Actress Rosanna Arquette, who has starred in many iconic films, including Desperately Seeking Susan and The Whole Nine Yards, spoke out in a recent interview about another well-known film she worked on, Pulp Fiction, and its director, Quentin Tarantino.
While speaking with The Times about her impressive acting career, her role as Jody in Pulp Fiction came up. Arquette initially praised the film, saying, “It’s iconic, a great film on a lot of levels.” But she had a strong message about one aspect of the film, also present in many of Tarantino’s other movies, and that was the excessive use of the N-word.
“Personally I am over the use of the N-word — I hate it,” Arquette declared, before specifically calling out the director as she said, “I cannot stand that he [Tarantino] has been given a hall pass. It’s not art, it’s just racist and creepy.”
In 2019, theDallas Observer counted the use of various offensive words in Tarantino’s films. The director used the N-word in his films 214 times, with the word used the most in Jackie Brown, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight.
Samuel L. Jackson, who has worked with Tarantino multiple times, shared his thoughts on the controversy over Tarantino’s use of the N-word in an interview the same year with Esquire. He didn’t have an issue with it and claimed that he would personally add “at least five” more N-words than Tarantino wrote in the script into his character’s dialogue.
Despite Jackson’s support of Tarantino, prolific filmmaker Spike Lee has frequently clashed with the director over his use of the N-word in his films. Back in 1997, after Jackie Brown came out, Lee said to Variety, “I’m not against the word, and I use it, but not excessively. And some people speak that way.”
“But, Quentin is infatuated with that word,” he went on. “What does he want to be made – an honorary black man?”
At the time, Lee concluded by saying, “I want Quentin to know that all African-Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick… I want him to know about it for future reference.”
Clearly, Tarantino didn’t listen to Lee’s guidance, as his films that use the N-word the most, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, came out in 2012 and 2015, respectively.
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