I don't think so, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16964
(SOME SPOILERS)
When you think of the resounding flop of Jackie Brown – the film Quentin Tarantino made after his 1994 Pulp Fiction changed contemporary movie history – it's no wonder he offs Vivica A. Fox early in his new movie, Kill Bill: Vol. 1. He wasn't about to repeat the mistake of asking mainstream movie audiences to take a black person's emotional life seriously.
Vivica A. Fox's character Vernita Green (a.k.a. Copperhead) may return in Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (to be released next Spring) courtesy of the film's fractured time scheme. But for now she is a typical example of Hollywood cannon fodder. It's another bait-and-switch role, used to lure black filmgoers to a movie and then be conveniently dispatched to appease white racist distaste. Vernita is a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (or DiVAS), a group of hit-women working for the film's shadowy title character Bill, a pimp figure. Although Kill Bill shows how one diva, The Bride (Uma Thurman), seeks revenge on Bill by first hunting down and killing her sister divas, this movie is no more an examination of patriarchy than was the Hughes Brothers' noxious American Pimp. Tarantino, always in trivia-mode, simply creates his own Charlie's Angels but ups the pop references and intensifies the violence quotient. Vernita's death is not taken seriously, but then Tarantino takes nothing seriously besides his adolescent fascination with the low end of popular culture.
Tarantino is the first white filmmaker to forge a career based on disreputable, underclass taste – the movie culture that black urban youth were raised on and affectionately viewed as their own. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill owe their inspiration to '70s blaxploitation movies – a Hollywood trend that catered to the domestic fragmentation that occurred in America after '60s political dissent, responding specifically to the social conflagrations of riots and rebellions that shifted the tax base and demographic make up of most U.S. cities. (Abandoned urban movie houses were blighted, left to feature the kind of trash-product that had been the traditional fare of drive-ins.) Blaxploitation anticipated a lasting cultural fragmentation. The pop audience that the '60s seemed to unite became newly segregated into distinct racial and generational enclaves. The young folk who grew up on blaxploitation (and who would innovate hip hop culture) withdrew into disaffected sub-cults – claiming grade Z action movies, even the cheaply made and hastily dubbed kung-fu imports, as aesthetic ideals divorced of any social or ideological thinking.
Young, white Tarantino witnessed and participated in these changes. As a new era's hipster, Tarantino embarked upon a different kind of white flight. He gravitated toward sleazy black pop but without acquiring any political identification. He could reject the traditional, bourgeois film content and claim a timely, original approach: His films emphasized the pleasure of pop without moral conscience, yet were rife with racially tinged violence. Blaxploitation was thereby reborn as something postmodern – a white-identified entertainment form that took lack of social progress for granted and celebrated the post-80s tenets of greed and narcissism.
This was coincidental with hip hop's dubious achievement of "nigga," unearthing former opprobrium and transforming it into publicly accepted address. Tarantino, in his own way, affected a similar transformation, appealing to the public's unaddressed racial anxiety and seeming to relieve it through ruthless evocations of racism and hostility. That was the novelty of his early '90s screenplays that incorporated vicious, racist utterances into slangy, kitsch-obsessed dialogue (in Reservoir Dogs, True Romance and Pulp Fiction the various "nigger" references were clearly hostile, not salutary). Tarantino's irresponsible comic lingo matched the blithe way he dramatized brutality devoid of purpose.
It's no coincidence that Pulp Fiction made a star of Samuel L. Jackson, who embodied Tarantino's devolution of blaxploitation heroism (a prototype that was always community conscious) as a figure of single-minded, craven, remorselessness. Tarantino's regard for blaxploitation – like his passion for Japanese animation and Hong Kong action flicks – is a simple matter of white appropriation. Kill Bill has the most panache (and the biggest budget) of any grade-Z action flick ever made. But it is a questionable triumph. All it demonstrates is the tendency for dominant culture (Hollywood, America, white supremacy) to co-opt the styles and implied needs of subcultures, deracinate them and then produce something spectacularly conceited.
Kill Bill may be mindless, but it is not meaningless. Tarantino's move away from the concerns of blaxploitation – and the black female heroine of Jackie Brown with Thurman's blonde valkyrie – reveals his true allegiance. He's not a black filmmaker the way some have claimed Bill Clinton was a "black" president. Tarantino has simply hoovered-up all the same pop trivia that had been consigned to the poor, urban class and serves it back as a demonstration of the success and approbation that can be had simply by forsaking such issues as social inequality, historically-determined class roles, genuine spirituality and injustice. Consider: He is exactly like a black teenager watching Shaft, Three the Hard Way or The Chinese Connection, unconcerned with how movies portray substantive human dilemmas except that he's now 45 years old, free of the social traps that beset unenlightened, underprivileged black youth and shows no particular connection to the one black female figure in Kill Bill.
