I didn’t mean to do a Quentin Tarantino week of articles, it’s just kind of turned out that way. I only planned on doing my look at the best scenes in QT’s movies, but then the idea of looking at Tarantino video games came about and then this article just popped into my head after reading a Tweet from a self-proclaimed feminist on how Quentin Tarantino is a woman hater.
I sat there reading the Tweet scratching my head trying to work out what this person was on about. I have watched Quentin Tarantino pictures since Reservoir Dogs back in 1992 and him being a misogynist has never entered my mind. So after a little research, it seems that several people are accusing QT of being a misogynist (do a quick interwebs search and you’ll find plenty of articles and videos making such a claim). I managed to backtrack the whole thing to a scene from his new flick, Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood.
Now, I’ve not yet seen the film, I’m going to watch it over the weekend. So I can’t directly comment on the scene in question. But from what I gather, it involves two women getting severely beaten up and in graphic detail. I’ll offer my view on the scene and the film as a whole after I’ve seen it. But I do want to address this whole Quentin Tarantino supposedly being a woman hater…
Okay, so I’m not going to sit here and attempt to bullshit you readers like others are doing covering this very subject. I’m not going to be selective in my pickings of evidence, I’m not singling out just one scene and only one scene to make a point, I’m going to go though all of his directed films and aim to be honest.
Yes Tarantino depicts violence toward women in his films, often bloody, brutal and graphic too. Just look at the scene in Kill Bill where Uma Thurman’s very pregnant ‘The Bride’ get’s the shit beat out of her during the wedding rehearsal, both in live action and animation. There are other instances in his pictures where women are beaten, even one’s he hasn’t directed. See True Romance for another example, a film QT wrote. Here, there’s a scene where Alabama Worley (Patricia Arquette) gets smacked around and bloodied by Virgil (James Gandolfini). And yes, I’ll also bring up The Hateful Eight here with it’s numerous scenes of violence toward Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Daisy Domergue at the hands of John Ruth (Kurt Russell).
Women get beat up in his films and I’m sure that his latest, Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood will be no different. I’m more than willing to believe that what I’ve heard about there being a scene where two women get beaten up is true. I believe this because Quentin Tarantino is famed for his use of excessive violence, he’s been at it for almost thirty years… so why are people only now bringing this up as a negative?
Yeah I know the whole #metoo movement along with QT’s working relationship and friendship with Harvey Weinstein does not really help matters here. And yes I’ll even bring up his idiotic comments about Samantha Geimer, the 13 year old rape victim of Roman Polanski (comments he did apologise about). Yet sill, I’m scratching my head over this whole thing. Is Quentin Tarantino a woman hating misogynist? The short answer is no. The longer one needs a little more detail applied.
Well for my first bit of evidence, I need to quickly cover what Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood is about. Aside from the main plot, the film is set against the backdrop of the Charlie Mason/Sharon Tate murder and if you know your Hollywood history, then you know that things got a little violent and bloody. So if QT is revisiting a piece of history and a particularly violent piece of history… why should he shy away from it, why should he censor himself when depicting actual events? Plus I also hear that the scene in question where two women are beaten up also involves a male character getting the shit beat out of him too. Which leads me nicely to my next point.
Tarantino does show violence toward women in his flicks, there’s no denying that. But you know what else he shows? Violence toward men. He doesn’t discriminate against one sex over the other, he just uses violence as a way to advance the plot, it’s a storytelling device. Who is at the end of that violence is depicted by the story that is being told and not by the person getting beat up. You’ve seen Reservoir Dogs right? Pretty much a 100% male orientated film, aside from a scene with a female civilian being shot, it’s all males. Remember the most infamous and controversial scene of the film too?
Yup, it’s the ear cutting scene were a young kidnapped cop is tied to a chair, beaten, tormented, tortured, cut with a razor before having their ear hacked off and then doused in gasoline and almost set alight. Now just refresh my memory here but what sex was the cop? Not female right? Aside from the previously mentioned female civilian being shot, all the violence in this one is toward men.
How about we take a look at Pulp Fiction next? Can you think of any graphic violence toward women in this one? Nope. A young guy called Marvin (male) gets shot in the face, in fact several males get shot in the film. I suppose I could bring up the rape scene… oh yeah, it’s a male being raped isn’t it? The violence toward men in this one greatly outweighs the violent acts toward women eh? Not seeing a lot of this misogyny so far.
He’s next film, Jackie Brown is a wonderful tale about a plan to bring some illegal money over the Mexican boarder. It’s a simple story done really well. But I’m not here to explore the film’s plot, this article is looking at just how much of a woman hater Tarantino (supposedly) is. So let’s look at all the violence toward women. Well there’s the scene where Melanie Ralston (Bridget Fonda) is shot by Louis Gara (Robert De Niro)… and that’s it really. Just to equal that out a bit, later in the flick Louis is shot and killed by Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) who also shoots and kills Beaumont Livingston (Chris Tucker) and is then shot and killed at the end of the picture by Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton). Now have you been keeping count of the violent acts in this one? Because there are far more toward males than female characters.
