Project Kill Nazi Redemption

Before seeing Quentin Tarantino's alternate World War II story, Inglorious Basterds, I reflected on a few Nazi killing fantasies that have impressed the world's imagination in the past couple decades. The most brilliant I believe is the computer game, Wolfenstein 3d, created by id software initially just for Windows in 1992. Wolfenstein started the 1st person shooter genre in the gaming industry that has now become a multi-billion dollar industry in itself.

As a young Jewish boy growing up in Los Angeles, I was already familiar with playing video games glorifying violence. But I distinctly remember the irreproachable morality of playing Wolfenstein. In other words, my mother did not seem to feel any guilt allowing me to play it. And we offered the game as gifts for the birthdays of many other Jewish boys during my elementary years.

In this alternate world, I took on the avatar of a Polish, perhaps even Jewish soldier, attempting to escape a labyrinthian Nazi castle, killing the bastards along my way. In fact, little did I know that I would eventually be the Rambo-like agent overthrowing the entire Nazi regime, assassinating Hitler -- the final boss. I mean what foresight in 1992, Hitler as the final boss of a shoot 'em up video game. And I killed that mother fucker over and over again.

The dream of reimagining more redemptive ends to World War II run deep in the American collective consciousness. And that ferocious fantasy is exactly what Tarantino taps in Inglorious Basterds. *(Spoiler) The concept of annihilating the most powerful Nazi heads -- including that of Hitler -- within an occupied Paris cinema is Tarrantino's brilliant representation of such a revenge fantasy. While the Nazis watch a self-congratulatory spectacle of their own feats, at least three separate groups of conspirators successfully plot their deaths and thus the end of the war.

The fantastical demise of the Nazis within the French cinema is ultimately the brilliant concept that holds the film together. The cinema -- as repository of chimeras, alternate realities, and the realizations of our most unimaginable dreams -- is the magical setting of this revenge. Perhaps the cinema is the contemporary symbol most capable of vindicating us from our traumatic histories and horrific truths, at least for those sublime moments of experiencing catharsis. And within this particular Parisian cinema, we can obliterate the masturbatory spectacles of Goebbels' Nazi film making with the dramatically explosive, Jewish fueled cinema of modern day America.

And as if burning, shooting, and blowing up all the head Nazis wasn't enough, we also get to dream revenge in the shape of carving a swastika into Hans Landa's head. The act, I know, may seem too ethically abrasive for a Jew. Although if you've ever studied Passover, then you know that atrocities from 4000 years ago still irk us. Ultimately, the swastika carving points out that the identity and moral implications of Nazism goes beyond the typical episodic nature of warring parties. Once the war is over, a Nazi should not so easily shake his or her affiliations with the machine.


So, it seems we've entered a new stage of viewing WW II. One where we rewrite the history and satisfy our inflicted guilt and anxieties, as the last horizon of people holding real memories of the events die off. The said truths shall become legend and in legend we can invent myth.

Unfortunately I could not find a copy of Wolfenstein 3d for Mac OS x as I did want to revisit some of my childhood simulations of Nazi killing catharsis. However, my good friend Adia did draw my attention to a promo "Bear Jew" game posted on Eli Roth's myspace page. I suppose I'm not so far off associating the Wolf with Inglorious.