"White men in Hollywood mistook his confidence as arrogance"
Bruce Lee‘s daughter Shannon Lee has taken another dig at Quentin Tarantino for his portrayal of her father in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
Speaking to Good Morning Britain, Lee was asked about her views on Tarantino’s depiction of her late father.
In response, the 50-year-old actress said Tarantino was “very irresponsible”, describing her father’s portrayal as a “caricature.”
“I think [Tarantino] was very irresponsible,” Lee said. “I think that he created a view of him that was a caricature in his sort of response to some of the criticism from myself and from others that I’ve heard. He wants to say ‘Oh was a fact this is what he was like and yet but this is a fiction movie’.”
Lee had first criticised the Django director in July, saying that his latest film showed a “mockery” of her father. Tarantino responded by defending his film, saying that the martial arts legend was “kind of an arrogant guy.”
As well as telling Variety that Tarantino could “shut up”, Lee told Good Morning Britain that her father’s confidence was mistaken for arrogance, particularly by white men in Hollywood.
“[Some] mistook his confidence which he had in spades as arrogance and in particular if they were you know white men in Hollywood or in the martial arts,” she said.
In the film, aged stunt man Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) engages in a fight with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), proceeding to beat him up.
“I understand what [Tarantino] was trying to do around the character of Cliff booth in the film,” Lee said. “But you know he could have handled it in a way that was respectful of my father as well as [serving] his story purposes.”
Lee went on to say that Tarantino’s portray of her father was exactly the same as how he was treated when he was alive.
“The portrayal of [Bruce] in Quentin Tarantino’s film is him being treated the way he was treated by Hollywood back in the time when he was trying to make accurate representations of Asian men in film and he was not treated respectfully,” Lee explained. “I think the way that he’s portrayed by Tarantino in the film is is exactly in that way sort of belittling him.”
In related news, NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also recently slammed Tarantino’s portrayal of the Hong Kong hero, calling it “racist”.