While I’m here, let’s just take a look at the titular character, Jackie (Pam Grier) herself. She is depicted as a strong-willed and a very astute character. It is Jackie who comes up with the plan that leads to the demise of the film’s main antagonist. Then there is my favourite scene in the film, where Ordell comes to kill Jackie, but she cleverly turns things around and gets the upper hand, she is written as being in control over the men in the film. What kind of misogynist writes such a strong female character with power over males?
So let’s get into one I’ve already mentioned, Kill Bill. As previously covered, yes Uma Thurman’s character (important to remember it’s a character, not real) is beaten. And yet that very same character is the driving force of the entire flick, she is the strongest character in the whole damn thing. She goes out and get’s bloody revenge on those who wronged her, both female and male. And if you really want to keep a body count, she is far more violent toward males in the film than females. just look at the Crazy 88 fight for proof, the most violent scene in the whole film. In that one single scene, the female kills more male characters in a few minutes than all the other violent acts combined. Again, looking worse for the males than the females. Just as with Jackie Brown, if QT was such a woman hating misogynist, why create such a strong female character that kills so many males?
Up next, Death Proof. Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to 70s exploitation cinema. Now given this film’s influence of 70s exploitation cinema, there’s bound to be some pretty obvious mistreating of females, that’s what those flicks were like they were exploitative, especially toward women. They used violence and sex to sell so this is the prefect opportunity for QT to really push his misogynistic agenda. I suppose we could look at the film’s first main violent scene, the big crash. Yes we see four women get brutally killed in graphic detail, blood, guts and limbs fly in an orgy of violence and it’s the women who are displayed in said violence. Misogynistic right? Well let’s look at the latter half of the film…
It’s the second half where a new set of female victims for this deranged killer are set up. Without getting into the plot details too much. After the best car chase ever filmed where the female characters take control and fight back against the male, they ram his car off the road. The male is then punched in the head a total of thirty seven times within thirty seconds, he get’s the shit beat out of him by the females. Oh and I almost forgot to mention the roundhouse kick and a boot to the skull that kills him… but for some reason, when calling out QT’s supposed misogyny, feminists seem to conveniently forget about scenes like this and his strong female characters. Oh and let’s not forget just how kick-ass and ballsy Zoë Bell (female) is in the film.
Do I really need to carry on with the rest of his films? Well there are only three more left and next is the WW II epic, Inglourious Basterds. Largely a male cast but I guess the two main female characters would be Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark and Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus. Now there’s very little violence toward women in this one, a lot toward men mind you. I guess in the interests of fairness I should bring up that Bridget is chocked to death by a male. But what about Shosanna? You know the female who comes up with the plan to kill the highest ranking Nazi officers and even Hitler himself… or are we just supposed to forget that like Jackie Brown, it’s the female who is the brains in the film?
Django Unchained is set during a dark piece of American history, the slavery era. So with such a terrible subject to cover, this would be the perfect opportunity for Quentin Tarantino to display his despicable misogyny. I mean he could have had woman after woman after woman beat and tortured and just use the excuse of ‘that’s the kind of thing that happened back then’… but he doesn’t. Just as with his other flicks, the violence in this is much more male centric. Now, I’m not claiming there is no violence shown toward female characters, because there is. However, with such a subject matter of slavery, I would request any feminist to point out to me five acts of violence toward women in this film. Can’t think of any can you? Maybe one, maybe two at a push but five? No chance. Now look at all the violent acts toward male characters… dozens of them from ‘mandingo fights’ to a male slave being torn apart by dogs. Even a horse gets shot in the face in the opening, don’t know if the hose was male or female to be honest. But the point is that the violence toward males in Django Unchained vastly outnumbers any towards females.
Okay so last film now The Hateful Eight and as I covered at the start, yes Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Daisy Domergue is punished through the film more than once. She gets punched and slapped around by male characters. But EVERYONE get’s punished in the film, both male and female. There are some pretty brutal deaths regardless of sex in the flick. Samuel L. Jackson even gets his ‘black dingus’ shot off. So let me just break this one down. The woman hating misogynist, Quentin Tarantino, wrote and directed a scene where a male character literally gets his manhood taken away, the very symbol of being male. Or what about the scene where Tarantino has a man walk butt-naked through the snow, do the feminists calling QT out for his misogyny have an explanation for that?
So is Quentin Tarantino a woman hating misogynist? No. It’s more a case of feminists being manipulative idiots who pick and choose selective ‘evidence’ to create an argument that doesn’t exist and refuse to look at the bigger picture. I don’t get it, I really and honestly do not get calling out Tarantino as being a woman hating misogynist when his films have consistently and continually showed far more violence towards his male characters over females. If anything, it’s males who should be kicking up a fuss and arguing that he is extremely guilty of misandry. His flicks depict far more violence toward males than females, he has had a male character being raped, one being tortured another being beaten and killed by women, one having his pecker shot off, one being killed by dogs and countless other violent acts aimed at male characters… many, many, many more violent acts where men are the victims as apposed to females. As a writer/director who has written several very strong and intelligent female characters, for a misogynist, Tarantino is really, really fucking bad at it.
My views and opinions on his new flick, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood will be done over the weekend after I’ve seen it. But I expect violence toward women AND men in the film.
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