neighborhood gives him a pass and the right to use the word. There are a lot of brothers (self included) and sisters who would disagree. But it doesn't take away from my enjoyment of his films, and I honestly don't hold it against him. But then again I'm really trying to hang out with the dude on a personal level.

I think it's worth mentioning that during that sequence of Pulp Fiction, we see that Quentin's character (I believe his name was Sid) is married to a black woman. So that may play into the "I get a pass" deal, almost as if Tarantino is, in a sense, justifying his use of the word. And I'm not necessarily sure that it's about it being a power position for him. I think it's simply Sid trying to "relate" to Jules by "speaking his language." So, Sid is, by extension, Tarantino believing he's "relating to the brothers" by speaking our slanguage.

I always suspected that he was trying way too hard to be "down," then when I read about his background (born in Knoxville, TN, moved to Torrance when he was kid and lived with his mom) I figured that's how he came to be who he is. Of course, someone should have warned him that not everyone is comfortable with him using that word...

I didn't think much of it after that, but then I was reminded of his background when I read Owen Gleiberman's review of Jackie Brown back when it came out. It featured the usual complaints about the movie ("it's too long, nothing happens," blah blah blah), and I really didn't care... until I got to the last paragraph of the review:

>In Jackie Brown, Grier is the matriarch of Tarantino's I-wanna-be-black dream party... Tarantino has recontextualized Rum Punch as a tale of African-American desperation. He sprinkles the word nigger around as if it were the verbal equivalent of cayenne pepper, and he has Jackson play Ordell as a ruthless badass stud. But this may all mean more to the filmmaker than it does to us. In Jackie Brown, blackness becomes the signifier of Quentin Tarantino's integrity, his artistic cool. He was cooler when he wasn't trying so hard to be.

Which I think summed him up perfectly. And again, I didn't hold it against him then, and still don't now. I believe that between Spike and Denzel, he's been checked enough, lol...
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*no essay required*