"...What shall the history books read?"

“But in the pages of history, every once in a while, fate reaches out and extends its hand…What shall the history books read?” It seems that in this day and age, people cannot change the course of history. Ordinary, normal civilians lie in wait and watch the world change and evolve without their involvement in contributing to its success or failures. In September 2001, a faceless enemy attacked the United States. Planes were crashed into a tower, the tower collapsed, people died. And there was nothing Americans could do about it. The people did not know the enemy or understand why they wanted to kill innocent Americans. They could not comprehend the enemy that lay in wait across the sea hoping for its chance to attack. In October 2008, the American people watched in awe as the stock market crashed to numbers that haven’t been seen since the Great Crash of 1929. The reason for the plummeting economy? The decisions were made by a few high executives working for big Wall Street companies who took the bailout money from the government and used it to pay for the bonuses of the executives before the company let go thousands of its employees. The American people could not do anything but stand by and watch the country’s government officials decide their fate for them. The world has entered an era in which people feel as though they do not have control of their own destinies.

Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 Nazi-killer film Inglourious Basterds gives the people control of World War II, well in a cinematic realm anyways.  The movie chronicles the idea that ordinary people can change the course of history and change what the history books read. The film is about a group of vigilante American soldiers deep behind enemy lines whose job is to kill Nazis. Simultaneously, a young Jewish girl whose family was killed at the beginning of the film by Colonel Landa, plans to take down the entire Nazi high ranking officers by burning down her theatre. The Basterds also take part in the plan and both succeed in killing the four major Third Reich officers: Joseph Goebbals, Hermann Göring, Martin Bormann, and most importantly Adolf Hitler. This movie gives back to the cinematic audience the control that they need in a time that they do not have control in their own world. Hitler dies in a movie theatre. Tarantino rewrites history in which the girl whose family was tragically killed by Hitler, takes her revenge and kills Hitler and ends the war in one night. Quentin Tarantino’s blockbuster hit, Inglourious Basterds, allows the cinematic audience to rewrite history and control their own destinies when the modern world will not allow them to.   

Even though the events in the movie did not occur in reality, there is a reason for Tarantino’s odd interpretation of history. In this day and age, there is a situation in which people feel as though they have no control over themselves. They do not have control over their own destinies, due to lack of privacy and increasing dependency on social networking sites. September 11^th and these sites make people believe that there isn’t anything to be done. America is being involved in wars where it does not know or understand its enemies. In addition, Americans do not support the war they are fighting nor know the faceless enemies they are trying to win victory over. In a war against terror, Tarantino believes that people could escape on a cinematic realm and give control back to the people to rewrite history. So, let’s rewrite the history books.