Is it inglorious crap to enjoy killing Nazis?

I don’t know, I get to kill Nazis, zombies, bikers, gang bangers, and thugs in various video games, and that is a lot of fun. If playing at doing something was the same as actually doing it, then most of Hollywood would already be in jail.

Movies, like video games, are purely for entertainment. Those that can’t differentiate between the two are the folks you want to look out for.

There are also prostitutes in video games, i found that troubling.

The content of movies and games has an effect on people, but not to such a degree that the world should be stressing about it as much as they do. It’s more of a garbage in garbage out scenario. If you like to watch horror movies all day, you should expect to have some scary dreams. However, if you have a video game with prostitutes in it, I wouldn’t expect that you’d want to really go find a street with prostitutes on it.

1. I’d like to know why you think prostitution is troubling.

2. If I’m misreading you, I’d like to know why you think prostitution in video games is troubling.

3. Two trains are running on the same track, running straight into a head on collision with one another. One train is full of convicted serial killers, but because of a screw up in the computer system, are headed for the train station to be let free. The other is full of normal commuters on their way to work.

There are two levers standing in front you. One will derail the train of killers – the other, the commuters. Derailing on train will surely save the other.

Which one do you pull?

4. It doesn’t make you feel “good” that you’ve made the choice to kill the killers. It isn’t necessarily the right choice, either. However, knowing that these men and women were to be let free and have a tendency to kill for sport, fun, pleasure does make it easier to swallow. Think of it this way: Kill the men that kill men. It isn’t honorable, but it’s a job that needs to be done.

People want to see the evil men die, wouldn’t you agree? After all, we’re only animals.

5. Oh yeah, from the top of my head, I can only count 4–5 video games in recent memory that include prostitution in it. Saying “there is prostitution in video games,” while technically true, is terribly misleading.

I personally don’t like these types of movies (or video games), but they are a genre among dozens of others. There’s always something else to choose from when spending your entertainment dollar.

If you’re worried about your children seeing such things, then try A) paying attention to what they choose to watch/play and B) have an honest discussion about it with them. If we’re talking young children, then you have much greater control over what they see. Try exerting it with an age-appropriate explanation attached.

@grisallie

Number 3 reminds me of The ticking time bomb scenario

It is a thought experiment that has been used in the ethics debate over whether torture can ever be justified.

Simply stated, the consequentialist argument is that nations, even those such as the United States that legally disallow torture, can justify its use if they have a terrorist in custody who possesses critical knowledge, such as the location of a time bomb or a weapon of mass destruction that will soon explode and cause great loss of life

…which is certainly true, as long as those in power hold themselves accountable. (or, alternatively, those NOT in power taking the stance and insuring proper judicial procedure is followed) That is to say, I’d expect those that ordered or performed the torture to step down and allow themselves to be put into custody. Why? Because they tortured in the name of their country.

Despite all that, this isn’t 24. It is very improbable that there will be a bomb somewhere in a city and a fast-thinking interrogator will need to break bones to get information and save lives. This is reality.

And regardless, you didn’t really answer any of my follow-up questions.

I understand the need to self defense and to hunt down murderers, I don’t think violence should be used as a form of entertainment.

To me, Nazis are bad people who did horrible things to innocent and good people. To see the Nazis suffer like the people they killed and hurt is pretty awesome. However, I’d rather see them slowly suffer than die off quick.

Is it hateful? Sure. But I don’t know who wouldn’t want to see Nazis being killed off. Except maybe Nazis.

@airowDee If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. It’s as easy as that!

So then crime dramas, mystery novels, American football, wrestling, boxing, martial arts, movies where anyone dies, etc, are all “wrong” because they entertain us?

@Grisaille

Not all, but i believe a line has to be drawn somewhere, but I am going to bed for tonight.

As humans, I think we feel the savage need to be violent (maybe aggressive is more accurate) sometimes. On the other hand, we have our humane, rational side that doesn’t want to hurt anyone but those who deserve it.

In that context, we need an “enemy” to unleash our violent energy toward. In addition, the world is much more “gray” these days; it isn’t easy to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil, etc. Vietnam would be a good example of the US thinking it was doing the good thing, but actually being very bad from another perspective.

Bringing this all back to Nazis, World War II was the last great event that we still view as a “black and white” subject: the Nazis were evil, the Allies were good. It’s hard to make a case that justifies the Nazi’s actions (though you can if you try), so they make a perfect target for our aggression. We might not be proud of our violent tendencies, but it’s okay if we do it to our enemy, especially when there is little doubt that that enemy deserves to be punished.

