IRE — The Tarantino Effect: Desensitizing a College Freshman’s Fears

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself — for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good. — Maya Angelou

I am scared of many things. From small to big, from saying “You too” when the gate agent at the airport says “Enjoy your flight” to dying young with nothing done. I am fearful of anger because it ignites violence. I am afraid of violence whether it be affecting me or the world, because pain hurts and sometimes kills. I am terrified of death because I don’t know what it feels like. Quentin Tarantino, director extraordinaire, doesn’t care about my fears. He contaminates each film he produces with murder, barbarity, and discomfort. This is his normal. This is my nightmare.

My family has been praising Tarantino movies for some years now. My dad and brother invite me to join them each time, although they know the harsh action will always keep me away. (I cried watching Avengers: Age of Ultron.) But when choosing an ENGL 1102 class based on it being the only time that works for you, you can’t leave when the professor says you will be analyzing the various works of Quentin Tarantino. I was forced to face The Hateful Eight, Django, and more head on. I was forced to analyze everything — every movement the camera made, every song the producers played, every character another slayed. The impact of these films and analyses on my fear was unclear, but it definitely made me see these violent occurrences as the norm. By the fourth film, I was still cringing every time flesh ripped, but I knew it was coming and that was progress.

In my first paper, I wrote about death through Esmarelda VillaLobos, cab driver to Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction. When wrestler Coolidge sits in her cab, he has just accidentally killed a man. Esmarelda hears of this on the radio, and being intrigued with the concept of death, constantly repeats “What does it feel like to kill a man?” Through her simple yet weighty questioning, she ends up affecting Butch’s life in a significant way. She acts as a mentor for him, helping him cross a threshold; she plays the Devil, giving him gifts through answers; and is the ferryman Charon, taking Butch to the underworld. This deep analysis of a minor character was very difficult to write about. After watching the film, I knew this scene sparked the most interest in me, but I didn’t know where to begin. Death is one of the things I fear the most, and Tarantino and VillaLobos love it. My professor encouraged me to explore how her role matched historically famous roles in the past. I dived into researching Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, the story of Faust and the Devil, and the mythological ferryman Charon. These topics were ones that I would never look up otherwise, but for this essay, they captured my attention and kept it. Soon, the essay surrounding a cab driver became much more than that — it became one full of my time, research, and pride.

For my second paper, I was ready to again write about the scene that struck me most, this time in Inglourious Basterds — Marcel, cinema employee, black man living in SS occupied France, throwing a cigarette onto a pile of flammable film, causing the death of every Nazi leader there. However, my readiness was challenged when my professor told us to do an in-depth character analysis for our paper instead. This was a game changer because Marcel was a minor character in the film, had few lines, and was the only black man in the film. The only black man in the film — I quickly realized that this was the “it” I was looking for. I decided to write about the role of black men in Holocaust Europe, drawing examples from black persecution stories during that time, the slave trade, and modern comedy. I then compared these situations to the portrayal of black men during the Holocaust based on Marcel’s role in Inglourious Basterds. Again, I was immersed in research dealing with death, and again, these topics pulled me in instead of keeping me away. I also got angry when I completed the research and found that the stories of Marcel and reality didn’t match up. I turned this anger into energy, and wrote a passionate paper that explained what Tarantino got right and wrong. My end result was another paper that I stood behind proudly.

These works, although new and exciting, ignited a hunger for writing that they could not fill themselves. I had written and analyzed two minor roles played by two people of color. I felt the need to incorporate something like this, but more me, something that would challenge my fear of speaking my views, and found it when trying to sleep after watching too many hours of Netflix. In current television, the presence and role of brown, or South Asian actors has changed immensely from what it was in the past. Through shows like Master of None, The Mindy Project, and Quantico, led by brown actors Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, and Priyanka Chopra respectively, South Asian-Americans seem like normal human beings. This depiction, however, is still inaccurate because all three of the characters these actors play are non-religious and never turn to their culture in daily life. They all happen to date white people, and that furthers ideas of superiority. The normal they show seems to be one that is white-washed and not completely representative. This is a topic I would never talk about for fear of being shut down, but with the courage of two successful papers behind me, I went for it and included it as my wildcard.

If anyone was to tell me I was going to write on Quentin Tarantino my freshman year of college, I would not have gone to college. But here I am, holding my pride in the form of 8” x 11” sheets of paper, standing tall with a fearless Tarantino in my ear, telling me that it’s okay to be scared as long as you do something with that fear.