Tarantino Got So Offended by a 'Racist' Movie, He Wanted to Punch the Director

There has always been debate about what is acceptable content for movies and TV. And one man who has never been afraid to push the boundaries is Quentin Tarantino.

Indeed, some people have branded some of his work as racist and offensive – particularly his use of racial slurs in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, which Tarantino himself has always put down to creating realistic characters rather than them being a reflection of his own world view.

In a recent interview with the French website La Liberation, the director addressed the issue of 'offensive' movies and the need to put trigger warnings at the start of films. It will probably come as no surprise that he doesn't really feel the need for trigger warnings and doesn't feel people should be 'offended by the content of a film'.

And yet, in the same interview, he described how he watched a film that he found offensive.

'There's a movie that came out in the last ten years, 'he said, '…that really offended me.'

He didn't say which film it was. But he did say that he 'found it racist' and 'wanted to punch the director'.

So, does that make him a hypocrite? No. Because he is as critical of his own response to this unnamed movie as he would be to anybody labelling any other film 'offensive'.

'The more I thought about it,' Tarantino said, 'the more I realised that it was my problem. Adding, 'I still think it's a racist movie. But it's just a f***ing movie, man.

And he wasn't finished there. When the issue of trigger warnings was raised, he said. 'I reject the word 'offended'. Anyone can be offended by anything.' He went on to describe how, in most cases, being offended by a film is 'the first response of a very narrow mind'.

It's fine, he says for audiences to be vocal about not liking a movie. 'But, man, being offended?' He said. 'Art is no offence'.

One thing that Quentin Tarantino has been since he burst onto the movie scene in 1992 with Reservoir Dogs, is honest. He doesn't hold back on his opinions and is happy to call things out if he disagrees with them.

In this interview, we see that he understands that he's just as susceptible as anybody else to feeling offended by a film. But he also holds himself to the same scrutiny he would anybody else.

Source: La Liberation.