Quentin Tarantino is currently under fire by police associations across the country after speaking against police brutality last week in New York City. Police groups have now dubbed Tarantino anti-police, even though it was clear in his speech that he’s anti-police brutality.
Since his rousing speech, some cops and their supporters have stated that they would boycott Tarantino’s upcoming film, Hateful Eight.
During an interview Wednesday with Chris Hayes, the director addressed the issues he has with the police, as well as the issues he’s caused the Weinstein Co., the film’s distribution company.
“I’m sure the company that is producing the movie, it’s a pain in the butt for them. At the same time, the company released the movie Fruitvale Station,” Tarantino stated.
He went on to explain why he attended the Oct. 24 rally in New York. “I was happy to show up,” he said, adding that he had been invited based on past statements he’s made about white supremacy in the country. (Of course, not because of the flagrant use of the n-word in his movies.)
“What we were doing there was—there’s a lot of statistics going on, a lot of people who were once living and breathing and now are dead. It was time to tell their stories about what happened,” said Tarantino, who also reiterated that “just because I was at an anti-police brutality protest doesn’t mean I’m anti-police.”
On Tuesday, Tarantino gave an in-depth interview to the Los Angeles Times and delved further into police brutality. “All cops are not murderers,” he said. “I never said that. I never even implied that.”
But it seems as though if you’re on the side of the brutalized, you’re anti-cop, according to some people in law enforcement. It’s interesting that they can’t seem to grasp the concept of putting an end to brutalizing and killing people to end police brutality.
“What they’re doing is pretty obvious,” Tarantino continued. “Instead of dealing with the incidents of police brutality that those people were bringing up, instead of examining the problem of police brutality in this country, better they single me out. And their message is very clear. It’s to shut me down. It’s to discredit me. It is to intimidate me. It is to shut my mouth, and even more important than that, it is to send a message out to any other prominent person that might feel the need to join that side of the argument.”
Tarantino definitely has a good P.R. machine working with him on this. More press for his upcoming movie and keeping him in the spotlight will definitely work in his favor.