It used to be that the easy way to demonstrate someone was evil or bad in movies or TV shows was to give them a German accent. Then they smoked. Now they are Republicans, as demonstrated by the first episode of Guillermo del Toro’s series Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix. Mild spoilers ahead.
1. The episode opens up with a very old man watching Bush I on CSPAN announcing his invasion of Iraq. This sets the time period, but the time period is irrelevant to the story, only the amount of time that’s passed since WW2. Because the old man did bad things in WW2. And worse afterwards.
1a. In the movie Barbarians, which I highly recommend, a flashback opens with a guy listening to a radio report about Reagan’s election. This guy will turn out to be very bad himself.
2. The main character is introduced by listening to conservative radio railing against immigrants, and he’s in total agreement. Again, it’s supposed to be 1990, but the radio bigot could be broadcasting today. The main character is only shown to be more of sh*theel from there on in, especially to an Hispanic woman.
3. He tries to excuse his grievances by saying he served in the military and has a lasting injury, but the person he’s talking to shuts him up immediately by saying, Why do you have to bring that up all the time? Finally, someone says that enlisting doesn’t give you a Get Out of Jail Free card for being a sh*theel afterwards.
4. Then an actual German enters the picture! He is actually smarter, more intellectual and more courteous than the main character, but he is, as you might expect, also an expert in evil. The main character is shown at every instance after they meet to be worse than this guy. The Evil German.
Naturally, you can’t wait until the main character gets his.
The whole episode is a master class in changing cultural tropes and demonstrates why Republicans fight culture wars: because the wars are over, they’ve lost, and like the Civil War they can’t accept it.
That said, I am committing the sin of doing statistics based largely on one data point. What other examples can you think of where the bad guys are shorthanded as evil or bad by being Republicans and not just by wearing a Trump hat or badge or by being rich, greedy or selfish?
