Yeah, About “Yeah, About that scene from “Pulp Fiction””.

Forbidden Words aren’t Forbidden everywhere.

John DeVore’s essay “Yeah, about that Scene from Pulp fiction” is a thoughtful and nuanced take on a difficult topic that needs to be discussed right now. I agree with one of his main points: Tarantino‘s use of the N-word word, like Lenny Bruce’s or George Carlin’s, came from a mistaken assumption that racism had been eradicated in the 70s. You can easily laugh at us now, but a lot of us believed it at the time, and Devore is right to skewer us for it.. I write more about this here. It’s very easy to not make that sort of mistake if you haven’t been alive for very long. But time will guarantee that you will someday be ashamed of something you are doing now. Nevertheless, I think Devore’s critique of Tarantino seems plausible only when you don’t think in specifics. If you try correcting the “imperfections” in the script, things quickly get ridiculous.

Yes, it is creepy and disgusting for a white person to use the N-word. it is however, even worse to murder people and sell heroin. The point about Tarantino‘s universe is that it’s inhabitants are almost completely morally bankrupt. To have them be squeamish about using the N-word while murdering and torturing people would have been ludicrous. It would have been even more ludicrous, in a very Tarantino sort of way, for Samuel Jackson to call Tarantino‘s character on word use when both of them are committing crimes of much greater depravity. But such an incident would’ve been a ridicule of the…