Tarantino, Clinton and the “N” word

Lets talk, says Caliban’s Revenge

I don’t like the way Tarantino puts the “N” word in the mouths of his white characters. I don’t like it because it seems to me to spring from both a patronising attribution of racism to working class “street” whites as a signifier of ‘realness’ (the hipster cousin of realism), and because it seems to smirkingly offer its white audience a somewhat Charlie-Hebdoesque cathartic thrill. Not reflected racism, but indulged. Supposedly, post-ironically neutered.

Still painful. Still sharp. So I want to say I don’t like it, and I wish he’d fucking stop it. But I also want to say, that Tarantino said this:

I completely and utterly reject the ‘bad apples’ argument. Chicago just got caught with their pants down in a way that can’t be denied… and the chief of police, is he a bad apple? I think he is. Is [Chicago Mayor] Rahm Emanuel a bad apple? I think he is. They’re all bad apples. That just shows that that’s a bullshit argument. It’s about institutional racism. It’s about institutional cover-ups that are about protecting the force as opposed to the citizens.

Now Hillary Clinton, if she made movies (imagine if she made movies) she’d never use the “N” word. Not unless a really bad baddy was saying it. Like the South African villain in Lethal Weapon 2 who hisses the words “Diplomatic Immunity” with the cartoon menace of a Sith Lord. She’d never SAY anything a bit wrong, or questionable, or that breached the terms of the liberal capitalist consensus.

She’s right on side when we’re dealing with a Trump. She’s appalled by marriage inequality. She really cares about the concerns of the people of Ferguson, of the weeping kin of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. She wants to hear those concerns. She’s listening.

But would she march with them? Would she fight with them? Would she call out the killer cops? Would she legislate to put them behind bars? Would she fuck. She may be listening, but there is nothing worth saying to her. Tarantino – lets talk…