Once again demonstrating a penchant for pissing off all the right people, The Hateful Eight director Quentin Tarantino called the Confederate flag an “American swastika.”
Tarantino made the comparison during an interview with The Telegraph, as he spoke to the parallels he finds between the racist realities galvanizing Black Lives Matter protests across the country and the Reconstruction racial discord at the heart of The Hateful Eight.
“All of a sudden, people started talking about the Confederacy in America in a way they haven’t before,” Tarantino says. “I mean, I’ve always felt the Rebel flag was some American Swastika. And, well, now, all of a sudden, people are talking about it, and now they’re banning it, and now it’s not okay to have it on fucking license plates, and coffee cups, and stuff.”
Confederate Flag And Modern Racism
A modern rallying point for racists and revisionist historians, the “Southern Cross” Confederate flag continues to have popular support in the South. But despite defenders’ claim that it represents only “Southern pride” the Confederate battle flag would have been an historic relic were it not for its widespread adoption as a symbol of protest against school desegregation, miscegenation, and Civil Rights movements.
In the interview Tarantino both applauded current protests and claimed thematic solidarity in The Hateful Eight. “And people are starting to question about stuff like statues of Bedford Forrest in parks. Well, it’s about damn time, if you ask me,” Tarantino says, further describing his new film The Hateful Eight as “more relevant than we ever could have imagined.”
The Hateful Eight stars Samuel L. Jackson as black Union cavalryman Major Marquis Warren, whose eye for investigative detail is topped only by his thirst for vengeance against white Southerners.
After Jewish audiences embraced Inglourious Basterds and black filmgoers made Django Unchained a hit, Quentin Tarantino has increasingly couched himself as a director in tune with modern American politics. Whether The Hateful Eight proves as popular or controversial (outside of the online, professional strong-opinion-havers) remains to be seen, with an initial box office reception that’s respectable, but not blockbuster.
