Eli Roth hatorz might enjoy this image but I gotta say that looks like a wimpy flogger.

Especially if the characters are supposed to be assholes deserving of the violence they receive.

That Roth creates characters that he regards as deserving torture raises a striped crimson and vermilion flag with me as to his quality as a writer.

It's not so much the inclusion of characters who use the slurs in the movie (many, many, MANY times from what I've heard) but Roth's insistence that there's nothing bigoted about using words like "gay" and "fag" as derogatory terms that makes me see red

Agreed. To argue that there's nothing homophobic about calling somebody a 'fag' is more than a little out of it. And even if that wasn't the case, intent isn't everything. Context counts.

Roth doesn't use the word "deserve." But it is kind of traditional in horror movies for bad shit to happen to bad people because they're bad people, so I'm not sure how that necessarily indicates poor writing.

I know nothing of Eli Roth movies, but it's not rare in fiction at all for people to "deserve" what happens to them. Sometimes they don't, and that can be the point, and sometimes they do.

Is the argument that no one deserves torture, but that other negative things can be deserved, or that writers shouldn't write characters that deserve negative things, period.

I've only seen trailers, so take this for what it's worth.

They certainly suggest that women (and men) open to sex pretty much = deserve, even if the word isn't used.

Lots of things are traditional. That doesn't count for a whole hell of a lot in my eyes if there's not a lot else factoring in.

In PotC2, it was back to the strange island folk, and the little dog was on the throne.

Oh yeah! I forgot about that! I laughed like a loon when he turned up at the pirate summit! Thanks ZenK!

Roth doesn't use the word "deserve."

Yeah, but he says "As far as the movie being misogynistic, that's just totally absurd. I purposely made these guys dicks at the beginning, because they get tortured for behaving that way" and that's a statement that implies he thinks their fate was deserved. Had he meant that as a simple A-follows-B set-up, I don't see why he would refer to the men as 'dicks' rather than 'men who objectify others' and avoid lending the whole statement a moral tenor.

But it is kind of traditional in horror movies for bad shit to happen to bad people because they're bad people, so I'm not sure how that necessarily indicates poor writing.

That bad things should happen to people who act poorly is a traditional aspect of horror I find to be poor writing. I find Roth, as a traditionalist in that respect, writes poorly. And as those last two sentence attest, I know a thing or two about poor writing.

ita:

Is the argument that no one deserves torture, but that other negative things can be deserved, or that writers shouldn't write characters that deserve negative things, period.

From my side, the writer should write characters and leave thoughts of what they deserve to the portion of their audience or readership that happen to entertain them.

the writer should write characters and leave thoughts of what they deserve to the portion of their audience or readership that happen to entertain them

Do you think it happens often? I see it mentioned that the writer should set their own interpretation aside and let the audience come to their own conclusions about stuff--but I think the reason it's mentioned so often is that it doesn't happen easily.

And I think that can stand independently from the quality of the finished work.

From my side, the writer should write characters and leave thoughts of what they deserve to the portion of their audience or readership that happen to entertain them.

leaving Roth out of this, I'd think you'd want to limit this statement more. It's like saying Oedipus shouldn't marry his mother in Sophocles' play because the playwright shouldn't determine what he deserves after killing his father. Crafting a fate for the very characters you are responsible for creating is an essential part of storytelling, and their "deserts" is a critical piece in that. The concept of hamartia is a fairly well-established one in art after 2500 years, I'd think.