Why has it become "fashionable" to hate Tarantino?
-Yep. But one thing can be fashionable in one circle and totally looked down upon in another. e.g. Juno is fashionable to some and a popular movie, while hating Juno is also very fashionable in some circles/a really popular past time-
Yes, that I agree with. So, if we’re reviving this topic, let’s restate the OP’s question this way—what is it about Tarantino’s films and/or public persona that make them/him popular/fashionable among a certain group or groups and unpopular/fashionable among another group or groups? It is something about the films? something about the groups? something about the (perceived) relationship of group A to group B? Some combination of these?
here are some reasons, most of which i personally agree with:
(1)he is annoying
(2)the lack of quality in output over the last decade, whether real or perceived.
(3)He is overpraised, well beyond his talent and ability
(4)He was a bad influence on a whole generation of film makers(e.g Guy Ritchie etc)
(5)the success of Pulp Fiction ruined Miramax as a bonafide creative entity.
My answer was that his movies are so popular. I think that because he appeals to low-brow audiences, a lot of high-brow audiences are turned off by him. If he was unknown by the mainstream, I think he’d have less haters. There are other filmmakers who appeal to both mainstream and art circles but very few of them have the hardcore fanboys to match Tarantino.
The movies themselves are violent, high on swearing, post-modern, cool to younger audiences, without any deep political or philosophical meaning, high on references to older movies and, as I said above, popular. These are all things that annoy some viewers though all of them are perfectly okay with me.
“what is it about Tarantino’s films and/or public persona that make them/him popular/fashionable among a certain group or groups and unpopular/fashionable among another group or groups?”
Casual film fans who see movies as a form of entertainment are likely to have no problem with any of the qualities I mentioned above. People who see film as art might take offense to the lack of a moral of the story or to the references (“plagiarism”) to some of their favorite movies. Each hater has their own reasons. In this regard, Tarantino is the same as every other filmmaker. I just think (as I have said many times by now) that QT’s popularity and fanboys make him more polarizing than usual.
“The movies themselves are violent, high on swearing, post-modern, cool to younger audiences, without any deep political or philosophical meaning, high on references to older movies and, as I said above, popular. These are all things that annoy some viewers though all of them are perfectly okay with me.”
To be honest, i’m more offended by the fact that people think Tarantino’s movies actually mean something than the fact that people find them amusing or ‘cool’. e.g Pulp Fiction is about redemption etc. It’s not the absence of ‘philosophical meaning’ at all, it’s the perceived presence. I know a lot of people that feel the same way.
There is nothing wrong with being skeptical about popular culture. There is a lot to be skeptical about.
That’s kind of what I meant about the popularity thing. Subtract the fanboys and you no longer resent Tarantino.
edit: This is kind of how I felt with Juno. Not a horrible movie but I grew to resent it because everyone around me was loving it. Not the best way to be judging movies.
^ His fanboys don’t make me hate his films. He does that all on his own. The fanboys just make it worse. ‘popularity’ has nothing to do with it.
And besides, i only dislike the last 3 films.
Fashionable hatred of what’s popular surely exists and it’s not cool but it’s not a serious problem. What’s popular is a problem.
I’ve said this before, possibly here in this thread, but it’s just like reverse discrimination. Sorry, but who cares. It’s regular discrimination that should be keeping folks up at night. Priorities people.
Joks, you said: “To be honest, i’m more offended by the fact that people think Tarantino’s movies actually mean something than the fact that people find them amusing or ‘cool’. e.g Pulp Fiction is about redemption etc. It’s not the absence of ‘philosophical meaning’ at all, it’s the perceived presence. I know a lot of people that feel the same way.”
Definitely sounds like your problem is with the fans more than with the movies themselves.
Why do you hate Inglourious Basterds and not his earliest movies?
“Avatar has a ton of fans but it also has more people calling it garbage than most other movies have fans, and I would bet it has a higher than average percentage of its viewers calling it garbage for a movie so successful.”
