Pam Grier says Quentin Tarantino is not to blame for racial slurs in his films
Pam Grier, the star of blaxploitation flicks such as Coffy and Foxy Brown and Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 film Jackie Brown, has defended the auteur’s notorious use of the N-word in his movies.
During a recent discussion on SiriusXM, Grier disregarded the assertion that the director is directly responsible for the use of the word in his movies, instead suggesting it is down to his frequent collaborator, actor Samuel L. Jackson and the type of characters he played.
“That was Sam’s acting craft doing it,” Grier said. “And people brought that up. And Quentin says, ‘I don’t know why they do it. I didn’t do it.’ And Sam said, ‘No, I did it. I said it.'”
Grier asserted that although Jackson ad-libbed many of the uses of the word in movies such as Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction, it was critical that the dialogue was authentic for the good of the project. She then explained how she felt that the use of it was appropriate for Jackson’s characters.
“‘Cause his character should say that that many times,” she continued. “My n****, come on now. You know, that’s an endearment. That’s that jargon. That’s that street hustle, your tone.”
She also opined that the use of the word was a reflection of Jackson’s characters and not the man himself. “Sam didn’t do it,” she said. “[Tarantino] only wrote maybe 10 times in the script, but Sam’s character did it like 50.”
Remarkably, she dismissed the argument that Tarantino’s use of the slur in his film could be offensive because he’s white, which seems rather unbelievable. “That’s overthinking,” she said. “That’s overthinking… They’re people trying to find out, ‘Is there something wrong with the filmmaker?'”
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