Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill

 

As Pai Mei, the famous kung-fu master, trains The Bride (Uma Thurman) in martial arts high atop an oriental mountain pass in Kill Bill: Volume 2, finding any relevance of the South in Tarantino’s works seems doubtful, but look no further than Kill Bill (both volumes) and Pulp Fiction to find Southern stereotypes at their best. In Kill Bill, The Bride (Uma Thurman) seeks revenge on her former assassination squad for the murder of her unborn daughter. Bill, the squad leader, assists in crashing her wedding rehearsal while putting a bullet in her head that sends her into a four-year coma. Upon waking years later, The Bride succeeds in hunting down all four members of her squad, but not without difficulty. In the end, The Bride finds Bill and the daughter she once thought she lost forever. Unflinchingly, The Bride never strays from her path of revenge and kills Bill.

Two characters shape the entire image of Southern culture within Tarantino’s Kill Bill: the hillbilly trucker and Budd. While the Bride lays in a coma, a male nurse, Buck, sells her body for sex to, no other than, a hillbilly trucker. Similar to Deliverance, the Southern male is portrayed on a level more evil than monster. In this instance, rape in order to show dominance cannot be the case since the Bride is in an unconscious state – she cannot resist. Here, the rape of a woman who is unable to defend herself is an outrage. On the other hand, Kill Bill: Volume 2, presents the dimwitted Southern hick, Budd (Michael Madsen). Budd is first seen telling Bill that he pawned his priceless samurai sword for $250. The entire conversation takes place at Budd’s trailer while he sips on a liquor bottle. Ignorant fool, drunkard, and trailer trash are all Southern stereotypes that fit Budd. He goes on to talk very harshly and perversely about The Bride while she lies on the ground bleeding out from the shotgun shells he put in her chest. Finally, Budd is taken advantage of in a business trade with Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah). The cowboy is an easy target because his peers view him as ignorant and dimwitted.

An earlier film by Tarantino, Pulp Fiction, also has one of the most powerful scenes that portray the South in negative ways that followed, again, in Deliverance’s footsteps. The film contains multiple stories; however, the main Southern stereotype comes with the conflict of Butch and Marsellus. A washed-up boxer, Butch (Bruce Willis) is chased through the city streets by Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) after Butch’s refusal to throw a fight breaks a business deal between the two. Both end up in a fistfight on the floor of Maynard’s pawnshop, where Maynard proceeds to tie them up at gunpoint before calling his hillbilly friend, Zed. The two are taken down to the basement where Butch is left with “The Gimp” – a man chained up in a full-body leather suit -  while Marsellus is taken into the next room and raped by Zed.  

Marsellus’s race is imperative in this scene. Tarantino portrays the Southerns as monsters who are consumed with such hatred that they rape a black man who comes across their path. Apart from John Boorman’s wild canoe trip, Pulp Fiction’s hillbilly monsters take advantage of criminals, which allows the audience to sympathize with criminals over Southerners. People who view this outside of the South see films like Deliverance and Pulp Fiction and, undoubtably, would never want to be left alone with a Southern man. Meanwhile, during the majority of the rape scene, the camera is held upon Butch and the dangling “Gimp,” who works as a symbol of the mask put up by the South to cover up their dark, sadistic desires. The hillbillies serve as a contrast or foil to the once rivals, Butch and Marsellus, who overcome their mutual differences in order to unite against the greatest enemy of all - the Confederate hillbilly (rebel flag is dawned in his pawnshop) and redneck sherrif.

Regardless of which film is viewed, Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill, Southern men serve the purpose of glorifying every other character they interact with. They are the antithesis of good and honest men. The Southern monsters unite black and white no matter what their differences because these men rape black men, take advantage of those who are defenseless, racially disgrace those who are different, and are ignorant drunks as depicted in modern films such as Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. Regardless of the situation, Southern pride is set against all other entities represented in these films. The South is more than “backwards” in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill; it is inhumane to the utmost. -

Brandon Landis