It so happens that how one feels about Quentin Tarantino today readily gives away one’s political leanings. In the red-pilled corners of internet to innocuous dudebros sliding in your DMs, Tarantino cuts a striking figure. That the filmmaker declared his next and tenth project to be his final is understandably met with polarising reception in 2024.
Polarising directors of Tarantino’s stature often simmer in a host of implications: radical, innovative auteurs willing to take a principled plunge, braving all odds. This was certainly the case in 1994 when Pulp Fiction debuted in the Cannes before trickling down the foreordained shelves of cult classics. Tarantino, 61, might have moved on but the filmbros are still riding the high of Vincent and Jules’ intrepid charms.
A filmbro darling In Tarantino’s defence, the figure of the filmbro long precedes his 1994 viewing. An insufferable young man who fashions himself a cinephile of superior taste, the filmbro mistakes his favourites for the best. He scrambles over a ladder of IMDb-endorsed macho-infused titles that, he is convinced, only a man could fully comprehend.
His criterion of the best absolves him of his sheer failure to understand other lives, other truths. Tarantino is only one name in the filmbro's arsenal. In art’s defence, one cannot wholly blame an artist for the fandoms they breed, mainly because fans are not an artist’s progeny.
A catalyst is a better analogue to describe the symbiotic tête-à-tête be.
