Director Quentin Tarantino
Director Quentin Tarantino is under fire after an interview with the New York Times.
In the director’s career, he has been chastised for his liberal use of the N-word. In the interview with Bret Easton Ellis, Tarantino does not shy away from his dislike of such criticisms.
“If you sift through the criticism, you’ll see it’s pretty evenly divided between pros and cons,” he states. “If you’ve made money being a critic in black culture in the last 20 years you have to deal with me. You must have an opinion of me. You must deal with what I’m saying and deal with the consequences.”
His last film, 2012’s Django Unchained, was the climax of this controversy. Director Spike Lee criticized the excessive use of the N-word in the film.
“American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them,” Lee tweeted.
Black director Antoine Fuqua defended Tarantino, saying the filmmaker didn’t have a “racist bone in his body,” as did Django’s star, Jamie Foxx. Black people also made up 42 percent of the audience for Tarantino’s blood-spattered spaghetti western.
Tarantino went on to defend himself in the interview.
“When the Black critics came out with savage think pieces about Django, I couldn’t have cared less,” he said. “If people don’t like my movies, they don’t like my movies, and if they don’t get it, it doesn’t matter.”
If the director believes that Black critics don’t matter, should his films matter to the Black community?