Vernita Green's death is as startling and outrageous as all the others in Kill Bill, the first step in the film's supposedly humorous series of slaughters. Tarantino stages Vernita's murder in her own home, after she and The Bride have demolished the living room in a brawl. It's kind of witty but also not. The juxtaposition of domesticity and surreal violence only leads to a vicious shocker: Vernita's daughter arrives home from grade school in time to watch her mother nailed to the kitchen cabinet by a knife. It takes a near-idiotic mentality to detach this scene from its sociological and psychological horror and then laugh. Movie-nerd Tarantino goes for shock, but he also aims for pain. His penchant for pop effects does not erase the fact that this is a black woman butchered by a white woman. The basic elements of the scene are part of its message, crucial to its effect. Disregarding motherhood, family, class and race tension conveys no lesson, it only exacerbates.
There's not enough back story to Vernita and The Bride's relationship to make up for Tarantino's apparent indifference. As with the Jackson-Travolta pairing in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino is incapable of portraying realistic black/white relationships; he retreats into his own screwy blaxploitation fantasy. Vernita's death in Kill Bill is another heartless narrative furbelow in a storyline and movie that, in the end, simply continues Hollywood's white-supremacist conventions.
I think it's the racist-ist movie ever, and I plan on picketing every screening and getting them cancelled. QT is the most evil man alive, and must be destroyed.
Oh, also, I haven't seen the film yet...
:roll:
:roll:
QuoteAs with the Jackson-Travolta pairing in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino is incapable of portraying realistic black/white relationships[/size]
um...i though their relationship was very realistic.
and to call QT a black teenager is racist!
Quote from: dufresneQuoteAs with the Jackson-Travolta pairing in Pulp Fiction, Tarantino is incapable of portraying realistic black/white relationships[/size]
um...i though their relationship was very realistic.
and to call QT a black teenager is racist!
OH, I see......a realistic relationship would've been them fighting constantly and really letting the audience know how different they are from each other...
This article is fucking ridiculous.
Since the rolling eyes emoticon has already been used, my puking from this article will have to suffice:
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i don't get why everyone talks about tarantino and his "pop culture" references. i consider pop culture to be stuff like joe millionaire, britney spears, friends...crap like that. if you think game of death is current popular culture, then i guess he references pop culture...otherwise i think it's a lame cop out to describe his stuff.
oh yeah, that article blows.
QuoteIt's kind of witty but also not.
wha???
Quote from: abuck1220i don't get why everyone talks about tarantino and his "pop culture" references. i consider pop culture to be stuff like joe millionaire, britney spears, friends...crap like that. if you think game of death is current popular culture, then i guess he references pop culture...otherwise i think it's a lame cop out to describe his stuff.
It's the pop culture Tarantino liked when he was growing up.
So just because a black person was killed means Tarantino is racist? Vivica Fox was not the only person, to be killed in the film. Perhaps more backstory will be established in Volume 2.
Quote from: the guy who wrote the articleVernita's death is not taken seriously, but then Tarantino takes nothing seriously besides his adolescent fascination with the low end of popular culture.
Every film can't be a socio-eco-political essay. Tarantino obviously isn't making a gritty, realistic film about the plight of a girl whose mother was killed. This guy is nuts. Nobody's death is taken seriously in this film.
"young, white Tarantino". let me guess, whoever wrote this article is NOT white? first of all, he's fucking 40! is that young? secondly, Vivica dies first in the running time, but she's not the first to die chronologically.
Quote from: themodernage02"young, white Tarantino". let me guess, whoever wrote this article is NOT white? first of all, he's fucking 40! is that young? secondly, Vivica dies first in the running time, but she's not the first to die chronologically.
it's quite possible that her death happened that way (second chronologically, first in the movie) as a nod to the "black guy always dies first" tradition in horror movies.
QuoteHe wasn't about to repeat the mistake of asking mainstream movie audiences to take a black person's emotional life seriously.
Umm...wouldn't you say that Sam Jackson is the main protagonist in Pulp Fiction? Jackie Brown wasn't his first black main character.
