 9 and Inglourious Basterds,
this violent retributive justice often shown in Hollywood consists in differentiating the mere
brute violence (of the Nazis) from the killings made by the heroes (the Allies) only by the
premise that the latter are killing the evil antagonists (42). Thus, the line between what is
morally right or not gets blurred, and it becomes a Machiavellian statement of the end justifies
the means, or more properly rephrased: finishing the Nazis off justifies the violence used by
the Allies.
In the same lines, Alexander B. Joy, in his article Enjoyed Inglourious Basterds? Youre
Doing It Wrong!, explains how Nazis are shown to be the absolute evil media that depicts
them in this fashion implicitly suggests that we are justified in using any means to exterminate
them,, even if that means using their same methods. Tarantino does not hesitate in showing an

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ambivalence between the actions of both sides. In his article Debating Inglourious Basterds,
Ben Walters notes the parallels between Zoller carving a Swastika in the floor while killing
Allies, and Raine doing the same in German foreheads; also, Nazis officials praising Nations
Pride (a depiction of Zollers heroic actions in the battlefield), and the Basterds watching one of
them beating Nazis to death as the closest to going to the movies they have (21). In this couple
of examples, both sides are committing reprehensible actions, but as Rieder explains, Allies are
justified because they are avenging the justice; thus, their actions are above any possible
explanation for their violent nature (42).
Although Walters does not root for the Nazis, he is not also on the Basterds side. He
decides to leave the courtesy aside and clearly speaks up his mind: for him, The Basterds are
war criminals, explicitly denying Nazis humanity, targeting them for summary execution, and
desecrating their corpses by scalping (21). Walters does not hesitate in declaring right up-front
that for him, the audiences heroes are not better than those who are labeled as the bad guys,
in this case, the Nazis. He also emphasizes in the propaganda films effects in the audience, in
how the power in a film can make the viewer to pick a side and reject the other, although if
objectively seen, both sides are basically the same, or at least, doing the same (22).
An example of Walterss declaration was noted by actor Seth Rogen, who compared
Nations Pride with the recent Hollywood film American Sniper on his Twitter account (Seth
Rogen). In the Inglourious Basterds propaganda film, German sniper Zoller is highly praised
by the Nazis as a hero for killing over two hundred Allies, mostly American soldiers, whereas in
American Sniper, Chris Kyle becomes an American hero, having 160 confirmed killings during
the Iraq War. The comparison was also noted by film critic Ben Kenigsberg, in an article about
the best movies from 2014 (DAngelo).

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Moreover, Joy mentions that in fact, Inglourious Basterds can be considered a
propaganda film, for it has the same effect propaganda films made by the Nazis had: it rewrites a
story, blurring the boundaries of morality and justice, and making the appropriate changes so it is
clear to the audience who the hero and the villain is (Joy). In this film, Joy explains, the heroes
are terrible people that are the same as, if not worse than the Nazis depicted in the movie. For
example, Joy compares how Raine considers Nazis as something less than humans in the same
way Hitler saw Jews.
Tarantino himself has declared to be aware of how cinema has been fighting the Nazis,
with its countless movies, as a way of never forget what they did during the war (Walters 21).
By presenting a retelling of history of his own, Tarantino makes a close-up to the actions of both
sides, in order to show the audience that there are no heroes and villains in a war, and how by
manipulating the way of telling the story, people may find themselves approving the actions of
the so-called heroes, even if they are worse than what the villains do, according to Sabo.
It is in this way that Tarantino makes his statement about how justice can become a
subjective idea when dealing with propaganda films. In about two hours, Tarantino is able to
expose the power of films, being used either by the good and bad guys, in stretching the moral
values of the spectator: they might not be shooting and killing people, but isnt it the same as
praising the characters on the screen doing it? As Walters concludes his article, referring to the
influence of this movie as a propaganda film: only a thoughtless viewer will not see him or
herself reflected in shots of Hitler cackling as he watches Americans being slaughtered in
Nations Pride (22).

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Works Cited
DAngelo, Mike, and Ben Kenigsberg. The best of film 2014: The ballots. Avclub.com. A.V.
Club. 18 December 2014. Web. 2 May 2015.
Joy, Alexander B. Enjoyed Inglourious Basterds? Youre Doing It Wrong! Bright Lights Film
Journal (2013): n. pag. Web. 9 March 2015.
Rieder, John. "Race and revenge fantasies in Avatar, District 9 and Inglourious Basterds."
Science Fiction Film and Television 4.1 (2011): 41+. Communications and Mass Media
Collection. Web. 2 May 2015.
Sabo, Lee Weston. Do You Find Me Sadistic? Tarantinos Inglourious Basterds. Bright
Lights Film Journal (2009): n. pag. Web. 9 March 2015.
Seth Rogen: American Sniper is like the Nazi propaganda film from Inglorious Basterds.
Belfasttelegraph.co.uk. Belfast Telegraph. 20 January 2015. Web. 2 May 2015.
Walters, Ben. Debating Inglourious Basterds. Film Quaterly 63.2 (2009): 19-22. Web. 9 March
2015.