Olivia Lloyd-Jones (@olivialloydjones)

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Quentin Tarantino sets out certain requirements that grant a female protagonist permission to drive to the film’s narrative.

Let’s use Kill Bill as an example:

Condition 1 — make her a visual spectacle | The Bride (Uma Thurman)? ✅

Condition 2 — fast track her sexualisation by adding a rape (or 50) into the narrative | The Bride during her coma whereby her body is sold by (and used by himself) a male nurse to other men? ✅

Condition 3 — centre the narrative around female biology/ motherhood | The final title card in Kill Bill is "The lioness has rejoined her cub, and all is right in the jungle." The Bride has been put back in her place — the domestic role of mother ✅

Thoughts on whether Kill Bill is actually a female empowering film? Or whether it simply ‘fixes feminism’ by consumerising it?

Kill Bill’s claims of female empowerment can be questioned by analysing whether the film is shot through the male gaze. One cannot question that The Bride (Uma Thurman) is Kill Bill’s narrative driver; but in order to gain understanding of how this narrative is driven (and if is driven while catering for the male gaze), the conditions that the filmmakers provide the female protagonist with — to which she is granted permission to drive the narrative — must be considered.

Olivia Lloyd-Jones

Apr 6

11:18 AM

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