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Ok, Tarantino. I've been trying to figure out what really irritates me about that guy (aside from the condescending manipulativeness which actually made me walk out of Pulp Fiction when it came out...) - I think after watching OUATIH I figured it out 1/
his movies, especially his later ones, are all Westerns in one way or another - & someone observed the whole point of a Western is to create a situation so extreme that a decent person is justified in doing absolutely awful things. (This is appropriate to the frontier ... 2/
... of course, where settlers were involved in outright genocide, though the violence is usually displaced onto other settlers). So Tarantino has become all about creating situations where you can root for and identify with those committing acts of sadistic violence 3/
because, come on, it's Jews vs Nazis, or slaves vs plantation owners, etc. That's all obvious. But the subtext I think is that Tarantino is basically a kid who was presumably bullied in school, who is now coming up with ways to either be the bully (toying with his audience) 4/
or even more, forcing the audience to identify with the bully. The Hollywood movie takes this to the most extreme form by having you revel in watching a buff movie stuntman beat a bunch of wimpy stringy hippies, mostly girls, to a bloody pulp 5/
how can you justify identifying with a guy who was the scary jock in High School while he completely pulverises the kids who were the freaks and nerds? Because they're the Manson Family. They were the kind of people who diced apart a pregnant woman (though here, they didn't) 6/
(he's also careful to make him the oppressed proletarian who lives in a Trailer and practically eats dog food, though of course in the end it's macaroni and cheese... the dog food with which he kills the wimpy hippie kids) 7/
but the most evil manipulative thing is all the scenes with Sharon Tate. Because obviously the director is forcing you to imagine her getting brutally murdered, which he then makes not happen, so as to make you, the audience, the one who's guilty of the crime 8/
and then has the Manson kids NOT kill her because they decide instead to go after purveyors of cinematic violence, they are indignant about their role as the audience. Which... come to think of it, in the only other violent scene in the movie, at the Spahn ranch 9/
that's exactly what they are. The audience. They're all in a circle at a safe distance watching Brad Pitt (justifiably) beat one of the hippies up. They're never violent themselves. It's just you know they're the Manson family so you're terrified they will be. 10/
so the message seems to be that you, the wimpy audience, are hypocrites for objecting to screen violence because why are you watching this anyway, you deserve what you get, which is to have your face smashed in (figuratively or literally), I the director have transcended this 11/
