The one critique of QT that I've seen that gives me pause is the amount of sexual violence in his films; an example is the scene with Marcellus Wallace and Butch in the cellar in Pulp Fiction, or the Bride's being raped while in a coma in Kill Bill, vol. 1. The criticism is that his films don't really take this matter seriously enough and sensationalize it, whereas most of the rest of the violence is so clearly not what most people will experience in any form that it doesn't seem as big a problem. I'm not personally offended by the sexual violence in his movies, but I wonder if maybe I should be.
I admittedly am not triggered by sexual violence or overtly bothered by it. But, I have to say, I don't see an overt amount of it in Tarantino's work - at least not any more than one normally sees in noirish pulp films of this sort. If anything he has less sexual violence in his films than most. And I give him credit for creating fairly strong women, not necessarily just physically strong. Shoshanna reminds me a great deal of the Bride in Kill Bill - but she's not "fighter" so much as a thinker.
TV actually has more of these references and it is very prevalent in the horror, sci-fantasy genre for some reason. Also highly prevalent in dramas created by or written by men for women (Whedon's dramas, most daytime soap operas, some night-time ones), which is interesting. I'm not sure if it has something to do with the genre or the individual writing it. But mainstream dramas tend to veer sharply away from it, unless of course they are about cops or FBI agents.
(Someone once pointed out the Sleeping Beauty parallel with the Bride in KB1, though, and the way the original fairy tale involved something more than a kiss.)
Yep. In the original Sleeping Beauty was awoken with intercourse not a kiss. Or so they say. My annotated version of the Brother's Grimm tale is unclear. Anne Rice wrote a series of erotica books under that assumption and using a pseudonyme. Often female writers will subvert the sexual violence in weird and interesting ways.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-04-20 04:28 pm (UTC)I admittedly am not triggered by sexual violence or overtly bothered by it. But, I have to say, I don't see an overt amount of it in Tarantino's work - at least not any more than one normally sees in noirish pulp films of this sort. If anything he has less sexual violence in his films than most. And I give him credit for creating fairly strong women, not necessarily just physically strong. Shoshanna reminds me a great deal of the Bride in Kill Bill - but she's not "fighter" so much as a thinker.
TV actually has more of these references and it is very prevalent in the horror, sci-fantasy genre for some reason.
Also highly prevalent in dramas created by or written by men for women (Whedon's dramas, most daytime soap operas, some night-time ones), which is interesting. I'm not sure if it has something to do with the genre or the individual writing it.
But mainstream dramas tend to veer sharply away from it, unless of course they are about cops or FBI agents.
(Someone once pointed out the Sleeping Beauty parallel with the Bride in KB1, though, and the way the original fairy tale involved something more than a kiss.)
Yep. In the original Sleeping Beauty was awoken with intercourse not a kiss. Or so they say. My annotated version of the Brother's Grimm tale is unclear. Anne Rice wrote a series of erotica books under that assumption and using a pseudonyme.
Often female writers will subvert the sexual violence in weird and interesting ways.