Let's be clear, I don't think Quentin is a racist. Although, it is a little hard to tell the difference between him and racists. One might argue that his movies are the flip side of Birth of a Nation. He's no racist, but he is a self-satisfied idiot who strongly believes that if anyone having a problem with his work, can go screw themselves; it's his "art" so FU, don't watch it. That, makes him either an ass or the hole indicative of one.
Let's keep it 100... Tarantino has an issue that he seriously needs to come to grips with eventually. Here's the problem in his own words, “But when the black critics came out with savage think pieces about Django, I couldn’t have cared less. If people don’t like my movies, they don’t like my movies, and if they don’t get it, it doesn’t matter.”
Contrary to popular belief, there's no such thing as post-racial America. There's a reason why at damned near 40 years old (yikes!!!) I would never use certain words in front of my grandfather or my mother. I have too much respect for them to make them uncomfortable with hearing me say certain things. My grandfather would be offended if he understood that a white guy was writing that word with this level of proliferation and we were patronizing him and giving him accolades because it was "so real" or "ground-breaking." For the record, there's precious little that is ground breaking about a white dude saying or writing the word nigger with impunity. It's an all too familiar refrain. Tarantino's callousness (despite his lunches with Sidney Poitier) demonstrate the zeitgeist of those who feel that because they have black friends, they should receive some sort of a pass for their sh#y lack of deference and respect to racial issues. Oh no, it's cool. That's how people talked back then... that's not an acceptable response. Verisimilitude is not a shield when you also have anachronisms in your film or you allow certain cuts and edits so as not to offend the Chinese and have your film seen in that country (that isn't artistic integrity, it's pecuniary commitment). Interesting justification, but how frequently did you use anti-semitic terms in your rip-off... eh ehm! I mean REMAKE of Inglorious Basterds. That joint was set in Germany and Nazi occupied France, but the derogatory terms didn't even approach Django levels - not even the same ball park, playboy. So, don't feed me the "that's how they talked" line when yo decide to use nigger 100+ times in one flick.
No, he didn't break the 100 mark in H8, but he did get about one in every 90 seconds or so by my best guess. I'm not on my soapbox like I was with Skids and Mudflap in that Transformers crap, this is a pattern of - at minimum, oddly manifested and unhealthy infatuation with black male-ness and masculinity, which is often demonstrated by his over use of the N-word and the relative objectification of us via that unnecessary usage as well as the completely out of place sexual jeopardy that he seems hell bent on putting his important black male characters in (see, Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, and to a reverse degree - the Hateful Eight). No, there isn't an rape scene in every Tarantino movie; but I defy you to find a Tarantino film with a black character of any significance, and the film does not include at least 3 uses of that word. So what, Sam Jackson keeps working with him. Sam Jackson, mercenary that he is, will defend any role he plays (see, Black Snake Moan, Snakes on a Plane). Besides, he's kind of a bully and I would give him as much deference on social issues as I would give his commercial-mate Charles Barkley - ABSOLUTELY NONE.Look at Pulp Fiction... Even in a scene where there's no apparent reason for him to use the N-bomb, given that his character (a white dude helping out Jules, his black friend - played by Jackson) is married to a black woman, he still uses it with reckless abandon - something that multiracial couples know is a no-no. My sister's been married to a white dude for a decade and as much as he may love her, he knows that he would receive an beatdown of the royal variety posthaste, if we even thought he thought to utter the phrase "dead n!&&er storage" even if the name of the storage container had a sign on it of the same name while he was watching Pulp Fiction.
As always, his movie had some really cool elements all of which were overshadowed by the pervasiveness of his abuses and the wretchedness of his excesses. But this particular n!gger, is not going to cosign Tarantino's playful or artistic emasculating of yet another brother or his whimsical abuse of a term that even I barely use.
IMTHATDUDE gives The Hateful 8: 2 (because I would cuss QT out)
RATING SYSTEM:
5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!
4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.
