Director Quentin Tarantino has responded to the police boycott against his films by standing by his anti-police rhetoric and accusing the police of demonizing him to deflect from the issue of police brutality. Tarantino did, however, clarify his controversial comments that sparked the boycott, stating that he did not mean “all cops” were murderers.
Tarantino provoked ire from police officers across the country by appearing at the RiseUpOctober anti-police brutality rally in Brooklyn, New York, on October 24, just days after a New York City police officer was shot to death in the line of duty. At the rally, Tarantino was quoted as saying, “I’m a human being with a conscience. And if you believe there’s murder going on then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.”
“When I see murders, I do not stand by. I have to call a murder a murder, and I have to call the murderers the murderers,” Tarantino said at the time.
On Tuesday, Tarantino clarified to the Los Angeles Times that it was not his intent to generalize all police officers as murderers. “All cops are not murderers. I never said that,” he said. “I never even implied that.”
But Tarantino’s remarks at the rally prompted the head of the New York Police Department’s union to call for a boycott of Tarantino’s films. “It’s no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too,” said Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association. “The police officers that Quentin Tarantino calls ‘murderers’ aren’t living in one of his depraved big-screen fantasies — they’re risking and sometimes sacrificing their lives to protect communities from real crime and mayhem.”
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Police groups in Philadelphia and Los Angeles announced their support for the boycott as well. John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia police union, said his organization voted unanimously to join the boycott against Tarantino. “Tarantino has shown through his actions that he is anti-police,” McNesby said in a statement. “Mr Tarantino has made a good living through his films, projecting into society at large violence and respect for criminals; it turns out he also hates cops.”
Los Angeles Police Protective League president Craig Lally accused Tarantino of engaging in the type of rhetoric that places the police in greater danger. “We fully support constructive dialogue about how police interact with citizens,” said Lally. “But there is no place for inflammatory rhetoric that makes police officers even bigger targets than we already are.”
Tarantino contends that the police are participating in an orchestrated effort to discredit him, and indicates that he will not be intimidated. “What they’re doing is pretty obvious. 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,” Tarantino told the LA Times. “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,” he said.
“I’m not being intimidated. Frankly, it feels lousy to have a bunch of police mouthpieces call me a cop hater,” Tarantino continued, “I’m not a cop hater. That is a misrepresentation. That is slanderous. That is not how I feel.”
Still, Tarantino told the Times that he stands by the remarks he made at the RiseUpOctober rally. “I’m not taking back what I said. What I said was the truth,” he remarked.
According to the LA Times, the boycott could potentially “dim prospects for Tarantino’s new film [The Hateful Eight], which is set for a Christmas release and has been expected to be a critical and commercial success for Tarantino.”
Lieutenant Craig Lally articulated similar sentiments. He predicts that Tarantino’s “stunning lack of sensitivity” will likely compel the public to support the police and avoid seeing The Hateful Eight. “There’s an underground of people who are very pro-police,” Lally said. “And it’s going to be this underground that shuts down the movie, not the cops.”
Photo of Quentin Tarantino: Gage Skidmore
