Examples of films "Corrupting the audience"

  Blender Dumbass
October 24, 2025

👁 8

https://blenderdumbass.org/do_login : 👁 1
https://blenderdumbass.org/articles/examples_of_films__corrupting_the_audience_ : 👁 1

#quentintarantino #film #theory #movies #cinema

License:
Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike

Quentin Tarantino stated that a quality of a film is measured in how well it corrupts the audience, showing as an example the 1971 Don Siegel film Dirty Harry where the main character ( a cop ) is trying to catch a psychopathic serial killer, which leads him into breaking the rules, because of the nature of the threat. He basically throws the civil liberties out of the window to catch the motherfucker, because otherwise the motherfucker is uncatchable. Which makes the audience for a moment, share that idea, and have a reason all of a sudden to not give basic human rights to bad people. Some people called this movie a "Nazi Propaganda Piece" but it is undeniable, the movie succeeded at corrupting its audience and therefore it is a picture of a great quality.

So I wander, can I find similar corrupting mechanisms in other films that I think are good.

Let's start from the obvious. Steven Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece Schindler's List that has 98% Rotten Tomatoes score, was nominated for 12 Oscars out of which 7 it took home, including Best Director and Best Picture. The film also, for some reason, was a massive box office success, despite its grim subject matter. It is undeniable that this is a picture of great quality. So where exactly does it "corrupt the audience"?

From one perspective, it is extremely anti-nazi. But being a "Nazi Propaganda Piece" like what Dirty Harry did, is not the only "corruption" a movie could have.

The film clearly shows a nymphomaniac Oscar Schindler to be a good man. At some scenes it makes a point about discrimination, by using his sex-addict persona. At his birthday, two Jewish girls ( one appears underage, and the other is like 9 or so ) bring Oscar a present from the Jews, for that his "business" gave them an ability to be looked at as "valuable" to the Nazis, which saved their lives. Being drunk, Oscar cannot hold himself and kisses both of those girls, for which he is promptly sent to jail. Why? Because they were kids? No... Because they were Jewish. And kissing a Jewish girl is expressing love towards a Jew. Which is a much stronger offense for the Nazis.

From one side it trivializes the age thing. From the other side it shows clearly that law isn't always "good". The main story of the film itself is about a man breaking both Nazi laws and international laws, by assembling a work-force of Jewish slaves, for the purpose of saving their lives. He breaks Nazi laws, by being nice to Jews. And he breaks international laws by assembling a work-force of slaves. But all of that was done for a good reason. Cementing a similar kind of sentiment to Dirty Harry... Claiming that breaking the law, sometimes is the only option. Corrupting the audience in the process.

How about adding a few years, changing a director, taking a slightly older tragedy, winning a few more Oscars and making a lot more money in the process? I'm talking about James Cameron's 1997 film Titanic which made 7 times more money than Schindler's List, and took twice as many Oscars home ( while was nominated for about as much ). A film that you cannot possibly say has any "corruption" in mind. The film which is clearly about class differences and about how rich people are assholes.

But also a film where James Cameron does jail-bait porn, because Rose is 17. And yet by the time she shows Jack ( and the entire auditorium of people in the cinema ) her tits ( which were in 3D since 2012 ) the movie and therefor the audiences conveniently forget about her age. And the fun part about it: that drawing ( which was drawn by James Cameron himself ) is the corner stone of the plot of the movie. James Cameron made jail bait CSAM picture and nobody even noticed. And he won Oscars making it. And it made so much money, that until James made a movie about blue aliens running around naked all the time, it was the highest grossing movie of all time. So far, James Cameron takes the throne of the best corrupter of the audiences.

That is of course until Luca Guadagnino. Yes Luca isn't as big ( yet ) as Cameron. His movies don't generate as much box office returns. But he is good. And his success after success proves him to be one of the more reliable directors now a days. He obviously "corrupted" the audiences lightly with his film Call Me By Your Name where everybody loved the beautiful gay love story. And due to it being gay, they didn't catch the same little sneaky thing that James Cameron did on Titanic. One of our lovers protagonists is a 17 year old boy. The older guy even mentions "trauma" at one point. But no... Luca's immense genius makes it fly over people's heads. And they just enjoy the romance.

Or his other film Challengers pretends to be a movie about Tennis, while it builds a psycho-sexual love-triangle drama around it. And then concludes in a crescendo, where the answer is: Fuck rules. Polygamy is the answer.

But the most masterful example of Luca Guadagnino corrupting the audience could be found in his 2022 masterpiece Bones and All which manages to make people look at cannibalism as something rather sexy. I'm not kidding. It has this pretentious premise about 2 young people falling in love. But they are both cannibals. The cannibalism theme starts as an allegory for drugs and addiction. But it grows into a pure, sort of, expression of love, by the end of the film. Spoiler alert, it ends in a "love scene".

Whatever Eli Roth was trying to do with The Green Inferno, he failed miserably compared to the absolute genius of Luca Guadagnino. Luca takes an idea and gracefully shoves it up the audiences ass. With consent. Using a good brand of lube. While Eli Roth tries to rape them with the same ( or similar ) idea. And therefore people love Luca and kind of find Eli a bit weird.

