The perfect date (rape) film for Bush's America

Rating: 1/10 (18 January 2006)

So, this is what is to be found at the bottom of the long, slow, slippery slope of America's gradual moral degradation and "cultural roll in the gutter", from Coppola's first glorification of organized crime, in "The Godfather" (the "creed of greed"), to that old reliable sicko Quentin Tarantino's more explicit oeuvre of populist sadistic know-how (the "culture of torture") Thirty years ago, Hollywood's schlockmeisters started to glorify the creed of greed by which anything can be had for a price, by which the fastest acquisition possible of your neighbour's material goods justifies all moral turpitude before the planet caves in under global warming, from individual get-rich-quick schemes to giant corporate appetites like Enron's to the takeover of entire nations in search of fossil fuels. The soap-opera about the Corleone family now looks like a timid blueprint for the career of George W. Bush. Hollywood then proceeded to desensitize a willing public to violence, death and the dignity of human life, by feeding it a steady diet of round-the-clock mortuary thrills, uncensored slasher films, detailed depictions of sadistic behaviour, TV movies recreating the Bernardo-Homolka murders (over the objections of the victims' families) and other real-life or imagined atrocities, crime scene investigations and sitcoms/dramas/reality shows about the private lives of undertakers, Mafia hit men or serial murder profilers. Finally, American popular cinema now delivers the ultimate goods, films where the viewer becomes the virtual torturer and, if he has any inkling of morality left (hey, it might happen), he will be tortured in return - at least mentally. I don't think there is a more despicable way to make a buck. Do you? But then, what do I know? I'm only Canadian.
On the one hand, "Hostel" cynically plays upon the legitimate fears Americans have about the way they are perceived by the rest of the world and, on the other hand, films like "Hostel" make those perceptions even more problematic by picturing Americans as a people with a very unhealthy appetite for violent entertainment exclusively concerned with revenge, torture and sadism. And that can't be good...
P.S.: Need further proof of America's attitude when it comes to violent entertainment? Count the number of negative reviews on this site who consider this film is not gory or scary enough and who blame the director for not delivering the psychopathic thrills of "Saw"...