Nazisploitation: The Nazi Image In Low-Brow Cinema And Culture

In the introduction to the book Nazisploitation: The Nazi Image in Low-Brow Cinema and Culture (Continuum Books, 2012),  University of Tennessee Professor Daniel H. Magilow quotes New York Times movie reviewer Vincent Canby as writing in 1974 "If it's possible to reconstruct the interests, attitudes and values of a lost society from its garbage, then perhaps we should take a closer look at some of the junk that's passing through our movie theaters these days.  Would you want a future historian speculating about your life on the basis of a mossy old print of Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS?"

Well, that's exactly what this book of scholarly essays seeks to do: examine what the genre of "Nazisploitation" movies says about society.   They run the gamut from pure exploitation movies like Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS and Eurotrash like Last Orgy of the SS to so called "art films" like The Night Porter, The Damned and Salon Kitty.

Although some of the essays were merely pretentious academic posturing, the majority of the book was fascinating.  Why do we find Nazis sexy?  What is the attraction people have to watching kinky BDSM set in a concentration camp?

The book is really interesting when it examines whether "art house" films like The Night Porter are art or merely jumped up exploitation movies.  Why is that picture of Charlotte Rampling topless wearing a Nazi uniform hat and pants seemingly everywhere in popular culture? Is Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds  a Nazisploitation film? The essay on Nazi Zombies is also very enlightening.

I don't want to know what it says about me that I'm interested in this subject.  However,  I would recommend this book highly to anyone with more than a passing interest in this sick subject.