Also think about it. Luca made Bones and All in time when his friend Armie Hammer ( who was a co-lead on Call Me By Your Name ) was being accused by everybody that he is a sort of a cannibal or something. Nobody wanted to work with Armie. And then after Bones and All and after some rather needed support, Armie Hammer is back in business. His image is cleared. Luca is a motherfucking genius.

Now if we are talking about "corrupting the audience" we have to look at work of Quentin Tarantino who started that discussion. If he measures a film's success by this metric, surely he at least tries to do it himself. Well...

His career begins with 1992 film Reservoir Dogs which I probably need to re-watch to get where exactly the movie does that. But I remember that it had a strong thing about not giving tips to waitresses. As far as I remember the guy who survives is a rational bastard who uses logic instead of emotions. And who feels like a villain throughout the movie. And where Tarantino himself has a lot of fun making people addicted to violence in cinema.

His 1994 Pulp Fiction makes a hell of a hilarious sequence that starts with a malfunctioning gun "shooting Marvin in the face". The movie doesn't stop to think about Marvin being a person who just got killed. Instead we are laughing at our duo of idiots trying to clean their mess. And that's just one example. The movie has a lot of very fun violence in it. We even ( at one point ) get to cheer for a mafia boss, being about to torture two motherfuckers. The context around it makes the two motherfuckers so hateful, that the torture of them is cheerful.

His next film 1997 Jackie Brown is a bit more serious than his first two movies. But it has enough plot contrivances to frame certain criminal activities as almost justified here and there.

The two Kill Bill movies are straight forward revenge flicks. And all revenge flicks have the same "corruption" technique. We are sent on a journey where our main character is going to murder somebody in cold blood. And we are cheering for it. But Tarantino, being secretly a sentimental bastards, ends the journey on quite a twist. We have to hate this Bill. But we end up kind of loving him. Despite him being a bastard all the time. This makes the murder of the bastard, kind of both tragic and fulfilling in the same time. Doing a double corruption of the audience. First the audience wants her to kill Bill. But then Bill ( the bastards ) ends up being not too bad of a human being after all, while still being quite a fucking bastard. Also Kill Bill has this very well written line that corrupts the audience ( about a little girl who's house was just destroyed by a Japanese Yajutza boss and who's both parents were murdered in cold blood before her eyes ): "Luckily for her, boss Matsumotto was a Pedophile".

In 2007's Death Proof the whole concept is again, about revenge. Where a group of girls take a car for a ride ( pretending to buy said car ) already a strange corrupting behavior. And then the movie makes the audience cheer when they take the car into a chase scene to death, which breaks the fuck out of that car that isn't theirs. And all of that to fuck up one guy on the road.

Inglourious Basterds from 2009 is about a group of Nazi haters who travel into Europe during the World War II to simply kill as many Nazis as possible. The movie is even making a sort of meta-observation of the audience themselves. The Nazis produce a violent film where their Nazi "hero" character shoots a bunch of people. And that is all there is. And yet you see Nazis ( including Hitler himself ) watch this movie and have a fucking good time with it and with the violence in it. We look at them and think to ourselves "what a bunch of losers". Until we watch how the Nazi haters suddenly show up and start destroying everything and killing Nazis in cold blood. Eli Roth even plays one of the Nazi Haters. And he puts Hitler's head into a bullet meat-grinder. And we cheer for that. LOL.

In Django Unchained Django ( who was once a slave ) needs to pretend to be a slave-owning motherfucker, to rescue his wife from the hands of another slave-owning motherfucker. And he doesn't just lie about it. He is actually doing the part so convincingly, that it is rather painful to watch. Yet it is what is needed to be done to rescue his girl. So it corrupts the audience here into accepting that what he does is "okay" or at least "necessary" while what he is doing has no difference in practice to what the white racist schmuck do. And then the movie turns into revenge porn.

The Hateful Eight devolves into a situation where the audience cheer for two men brutally murdering one woman. And Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood has a layered corruption. But just for the sake of an example, the ending of the film celebrates with glee, the torching of a teenager girl with a flamethrower.

I guess Quentin knows what the fuck he is doing.

Happy Hacking!!!

JSON Markdown

Help

Subscribe RSS

Author
Website

Share on Mastodon

Share

Help

You can comment from Mastodon.

Go

c:1 @blenderdumbass
Post

  Troler c:0



Slow and steady wins the race.


I don't know why, I cheered for Creasy when he mutilating those who hurt his girl. Lupita, my beloved!

... replies ( 1 )

  Blender Dumbass c:1



@Troler I didn't talk about Tony, but Tony is amazing at this "corruption" too.

Reply

  Blender Dumbass c:1

... c:0

  Troler c:0

Luca takes an idea and gracefully shoves it up the audiences ass. With consent. Using a good brand of lube. While Eli Roth tries to rape them with the same ( or similar ) idea. And therefore people love Luca and kind of find Eli a bit weird.

Slow and steady wins the race.

We are sent on a journey where our main character is going to murder somebody in cold blood. And we are cheering for it.

I don't know why, I cheered for Creasy when he mutilating those who hurt his girl. Lupita, my beloved!

@Troler I didn't talk about Tony, but Tony is amazing at this "corruption" too.

Reply