Globes: Tarantino Shocks Press Room with N-Word (Listen)

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, winner of Best Director of a Motion Picture for “Django Unchained,” poses in the press room during the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 13, 2013 in Beverly Hills

*By now it should be obvious that “Django Unchained” director Quentin Tarantino has no problem with folks taking offense at his liberal use of the N-word either within his movies, or while discussing his films in interviews.

Still, the press room at last night’s Golden Globes appeared taken aback when the director, who won for best screenplay, began dropping the N-bomb again.

Addressing the unending conversation over the 100-plus times the characters in the slavery-themed spaghetti Western used the racist term, Tarantino himself uttered the phrase, to audible gasps from the scribes in the winners’ room. [Listen below.]

“They think I should soften it, that I should lie, that I should massage.” Tarantino said, referring to writers and filmmakers such as Spike Lee, who have criticized his use of the slur in the film. The film’s setting of 1860 antebellum south, he said, made that impossible, as did his artistic integrity. “I would never do that when it comes to my characters,” the director added.

He also pointed out that slavery is still going on across the globe — “go to Malaysia” — and even in the United States, the legal system has a bias against African Americans.
“Drug laws put so many black males in jails,” he said. “The way private and public prisons trade prisoners back and forth. It’s like they are not even hiding it anymore.”

Listen to his remarks below.