I don't think Vernita's death was funny at all, I thought it was kind of fucked up that 1) it happened 2) it happened with her kid in the other room 3) her kid ended up seeing it anyway
Did anyone find that funny? I mean, a lot of the death parts were funny, but a few of them weren't, that being one of them.
Of course Tarantino is racist! Didn't you all see the same Kill Bill I did?!
He hates the Asians. I mean, he must, right? Just after the African Americans and Rednecks. I mean, because his White Devil, Uma, offed the black lady first (not to mention the organ player is dead from the beginning) and then killed the fun loving Buck and his friend...
But then... then... he had his white devil kill 89 ASIAN people! 89! Y'know, because she let the one kid go, killed the 88's leader and then the school girl and the boss.
WHO WERE ALL ASIAN.
So in summary, QUENTIN HATES THE CHINAMEN!
And the African Americans and Rednecks. Just not as much.
QuoteTarantino takes nothing seriously besides his adolescent fascination with the low end of popular culture.
Tarantino is the first white filmmaker to forge a career based on disreputable, underclass taste – the movie culture that black urban youth were raised on and affectionately viewed as their own. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill owe their inspiration to '70s blaxploitation movies – a Hollywood trend that catered to the domestic fragmentation that occurred in America after '60s political dissent, responding specifically to the social conflagrations of riots and rebellions that shifted the tax base and demographic make up of most U.S. cities. (Abandoned urban movie houses were blighted, left to feature the kind of trash-product that had been the traditional fare of drive-ins.) Blaxploitation anticipated a lasting cultural fragmentation. The pop audience that the '60s seemed to unite became newly segregated into distinct racial and generational enclaves. The young folk who grew up on blaxploitation (and who would innovate hip hop culture) withdrew into disaffected sub-cults – claiming grade Z action movies, even the cheaply made and hastily dubbed kung-fu imports, as aesthetic ideals divorced of any social or ideological thinking.
Young, white Tarantino witnessed and participated in these changes.
Well, I don't think the film was racist, and I have a problem with much of what this writer is saying.
"Pop culture" is the term we use to describe "mass culture;" culture ready to be consumed by you and I. Unlike an original painting or a first edition, a movie ticket or DVD or magazine purchase is within the reach of most of us. How obscure or how popular, how old or how new, doesn't really figure into it in a significant way.
Certainly, there is a "low end," but something of value can be found even in much of that.
I think what this writer has a problem with is the potential rudeness and trashiness (or the vitality, as it can be thought of in some cases) of pop culture, which would be a much more valid thing to write about than the supposed racism of Quentin Tarantino.
evidently, a racist who likes to blend in with the enemy...
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well the writer just took the movie out of its context. he kept on emphasizing on how a pretty white woman killed a black mother in front of her child and the death is celebrated because it's a surreal grade-z movie...etc. etc. But it was a REVENGE scene! The woman killed Uma and her family (and Uma assumed her baby) that's why she did it.
I think QT pissed off some people with his earlier movies like Pulp and Resevoir Dogs because he felt this incredible need to be "down", it was kinda stupid, but innocent. I don't think Kill Bill was like that though. He's all grown up now.
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Id like to enter evidence number 2, seems he doesnt ever change clothes.
And hey... if QT has Uma kill Budd and Bill in the second volume, he may as well just change the title of the film to Kill Whitey.
I think that article is wrong mostly because it assumes that Tarantino is racist because he doesn't attach a "but this isn't racist" disclaimer on everything. Just look how similar Marcellus Wallace and Bill are. One white, one black. I don't think he's trying to make any kind of racial meaning, and I don't even think Kill Bill has any real feminist meaning. It really is a stretch anyway to extend the black culture of Pulp Fiction to Kill Bill... that doesn't make sense.
That is THE most stupid thing I have ever heard in my life. No Kill Bill is not at all racist. Tarantino is not racist. Jeesus Christ!! (that's racist) But c'mon, there's no need to even talk about something as stupid as this, people, don't waste your time--just clarify for whatever fucking dickheads think it is racist, that it isn't!! I can't believe this! He made a black film for black audiences with Jackie Brown and I mean,...this is soooooo stupid....I can't think about this anymore it annoys me so much... Fucking idiots.
