Live Life Team
When Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” first came out in 1994, audiences and film critics aligned in their shock. Despite the film’s excessive language and violence, Tarantino has said he considers his film as much as a comedy as a gangster picture. This may be what makes the violent scenes even more disturbing, especially the scene in the basement of the pawnshop in act two.
In summary, a washed-up boxer (Bruce Willis) and the gangster he has swindled (Ving Rhames) are taken hostage by the shop’s proprietor, a cop named Zed, and a gimp. Willis’s character, guarded by the gimp, listens while Rhames’s character is raped in the next room.
The scene so is disturbing that it’s easy to dismiss as shock-for-shock’s sake. While I agree that there is no shortage of gratuitous nudity and violence in films today (or back in ‘94), the scene is necessary when considered next to an earlier scene where we learn about Willis’s birthright, a watch. His great-grandfather wore the watch while serving in World War I, then his grandfather in World War II, and finally his father in Vietnam. Perhaps, Butch’s war takes place in the pawnshop when, once he defeats the gimp, he chooses to rescue the gangster rather than desert him. Our recent ancestors fought fascism and communism. Is our battle more philosophical, Against the perverse,
Nevertheless, if I’m overanalyzing and it is shock for the sake of shock, I don’t want to know. It’s too messed up.