This is a fallacious argument. What other film has had the viewership of Avatar? I’d say the amount (at least as in the context of a ‘pop culture’ audience) of people that love or hate the film is just as high as any other film; it’s just Avatar was so inflated in the marketing department and got so many people to see it that it seems like there is just an enormous amount of people that hate the film when compared to anything else. Yes it’s because the film is popular that it’s so hated but the relationship is much more related to marketing than people just actively hating it to hate it.
It’s the same with Tarantino. There seems to be such a large amount of hatred of his films (completely deserved in my opinion) as compared to directors who he’s been compared to but it’s because Tarantino is in this weird netherworld. Guy Ritchie and the many clones that have followed Tarantino aren’t taken 1/10 as seriously as he is, and the ‘art’ film directors that are most oft discussed around him (or premiere films at ‘serious’ festivals with him) normally don’t have 1/10 the audience he garners.
Plenty of people hate Tsai Ming-liang’s work. Plenty. Nowhere near the number of people that hate Tarantino because Tsai doesn’t have near his viewership (thank God).
The percentages on these are not really all that different, it’s just the bare numbers that appear inflated/deflated depending on your perspective. It’s no more fashionable to hate Tarantino than it is to hate the most popular show on T.V., or it is to hate an uncomfortable desk chair.
No official polls have been taken on the subject… but I’d be shocked to find out that Tsai Ming-liang films are as frequently hated by its viewers as Avatar is. I think the reactions are definitely less polarizing. (I’ve actually never heard of anyone hating Tsai Ming-liang because the people who wouldn’t like those movies know not to watch them).
I think you’d agree that many people loved Avatar just because it was ‘in.’ It follows that there are many people who also disliked it because it was ‘in.’ That’s just how it works. There is no person or work of art that popular that isn’t met with a backlash from people that resent its popularity (or overratedness).
“I think you’d agree that many people loved Avatar just because it was ‘in.’ It follows that there are many people who also disliked it because it was ‘in.’”
Well, that sounds like a genuine theory to me. Theories require evidence. Where’s yours? Yes, I can make that assumption and it’s probably true, but determining actual numbers are quite a different thing and why I would reject any statement positing that a film is just hated or liked because it’s popular to do so. How exactly does one determine the exact percentage of people that love something because a friend of theirs loves it, or hates something because it’s just talked about too much?
Why would Tsai Ming-liang, for that matter, not have people that like his films just because its popular in certain circles to do so? Why wouldn’t he have people that hate his works for the same reason? And if it is determined that Tsai Ming-liang does have an audience of both why would it be statistically smaller than that of James Cameron or Tarantino? What direct evidence do we have to say Quentin Tarantino is hated in a much larger percentage for much smaller, and pettier reasons than any other filmmaker on earth? We have none so why assume we have all the evidence in the world?
^^first i’d like to know how he is so sure how my mind works. Then we can move on to Tarantino and the rest ;-)
“Definitely sounds like your problem is with the fans more than with the movies themselves.”
No, it’s both. at least in recent times. But i’d argue that fanboys, and the fanboy mentality, ruined Tarantino, as well as Kevin Smith. They started playing to their audience and became caricatures of themselves. In this sense, the two are definitely linked in my mind. however, fanboys in general are annoying to me, whether they are Tarantino, Godard etc, and yet i do not hate every director with obsessive fanboys. I hate Kevin Smith fanboys, but i like Kevin Smith films, or at least did.
“Why do you hate Inglourious Basterds and not his earliest movies?”
I’ve already provided one reason. The second is that i feel his movies are just less fresh/interesting/exciting as they were once. plus ive grown tired of his style of film making.
All those pesky SUBTITLES in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS!
I mean, SHEESH!
If it is fashionable to hate Tarantino, I’ve been fashionable since 1994. I was downright Haute Couteure for a while there, with PULP FICTION, to my mind among the most outlandishly overrated films in existence.
But with the generally amusing KILL BILLs I kind of fell out of that fashion. I got a little more fashionable when that dreadful BASTERDS thing came out.
