In the two weeks since Richard Spencer was famously punched — twice — on camera, the idea of Nazi punching” has become an amusing meme-generating phenomenon. Less amusing is the phenomenon of neo-Nazis feeling galvanized and spoken to by the bigoted offal army that has moved into the White House. (Not to mention the even shittier fact that the only reason we live in a climate where Nazis need to be punched is because of how deeply antagonized this administration is already making anyone who isn’t a straight white man — and, indeed, many straight white men — feel.)
Since the viral punching of Spencer — a man who, by the way, advocates for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” for America, who led a Nazi salute for Trump, and who’s called Martin Luther King, Jr. a “fraud” and advocated the “dejudification of the Holocaust” — on the weekend of the inauguration, an ethical debate has arisen even among liberals over whether Nazis should or shouldn’t be punched. On this question, Flavorwire Editor-in-Chief Tom Hawking responded, “a man who advocates for ethnic cleansing, ‘peaceful’ or otherwise, should not feel like he has the right to walk the streets of a liberal democracy unaccosted.”
Clearly there are plenty of people who agree with him, because Nazi-punching has become such a cultural force that New Yorkers are now being given an entire “mini film festival” on the subject, organized by The New Inquiry. Like Nazi punching itself, this film festival is free. (But unlike Nazi punching, there’s no risk of a battery charge.)
The official title of the event, which takes place on February 4 (and at which “punch will be served), is “Fash Bash Bash: A Night of Nazi-Punching on Film.” The “screening of some of [The New Inquiry’s] favorite clips of Nazis getting punched in the face” is happening at the Verso Books Loft, with doors opening at 8:15 and the screening beginning at 8:30. Inglorious Basterds clips are promised, but many less mainstream examples of onscreen anti-fascism will also be presented.
Ava Kaufman, one of the people who’s putting Fash Bash Bash together, told Gothamist:
Fash Bash Bash is a film screening of clips from movies in which people are resisting and protesting fascism. A dozen or so friends and contributors of the magazine will be selecting the clips from film history and introducing them briefly.