I think Eli Roth’s point is that we have an urge to kill or be violent, and when it’s directed at evil, there’s much less guilt to deal with. And from a certain perspective, it might not be a bad thing to commit an evil act against an evil enemy.

Eh, I think a lot of Jewish people were sick of being portrayed in films as weak victims who meekly shuffled into the gas chambers. Tarantino, being Italian (and known for making some violent films, anyway), isn’t going to get as much backlash. If Spielberg had made this film, ha! There’d be so much talk about what it meant!

We get pleasure from seeing the elimination of something that we hate. It’s easy to hate an abstraction — commies, Jews, neocons, liberals, gays, nazis, Sunni, Shia, child-molesters — because an abstraction is simple, clear, fexed and unambiguous. People are not abstractions. People are extremely complex, mutable and ambiguous. When the person is seen in the fullness of his complexity, it’s very difficult to hate him.

This is why whenever propagandists attempt to generate hate for group or an individual, they attempt to hide their complexities and deal only in abstractions. In wartime, this is how the enemy must be portrayed. Remember the Christmas Truce of WWI? Once the Allied soldiers had seen the “Jerries” in the opposite trench as people in their full complexity, it became extremely difficult for them to hate as war requires.

Movies, video games, books and politics traffic in abstractions because they trigger such powerful emotions in us. We’re easily manipulated by them, so they’re useful to those who make their living from manipulating us.

Killing anyone is not something to be enjoyed. When we reach a point where killing takes place, something has gone terribly wrong in the world. People should be focusing on how to avoid the mistakes that led up to that point and leave the glorification of killing to the fantasies of 8 yo boys.

Normal men and women, no matter what the justification they sre given for killing, usually bear some psychological scars, for what they have seen and participated in. Ask anyone who has been in combat and they will tell you they are changed by the experience. We only have to look at the millions of cases of shell-shock, battle fatigue. PTSS (or whatever the current nomenclature) to recognize the human suffering by the military. Inglorious Bastards is a nasty little cartoon that disrespects the men and women who fought in all armies in WWII and all other wars.

The movie is called Inglorious Basterds for a reason. They aren’t glorious.

@Harp, that was a concise and articulate answer. Bravo.

My 2 cents: I understand the depths of irony they’re engaging in this film, but it’s the use of abject violence that I find personally difficult to stomach.

Someone upthread commented that they dislike violence as entertainment. On it’s surface, this can be perceived as laudable, I suppose. But otoh it’s also a big naive.

I used to have the exact same sentiment when I first began taking jobs doing balloon sculptures for kids parties.

I decreed that I would not make any swords (the MOST frequent request from little boys) nor guns. Only animals or hats would I make.

Well that unrealistic stipulation didn’t last too long after witnessing all the ways in which they found to re-purpose a perfectly innocent littlt animal into a weapon. Did you ever realize that a Daschund balloon with it’s long body and short legs makes for a perfect snub-nosed machine gun?? Well I soon learned that a few rat-a-tat sound effects later you’d never realize It had ever been an animal at all. :)

Obviously there is something deep within us that feels the need for an outlet for aggression in pretense. Better it comes out in entertainment than in reality.

Kids want to use swords and shoot guns. In my experience, it had no relationship to external factors. American kids, Asian kids, white,black, Hispanic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim made no difference at all. Those kids wanted balloon, cartoony weapons and were well prepared to DIY if necessary. :)

The pixels in video games can’t feel pain, or remorse, or pleasure, or glee, or anything. They are pixels of light. They do not exist as living things exist. People are going to find violence in whatever comes to hand. @Buttonstc hit it right on the head. We used crooked sticks as guns when I was a boy. I can’t tell you how many times I got my ass whupped by my parents for throwing rocks.

I like how in America, prostitution in a video game gets people all up in arms, but blowing the living fuck out of some bad guy is with an RPG is seen as ordinary and reasonable. Since when is violence more acceptable than sex?

@EPZ

This is a sentiment I have heard expressed by Europeans many times when commenting upon the vagaries a American TV and movie censorship regulations.

I’m certain that if there hadn’t been such a fuss over it, that the children whom it was ostensibly to protect would have been totally unaware of the split secod of boobage flashed by JJ at the Superbowl halftime. With all the slo-mo rehashing they couldn’t miss it.

Someone who enjoys killing Nazis or any people is no better than the Nazis.