Why did the Basterds mark the Nazis with a Swastika (the equilateral cross) i.e. the emblem of the Nazism? They would have made any Semitic symbol in them so that the Germans can traumatically remember it till they die. Reason is that the Swastika reminds them of the ‘dirty act’ which they committed against their conscience. A Semitic marks will also have a traumatic effect but as not as becoming a part of the dirty act commanded by the Nazis. We commit the act of dirt with our unconscious against the consciousness about the beauty. The killing of the Jews causes a mental trauma from sticking to the dirty act. So, the swastika is the right physical mark that they should carry as part of the Nazi’s dirty trauma.
Now that everything is permitted and identities can be disguised for personal benefits, the person we saw yesterday is no more today. In the film, postmodern Baudrillardian shift or change is overcome by the violent curving of Swasthika into Nazi foreheads. Unlike in the reality, things will be 'permanent' from now on in the plastic reality by Tarantino. (post-modernity reverts back to pre-modern violence in the same way we find the Jew as conspirators and Tamils as those who stole the perfection from the Sinhalese).Tarantino suggests here a kind of a 'de-historization' to alter the known history. That is why he can be a radical through his own negation of the known (but we hate at the same time).
We should keep in our minds that even though everything is seemed to be permitted, nothing actually is.
