Sin City inseparable from Nazi propaganda?

That’s the charge of David Galbraith – that “the bad guy [the Yellow Bastard] looked like the depiction of the bad guys in shots I’ve seen from a Nazi propaganda film.” Because: “Sin City creates baddies that nobody will defend…and demonizes them to the extent that we are supposed to be entertained by the revenge that is coming to them.” Reprehensible? Isn’t virtually every action movie ever made organized around this principle?

What puzzles me about David’s criticism is that in the first sentence of his review he calls Sin City “a well made adaptation” – which to me implies a degree of familiarity with the adapted subject matter; how else would you know if it is well? It’s an excellent adaptation in the sense that it’s true to the comic, and if you know the comic, you know that it’s about bad, bad men and psychotic anti-heroes. Surprise about the content, then, seems disingenuous.

I don’t mean to attack David, not at all. I didn’t particularly like the film, don’t relish filmic violence, thought Sin City was over the top with the chainsaws and axes and beatings. But to compare it to Nazi propaganda is a stretch. The Nazis demonized Jews and others in characters that were meant to stand in for the entire race – unfair, lethal synecdoches. Whereas the Yellow Bastard is just a bastard.