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Pasqualino Settebellezze: survival through seducing the kapo

example · film: Pasqualino Settebellezze · retold in 3 talks

In Wertmüller's film, cheap Italian seducer Pasqualino survives Auschwitz by seducing the monstrous kapo in a tasteless sexual act; he survives but there is no redemption, just total despair and silence, which Žižek finds honest.

2008: 1 talk 2015: 2 talks
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026

As told 3

“Behind laughter there is just despair.”
“there is no redemption at the end, nice crying, it's just what remains after the laughter is utter despair. He survives but he is deprived of the dignity of life.”
“He survives but doing horrible thing and at the end there is no redeeming crying or whatever. It's just... total despair, silence.”

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

Its cast and sources

populated by
alongside works

Every retelling 3

In Wertmüller's film, cheap Italian seducer Pasqualino survives Auschwitz by seducing the monstrous kapo in a tasteless sexual act; he survives but there is no redemption, just total despair and silence, which Žižek finds honest., illustrating comedy and Holocaust,comedy without redemption,dark humor and survival
In Wertmüller's film an Italian seducer survives Auschwitz by seducing the ugly female Kapo, then is forced to select colleagues for death, what remains after the disgusting comedy is utter despair: he is alive but deprived of the dignity of life., illustrating Holocaust as comedy not tragedy,survival without life
Wertmüller's Seven Beauties: Giannini survives Auschwitz by seducing an obese female kapo in a tasteless scene, no redemption, only silence and despair; Žižek endorses this as the correct Holocaust comedy., illustrating horror which reaches beyond tragedy