Wallpaper

There’s two things I want to say about Quentin Tarantino’s new movie.   One:  I enjoyed it.   And two:  I remain appalled at how easy it still is to enjoy a movie that contains gratuitous violence toward women.

Tarantino characterizes femicide for comic effect, but no worries, it doesn’t inhibit the movie-going pleasure.   Hostility to women remains cultural wallpaper that barely registers, particularly if delivered by a cool, winning, handsome actor.   That actor, in this case, is Brad Pitt.

A confession:   Ever since Brad Pitt beguiled his way into Geena Davis’s motel room in Thelma & Louise, I’ve been a sucker for his charms.   And in Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood, Pitt is no less winning.   He plays a Steve McQueen-Paul Newman-ish movie stuntman and man-Friday to a down-on-his-luck TV Star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio).  There’s only one thing we learn about his character’s backstory, only one thing Tarantino thought was vital for us to know about him — he was rumored to have murdered his wife.

In a quick flashback, we see Pitt’s wife nagging him in the most grating, annoying way.   The camera is on her as she drones on and on — a shrew, a harridan, a virago.   And then the camera cuts back to Pitt’s reaction – a tiny, mischievous, murderous grin.   Yes, she deserves to die.   Because she’s so annoying.   The audience laughed.   And I laughed, too.   Why?   Because annoying, nagging, grating women deserve what they get?   Because we know what Brad is thinking and we know what he’s going to do.   And, well, he’s Brad Pitt, so of course, I’m on his side.   I’m on his side before I know it, before I can check myself.   It takes so little for me to be on his side because there’s so much cultural capital already firmly in place that concurs, yes, women like this woman are uncool, unlikeable.  Women who interfere with male pleasure deserve what they get.   And in this case, what she deserved was murder if delivered by someone as likeable and charming as Brad Pitt.

It’s important to note that the rumor of murdering his wife had no plot significance.  It didn’t move the story along.   It didn’t have to be there.   It was completely gratuitous.  The movie wouldn’t suffer one iota if it was left out.   It was clearly there for one reason and one reason only — humor.   Comic texture.

Would it have been funny, if instead of his wife, he was rumored to have murdered an annoying, grating gay man?   Or rumored to have murdered an annoying, grating black man?    I doubt it.   It would have crossed a line.   So what is the variable that makes one movie murder comic while another unacceptable?   There’s gender.   It’s not the ‘annoying, grating’ stuff that condones murder as much as the female stuff.   And there’s also context.   A cool actor murdering an annoying, grating wife can be a joke because in the larger social context, violence against women remains just something that sometimes happens to women.   A private issue rather than a public outrage.

I don’t blame Tarantino.   He’s part of the culture.   He’s trying to make an entertaining movie and he’s just using the cultural assumptions that are available to him.   He’s steeped in it, been steeped in it since birth.   Like all of us.   His movie is a symptom and a sign.   It reflects how deep and dark and pervasive and unconscious hostility toward women remains…in everyone.   Because, like I said, I laughed too.