Quote from: finlayrHe made a black film for black audiences with Jackie Brown
Maybe he just wanted to expose them as a bad race of people.. Brown kills somebody, Ordell kills people, Tucker is in jail, they all take money.. and the white folk like Keaton and Forster are there to restore order........:roll:
Quote from: EEz28(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.sky.com%2Fimages%2Fskymovies%2Fpics%2F1167655.jpg&hash=478c7cd7004a445a8a4ff4f5a91aa68c00227462)
Id like to enter evidence number 2, seems he doesnt ever change clothes.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Picture of the year. Great avatar material.
This picture is a prime example of Tarantino co-opting black culture and poking fun at it by wearing it in an ironic fashion.
QuoteWhen you think of the resounding flop of Jackie Brown
flop? it cost what, 15 million... made 40 in america and another 30 foreign?
Quote from: CecilQuoteWhen you think of the resounding flop of Jackie Brown
flop? it cost what, 15 million... made 40 in america and another 30 foreign?
..agree. this film is under-rated
qt loses and gains weight quite rapidly over short periods of time it seems
Cinephile: You give Americans a bad name. That's such a stupid thing to say. Mr. White kills people is Res Dogs. Is he racist? Does he not like white people? I'll just assume you were joking...or if you weren't I'm praying for your stupid soul...or maybe you're the kind of American that Michael Moore talks about...or if this were Kill Bill, I'd dress in yellow and black, hunt you down and!!!!.....say....
YOU HAVE TO BE JOKING!!!
jeez, he was joking...
so was I...
"It's cool, essay, it's cool. Lead the way."
~QT in Desperado
I think Kill Bill is totally racist... I agree completely with Mr. White, who is probably Black.
SPOILERS (DON'T READ BEYOND HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT IT SPOILED)
Not only did The Bride kill a black woman at the begining of the movie, she kills the black woman in front of her daughter... I agree that in society there aren't enough black people around, so its definetly not possible that a black woman could possibly be a part of this gang of thugs. Nevermind the fact that there are a couple of white guys that haven't been killed yet (maybe in volume 2?)... its the black woman that was killed in this one. Nevermind the fact that her character tried to kill the Bride many years ago and left her for dead... she should be immune from vengence for her actions. And the nerve of killing the woman in front of her daughter. That racist Bride... she knew the whole time that little girl was there... don't tell me she didn't! She had lots of time to save her own life without killing the girl's mother... and she showed NO sympathy to that little girl... even after saying she'd kill her whole family... i guess she just forgot to kill the little girl... maybe the Bride will come back to lynch her later...
And please... Tarantino is so racist against Asians... don't even get me started! Ok, i'll get started anyways... forget the fact that the Bride befriended an asian man, who was portrayed as an honorable man, nevermind that! She killed all of those asians with that other asian man's sword... i'd go as far as to say that this was an act of genocide! How could he have made a sword that killed his own people... nevermind the fact that the people the Bride wanted to kill were evil crime lords who terrorized those poor restaurant owners... nevermind that... this was a great atrocity, and an awful day for our world's overall society.
Yes, Quintin Tarantino is completely racist... so what if he shot part of this movie in Asia, and helped influx money into a foreign nation's economy, and gave hundreds of foreign extras jobs... in his heart, he really hated these people... I hope he burns in hell and never makes another movie... he has nothing to say, and he hurts our national pride!
Nick
P.S. if you can't realize this whole post has been complete sarcasm, you're an idiot.
Quote from: finlayr"It's cool, essay"
I think it's "ese"... :yabbse-undecided: ...
The Voice of Nick: LOL
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanIt's no coincidence that Pulp Fiction made a star of Samuel L. Jackson, who embodied Tarantino's devolution of blaxploitation heroism (a prototype that was always community conscious) as a figure of single-minded, craven, remorselessness.
Dumbest thing ever said. Jules struggles with God and Providence and mercy throughout PF. Was this writer not even listening? "But I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd....."
He's neither single-minded, craven, or remorseless. He's none of the above. He's complicated, he struggles with his own violence, his own evil profession. He pities the very criminal (Roth) who tries to victimize him. This critic needs to pull his/her head out of his/her ass and get a clue about just how complex QT's reaction to blaxploitation was.
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanMovie-nerd Tarantino goes for shock, but he also aims for pain. His penchant for pop effects does not erase the fact that this is a black woman butchered by a white woman....
.....who was butchered previously by that very same black woman.
ARGH! It's a revenge plot you moron! What do "pop effects" have to do with it? What "pop effects" is that critic even talking about?
God, utter fucking bullshit.....