Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Spike Lee Has a Problem With Quentin Tarantino Movies (But Samuel L. Jackson Doesn't)

The Daily Beast reports:
The use of the n-word in his films has long earned Tarantino the scorn of his critics—including Chi-Raq director Lee, who counted 38 of them in Jackie Brown and brought his complaints to Harvey Weinstein. “What does he want? To be made an honorary black man? I want Quentin to know that all African Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick,” Lee told Variety at the time.
When Django Unchained (n-word count: 110) unspooled in theaters, Lee reignited his quarrel with Tarantino, writing, “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.” Asked this month if he’d ever work again with Lee, whose Girl 6 he appeared in, Tarantino reportedly kept the flames of their beef stoked. “I have two more films to direct and I will not spend any of them working with that son of a bitch,” Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported. “He [Spike] would be very happy the day I accept to work with him. But it will not happen.”
Saturday afternoon {Samuel L.] Jackson, flanked by his co-stars and director, volunteered a defense of Tarantino’s use of the word in [the new film] Hateful Eight, in which it’s uttered so frequently it might mark a new record. Politer terms might be more palatable to politically correct ears, but “that’s not what people said—that’s just not how people talked,” said Jackson. “So whether [my character is] in the room or out of the room, when they say ‘the nigger,’ I don’t have to look around to see who they’re talking about.”
“We don’t need to have those conversations because we all understand society,” he continued, gesturing to his castmates. “As Tim [Roth] knows British society, Demian [Bechir] knows Mexican society. We all know that everybody has these different stratas of living, and everybody’s got somebody that they particularly put their foot on or walk around on.”
“There will be people who wish times were still like they used to be,” Jackson predicted. “We know we’re not just making a movie for Quentin’s fans, because people who hate Quentin and what his movie stands for are still going to watch this movie just because they like shoot ‘em ups. And they’re going to sit there and go, ‘Shit, that’s my thing right there! They’re right, all those niggers lie!’ That’s a segment of society. And there will be other people who go, ‘I can’t believe they talk like that.’ But that’s just what movies do, and that’s why we make these things—so that we can start conversations, or get people thinking, and hopefully that will make a change.”
I'm guessing Clint Eastwood would take Jackson's side in this debate:

 

-RW

3 comments:

  1. I'm guessing he wants to see the book "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" banned? Great book, and the "N-word" is used 219 times!

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    1. I agree it's a great book and frequently misinterpreted. It's notable though that the book has been banned on several occasions and five or six years ago some smarmy SJW professor re-wrote it, replacing the word 'nigger' with 'slave' or some such nonsense.

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  2. Better Eastwood clip: From "Dirty Harry":
    "Harry hates everybody"
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnRkCemeV7k

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