I’m pretty much over the fashion thing. He can do what he wants. If producing tripe like BASTERDS is what he’s going to be spending the rest of his career doing, then fine. I can’t say I give a shit.
Joks, “how my mind works” – you explicitly said that your problem was not so much with the qualities of his films (lack of meaning) but with how people reacted to his films (lots of meaning), and then you criticize me for reading the wrong thing into your sentence…?
Lord Quas, there is obviously no official info to prove either side. That doesn’t mean that my belief is false. It’s a guess – I never said that we could determine the exact percentage. That being said, I think it’s common sense that people’s preconceived judgments of a film play a part in determining how much they like the film when they see it. Some people want to love a movie and so they’re more likely to get sucked in and love it. Some people go to see Twilight wishing very much to hate it and so they will. To follow that up, I also think it’s common sense that hugely successful and popular movies are more likely to produce these reactions than little-known Asian art films… but I don’t have a lab report to back that up so take it or leave it. shrug
“Lord Quas, there is obviously no official info to prove either side. That doesn’t mean that my belief is false. It’s a guess – I never said that we could determine the exact percentage.”
Yes, BUT! This is not something that can be left up to opinion. It’s not something that has to be subjective. One can find out how many people disliked Tarantino’s latest film, as compared to Cameron’s, as compared to Tsai’s (or whomever). It’s up to an audience that posits the idea that certain films are disliked simply for being popular to actually provide evidence as proof of one or the other.
For those to tell us that certain people hate something, or love something simply because it’s popular to do so and then provide no evidence of this, and defend this idea of theirs by saying, “it’s just common sense,” is absurd. How do you know it’s common sense? Just because you have some friends that like stuff that’s popular simply because it’s popular? Are your friends an accurate cross section of the entire population? How would you know this? If there is no study, formal or informal, to provide context or proof to what you are saying how then can it be ‘common sense’? Things that are common sense are backed up by a preponderance of evidence that cannot be denied, not something that’s backed up by an opinion of a single individual (or even a group of individuals).
What you are positing is not common sense; it’s an assumption. It’s an assumption that makes sense, and not necessarily something I disagree with, but you need actual proof to back up an objective fact like this to make your argument have validity.
The last good film Tarantino did was Pulp Fiction. Reservoir Dogs was hardly original and all this talk of it being ‘fashionable to hate his films’ his rubbis since Pulp Fiction was released years ago and he ran out of ideas after it.
yes it is common to hate QT
After reading a few of the comments on this thread, I think I will just say I DONT CARE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT TARANTINO.
To answer the intial question posed in the thread heading: Because it has beomce fashionable for Tarantino to produce a steady stream of very crappy, pretentious movies.
Egads, Lester, you’ve hit the nail on the head.
is it really that fashionable? maybe here in mubi..heh. i dont hate the guy and i cant even watch most of his films. but i dont deny that i love Inglourious Basterds for all its ingloriousness…haha. Call me shallow for all I care.. :p
Lord Quas, ah okay. Well, I didn’t think anybody would disagree with my claim so I considered it ‘common sense’ – it seems obvious TO ME based on my experiences. I wasn’t saying that you HAD to agree with my opinion, I was just giving my reason for why hating anything in pop culture becomes fashionable.
Quentin Tarantino is the best living director.
Lord Quas is sensible and smart.
Michael, seems like seeming obvious to you solely based on empirical evidence is not enough to develop this rather controversial assertion, which appears to be the premise of the entire thread, since it doesn’t really aim to discuss the popularity of Tarantino but rather accuse those who like him of having invalid opinions.
I like Quentin Tarantino. I think his films are very entertaining.
you have just revived the most moronic discussion on this forum miss jenny flake!
Oh, I thought it was quite interesting. Who is managing Quentin Tarantino in the directors’ cup?
Dennis Brian
not sure, lately I have been into directors who make a fair amount of good films without leaving an obvious trace (richard fleischer, robert a young), however, with the conformers I like, I am often disappointed when they try to branch out ( I miss New York Woody Allen chasing after young girls)