Chinazism

Quentin Tarantino shows how to take a stand against China and shame the censors
By Sonny Bunch Quentin Tarantino speaks at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on Oct. 2. 

Leave it to Quentin Tarantino, a filmmaker whose body of work demonstrates a keen understanding of the power of stories to mold our perceptions of the world, to show lesser lights how to take a stand against authoritarian repression.
Chinese officials abruptly canceled the release of “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood” in that country last week. 

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the shocking move came after Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee’s daughter, complained to Chinese officials about the film’s representation of her father as a boastful fool fought to a standstill by a mere stuntman.
Tarantino, one of the rare directors with the power to demand final cut on his (relatively expensive) films, reportedly has no intention of re-editing the picture — not for Shannon Lee, not for Chinese censors squeamish about the film’s graphic violence, not for any reason. 

And in so doing, Tarantino proves yet again that he is one of the most important, most interesting, most provocative and most honest filmmakers working today.
Aside from his accountants and the bean counters at Sony, one can only guess how much money Tarantino is leaving on the table by sticking to his guns; he reportedly negotiated a massive back-end deal when selling his services on “Once Upon a Time,” asking for upwards of 25 percent of the first-dollar gross. (A “Sony insider” told the Hollywood Reporter he did not get this figure, but he probably got something close to it if he didn’t: according to Deadline, Tarantino earned something like $75 million between “Inglourious Basterds” and “The Hateful Eight.”)
On top of that are second-order financial considerations for Tarantino. 

Refusing to play ball with China might make studios more reluctant to back the auteur on projects going forward; even if he only has one more film in him, as he has promised, alienating revenue sources is a risky play. 

But for a true artist — someone with vision and confidence in it — it’s the only play to make.
Tarantino’s refusal to play ball is a vital statement of artistic freedom. 

But it’s only half the story. 

That he needed to defend the integrity of his movie at all is due to the actions of scolds who give the lie to the idea that advocates for social responsibility in film are not in league with censors.
“I think part of what is so troubling to me is that it places a lot of responsibility on the audience to interpret what’s factual and what’s not factual,” Shannon Lee told Vanity Fair around the time of the film’s release. 

Lee was not referring to the fact that Tarantino flagrantly messes with the course of history by negating the Manson Family’s murders of Sharon Tate and her friends at her house on Cielo Drive in Los Angeles. 

No, she was complaining about the artistic interpretation of her father as preening and cocky rather than her preferred depiction, humble and modest.
Her real complaint is not that audiences might have to sort through fact and fiction. 

It’s that Tarantino eschews her mythologizing. 

But the “Pulp Fiction” director is under no obligation to back up her family’s conception of the best-known Lee.
Jen Yamato, writing in the Los Angeles Times, noted all the ways critics of the scene believed it to be out of bounds. 

Jeff Yang suggested the treatment of Bruce Lee flirted with “exploitation.” 

Nancy Wang Yuen decried the idea that Lee’s “kung fu becomes a joke, and his philosophizing becomes a fortune cookie.” 

Combined with the fact that Tarantino refused to take seriously a ridiculous question about the number of lines of dialogue Margot Robbie had as Sharon Tate, and that’s it: “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” was slapped with the most dreaded of labels: “problematic.”
Of course, that designation didn’t really matter all that much, given that the vast majority of people really don’t care about these teapot tempests. (Repeat after me: Twitter is not real life.) 

If only there were a way to make the filmmaker care. 

By, say, partnering with a band of fascists and censoring his work with the aid of the government. Then our moral arbiters could make real change happen. 

Then they could truly achieve justice.
Tarantino’s refusal to revisit his film for the censors should shame not only those who would sell out Hong Kong protesters and imprisoned Uighurs so they can sell a few more sneakers and a few more movie tickets. 

It should also give pause to all who would denounce an artist for pursuing a vision that defies the bounds of political correctness. 

We’re often told that pursuing political correctness isn’t censorship — it’s just politeness.
Apparently, that’s not always the case.