Butch Coolidge: Quentin Tarantino’s proud, sentimental boxing champ
There are several excellent characters written by Quentin Tarantino for his 1994 masterpiece Pulp Fiction. From the mystery of Marcellus Wallace to the ultra-cool Vincent Vega, each thread of this tapestry-like story is worth pulling at. A character that undoubtedly stood out was one of the film’s three main protagonists, the sentimental boxer Butch Coolidge, played exquisitely by Bruce Willis.
Butch’s story begins back in his hometown of Tennessee. His father was a soldier who served in the Vietnam war but sadly died in the conflict. Just prior to his death, Butch’s father entrusted his army colleague Captain Koons with a prized item of the Coolidge family.
The two had been captured by the Vietnamese forces and were being held hostage. Mr Coolidge wanted his little boy Butch back at home to continue the Coolidge legacy by wearing the gold wristwatch his father had given him, and to hide it from the Vietnamese, Mr Coolidge shoved the watch up his rectum for five years until he died of dysentery.
It was at this point that Captain Koons took the watch and hid it up his arse for many more years until he was finally released from imprisonment. Upon returning to America, Captain Koons sought out the young Butch, told him his father’s story, and handed over the gold wristwatch. Butch made it his most prized possession. Perhaps the loss of his father figure is what made Butch turn to boxing in order to prove himself as a fighter. He eventually moved to Los Angeles later in life and rose up through the ranks. At his boxing peak, Butch was offered a bribe to lose to his opponent by crime lord Marcellus Wallace.
But pride was always the biggest character trait of Butch, having been raised in a military, patriotic family. His plan was to win the match and leave with the money anyway, escaping Los Angeles with his girlfriend, Fabienne. However, perhaps a bit of latent anger was left in Butch, having lost his father, and he inadvertently beat his opponent to death.
It was from there that Butch got mixed up with his escape. His over-sentimentalism leads him to go back to his apartment to collect his father’s watch rather than just leaving it behind and getting out of town with Fabienne. Of course, Wallace’s men would be on the hunt for Butch, but evidently, he valued his father’s legacy more than his own life.
It was at his apartment that Butch ran into another of the film’s protagonists, Vincent Vega (played by John Travolta), whose own laidback characteristics were his ultimate undoing. While sceptical of giving much more of the plot away to those who might not have seen the film, it’s safe to say that Butch’s pride gets him into a very sticky situation.
When Butch runs into Marcellus Wallace on the way back to Fabienne, they are both inadvertently drawn into a nightmare scenario where both of their pride is put to the test. The resulting events leave Wallace’s and Butch’s feud levelled on an even playing field.
Butch Coolidge is certainly one of Quentin Tarantino’s best-written and most memorable characters. His storyline is simple, as expected of a Pulp Fiction tale, yet it is that precise simplicity that allows Butch’s characteristic pride to shine through. Butch just longs for a quiet life with Fabienne, away from the fast pace living that he has got himself caught up in within Los Angeles, and far from his association with Marcellus Wallace.
However, it’s that same pride that always seems to lead Butch down the rabbit hole of trouble. If he had just been able to let sleeping dogs lie, or in his case, let the golden wristwatch live forever on the kangaroo on his nightstand, then he might just have been able to avoid the proceeding disastrous consequences and escape LA with Fabienne unscathed. Then again, without Butch’s pride, Pulp Fiction would have starkly lacked its excellent hero.
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