Been reading about Tarantino as a feminist director - I can’t see it - his portrayal of women is misogynistic, take Death Proof and the violence towards women. What are other people’s thoughts?
I disagree. First of all, if you’re in a Tarantino film, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a boy or a girl, you are fair game for brutal violence to happen to you. Sure, in Death Proof, women get mauled to death by Stuntman Mike’s car crashes. But in Reservoir Dogs, Marvin Nash gets his ear cut off. In Pulp Fiction, another person named Marvin gets his head blown off and Marsellus Wallace is raped. In Inglourious Basterds, a ton of nazis (who are all men) get fucking scalped! Tarantino does very stylized, brutal violence in his movies. The fact that women get brutally killed too just shows that he’s equal opportunity when it comes to gore. Second of all, in the majority of his films women are portrayed as fucking badasses. The only exceptions are Django Unchained (Broomhilda is just a damsel) and Death Proof (the women in the first half are kinda ditsy and that movie fails the Bechdel Test HARDCORE). But in Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace is a really charismatic character that does nothing but make good points about the philosophy of life (oh, and overdose). Jackie Brown is a strong, intelligent lady who doesn’t take shit from anybody and demands respect. The Bride is as brutal and kickass as she is sympathetic. Shosana Dreyfus is a cunning woman who takes advantage of a bad situation to avenge her family and take down a fascist empire. O-Ren Iishi may be a villain but she’s still a respectable, honorable one. Daisy Domergue is delightfully insane, but also cunning, manipulative and pragmatic. That’s just to name a few, but the vast majority of women in Tarantino’s films are portrayed as strong, smart, independent women who still have an emotional center. You could argue that he’s not a feminist director but his portrayal of women is FAR from misogynistic.
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