I didn’t like Quentin Tarantino’s latest film – and a lot of people don’t like me because of it

There is a difference between disagreeing with me, and attempting to force me into silence. I stand by what I said about Tarantino’s film

Last week, I wrote a comment piece on Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. In it, I expressed my disappointment with Tarantino’s portrayal of Sharon Tate as a flat, perpetually cheerful doll, and with the film’s overall male-gaze-y approach. Oh, and I called the movie boring – read all about it here.

It was an opinion, based on my expertise as a seasoned culture reporter. I expressed it. I detailed it. I acknowledged Margot Robbie’s laudable performance as Tate, as well as Tarantino’s apparent artistic intent (to paint a nostalgic picture of late-Sixties Hollywood). I failed to find the film engaging, even as I acknowledged these positive points.

The article was met with dozens of incendiary comments on social media. I always expect comment pieces to generate some reaction – it’s the whole point of even having opinion pieces in the first place, really. They’re thought-provoking and people can use them as a sounding board to develop their own stances. There’s nothing like disagreeing with someone to determine where you truly stand on a given matter.

But most of the comments I received on my Tarantino piece seemed to have a particular… flavour to them. I was called an “angry feminist”. (I am, for the record. There’s plenty to be angry about where gender inequality is concerned, but I don’t have time to list them all here.) People seemed to think that I didn’t get what Tarantino was trying to do with this movie. (Tarantino’s one of these filmmakers who you can’t criticise without being told that you probably don’t know enough about cinema to appreciate his oeuvre. I do get it; I think his idea was good and I was genuinely excited about this film, which is why I was so disappointed when it turned out to be boring.)

One comment sticks out in my mind, though. It was made up of just four words on a Facebook page, and it came from a man telling me to “go away and die”.

Why this comment has made more of an impact on me than the many others calling me an idiot, a failed writer, a lazy journalist and the like, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s because “go away and die” is such a disheartening combination of lazy and cruel. Perhaps it’s because the person who wrote it didn’t even try to engage with the topic at hand (Tarantino’s film), instead resorting to the most basic personal attack in existence. Perhaps because it’s a perfect reminder that if you’re a woman expressing an opinion on the internet, there will always be those who try to silence you. (Yes, there is a difference between “disagreeing with” and “silencing”; the former is OK, the latter is not.)

All I know is this: Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was a letdown. There, I said it. Again.

Yours,

Clemence Michallon

US culture reporter