https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperation_pies

I was reading about the "desperation pies" today. It struck me as being a good way to explain to people how proletarians in the first world can still benefit from imperialism. Consider the following: you're desperately poor in the great depression, still trying to find work. You only have basic staples in your kitchen to make a little treat for your family. But what is included in these "basic staples?" It's sugar! Sugar, the sensitive crop grown only in tropical regions, harvested by backbreaking labor in the hot sun. Fruit (harvested locally) might be prohibitively expensive, but sugar is cheap and always on hand.

I don't know much about history, so maybe others could chime in. It struck me as a very good example.

1. Very early in the movie, we are told that Nick has been acquitted in the murder of two tourists. Katherine Martell rightly calls him out on this multiple times in the movie, accurately diagnosing that (like he physically abused Beth) he abused internal affairs.
2. Catherine Martell spends the entire first act of the movie basically telling every member of the police force "I committed a murder. It's 100% clear that I did, but I have an alibi, and I'm going to get away with it." And she does get away with it. She gets away with it almost entirely by activating the psychosexual impulses of every man on the force — much like the psychosexual power fantasy of law enforcement itself.
3. Repeatedly, Catherine Martell basically throws herself, all of her seductive power at Nick. She does this while acknowledging that that's what she wants to do.
4. Nick, attempting to communicate Catherine's precise MO and the obviousness of her guilt is declared to be obsessed and delusional, as if he is fighting against a force of nature.
5. Nick meets Gus — his "only real friend" that has stood by him for no explicable reason — in an all-american cowboy theme bar.
6. She's just always telling him "I'm going to fuck you and then I'm going to kill you" but he just lets her get away with it — because she activated his psychosexual impulses.
7. There's literally so many scenes when they're just driving like assholes!!!
8. Yes he is just the worst fucking cop ever like every stereotype of a shitty corrupt cop
9. When he is being questioned for Roxy's death, the murder of Nielsen is randomly brought up, even though his case was already thrown out.
10. When he was being questioned about Nielsen's death he is literally a mirror of Catherine, just to really drive home that they are the same person
11. "She seduces people, she manipulates people and she gets away with it!!" - Beth, about Catherine (Nick (who is a cop).
12. This movie came out one year after the beating of Rodney King.