Everyone knows the poster that director Quentin Tarantino is pointing to here: it was for his latest feature-length movie, Pulp Fiction, which had just hit the big screen. Where had the title come from? It was a reference to Pulp magazines, which you could buy at American newsstands for just a few cents. ‘Pulp’ was a type of low-quality paper used to print illustrated accounts of criminal investigations, science fiction stories, fantasy or romance. It was dirt-cheap fiction for the masses. These were the types of magazines you could find abandoned in the trash cans of Central Park, piled in the corners of teenage bedrooms or left on bus seats. The type of magazine you flicked through as you ate your hot-dog, without having to worry about grease stains. By giving his movie this title, Quentin Tarantino was writing a manifesto for bad taste, giving the world an arthouse film built on a foundation of schlock.
Quentin Tarantino, give us more of that Pulp Fiction! We want to be entertained and enjoy ourselves in a movie theatre. We want to see Vincent and Mia dance in a retro diner. We want to see blood spilled without horror; we want to travel across America in stolen cars, and empathise with paid assassins. Even those who hadn’t seen the movie would say: “Oh yeah, I think I saw that on T.V.” That’s Pulp Fiction; a movie everyone had seen before they saw it. A movie that had achieved cult status as soon as it hit theatres. It was cult not just because of its provocative violence, but because it parodied with seriousness, it oozed self-derision and rebellion, and because it was littered with references to pop culture and high art alike. Quentin Tarantino was to cinema what punk was to music: an auteur with a passion for the craft, an underground director who didn’t pull punches. An author who made fun of cinephiles and critics, telling them: “If you like my movies then you gotta admit that your need to rethink your tastes! You gotta admit that you’ve been wrong about all this from the start. You gotta admit that pop culture is an art form; that this is real culture and not sub-culture and that people like it and they recognise it!”
Quentin Tarantino wanted to restore the reputation of that which had been decried and deemed inferior, or artless. His work was a mixture of dark humour, violence and kitsch, not forgetting the inspiration he drew from the countless old B Movies he knew by heart. Cinemagoers adored the work of Quentin Tarantino. Culture is a vast and sprawling thing, a hodgepodge that can appeal to intellectuals or working stiffs, young or old alike. Quentin Tarantino wanted to force critics to think differently; his characters talked about things like their favourite Madonna song, or how they liked their cheeseburgers, all with a straight face. You know what they call a quarter-pounder with cheese? And you know what they eat with fries instead of ketchup? This was the secret sauce that Tarantino fans couldn’t get enough of; it was thick and cloying and it never got old, just like Le Big Mac.
Quentin Tarantino, give us more of that Pulp Fiction!
Alan Alfredo Geday