Perceptions of Male and Female

Perceptions of Male and Female Viewers Regarding Women's Violence in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 by Quentin Tarantino

The purpose of this study is to determine the extent, if any, to which male and female viewers perceive the violence of women in Quentin Tarantino's motion picture, "Kill Bill Volume 1" in different ways. In addition, the extent to which the differences in the opinions between male and female viewers contributed to their gender difference will be examined.

Finally, the study will seek to determine if male and female respondents share any opinions regarding violence.

The aims of this study are three-fold:

To determine the extent to which male and female observers differ in their perceptions of violence content in this movie;

To identify those factors that contribute to any difference in the perception of violence by males and females; and, 3. To develop a better understanding of how these factors may contribute to the incidence of violence against women in the general population.

Literature Review

Background and Overview

The motion picture, "Kill Bill, Volume 1," is the fourth production from writer and director Quentin Tarantino, but it is certainly not his only violent work with "Pulp Fiction" to his credit; however, "Kill Bill" has attracted much attention and been the source of an increasing amount of controversy because of its use of a female protagonist in an incredibly violent role. The movie stars Uma Thurman, who emerges from a coma after being in a coma for 4 years and seeks revenge for her attempted murder. The sequence of events that follows is rife with limb-cutting and decapitations, and the blood spurts in fountains throughout. While no one would likely argue with the desire for justice and retribution in similar circumstances, the ends to which Thurman goes to exact her particular brand of vengeance would be regarded as exceptional, and even deranged, in almost any setting. In fact, notwithstanding her commitment to bringing her attackers to task for their deeds, there is probably more per capita killing and maiming in this movie than in any production in history.

Even some male reviewers found the violence in this movie gratuitous; for example, in his review of Kill Bill, Volume 1," Richard Alleva writes, "The artistry of this bloodthirsty Peter Pan [Tarantino]... was cultivated (if that's the right word) by the chop-socky, cut-rate epics from Taiwan and Hong Kong that he viewed and re-viewed while working in video stores. He is now giving us the deluxe version of those kung-fu bloodfests" (Alleva, 2004, p. 23). Unlike a Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan production, though, there are some fundamentally disturbing qualities about Tarantino's work in "Kill Bill" that transcend these highly violent - yet otherwise socially benign - past efforts. "True, [Tarantino] is a masterly cinematic technician who establishes tempos and compositions in which his performers can shine.... But sooner or later a warrior kills a hundred yakuzi who move as if choreographed by Busby Berkeley... And we realize we are in a comic book that moves and talks and gives off extremely bad vibrations" (emphasis added) (Alleva, 2004, p. 23). Interestingly, these "bad vibrations" appear to be an extension of the playwright himself. In an interview with Tarantino, Rosie Millard described the filmmaker as being less than "charming," and says that she "cautiously mentioned to its director, Quentin Tarantino, that a growing intolerance to on-screen violence might indicate that the public is wearying of blood being sprayed all over their films. Cinematic decapitations, the severing of arms, and so on, doesn't turn most people on. 'So, I've made an unpopular film,' growled the helmer. Then he launched into me for bringing up the topic of violence, with regard to his (very violent) film, and indicated he was not going to comment any further" (p. 41). Success in the media clearly does not carry with it a requirement for charm, and Tarantino has not been apologetic for his employment of violent components in the "Kill Bill" series, nor in his past efforts such as "Pulp Fiction," which were also characterized by highly violent acts committed by both men and women. Motion picture producers have proven time and again that violence sells, and charm is probably the furthest thing from Tarantino's mind in making the "Kill Bill" series. According to Alleva, "I doubt that these questions matter very much to Tarantino, who doesn't care about the difference between complexity of characterization and vacuity. Comic book readers of the 1950s didn't care either. Their second millennium counterparts now dominate American movie audiences, so, rest assured, Tarantino will flourish" (2004, p. 23). In "Kill Bill's," case, though, the protagonist's ability to shift between a soft, vulnerable and submissive female into a hard-nosed and versatile detective character is also noteworthy; for instance, in his review of "Kill Bill Volume 1," Klawans (2003) describes one such scene:

Thurman is as astonishing in her playful moments as she is at this serious juncture. Look at her walk into a little restaurant in Osaka, pretending to be just an ingenuous American tourist; see her switch, almost without transition, to speaking with fierce, voice-trembling conviction, and in Japanese at that; then watch her deliver a deliberately bombastic, post-battle tirade, with neither more nor less straight a face than Daniel Day-Lewis put on in Gangs of New York (Klawans, 2003, p. 32).

In sharp contrast to the criticisms leveled against "Kill Bill," Stuart Klawans admits to "at least being entertained," and then much more. "By now," he says (in 2003), "you will have heard several complaints against Kill Bill, Volume 1. It is drunk on bloodshed. It is infatuated with trash cinema and its own tricks of style" (emphasis added) (p. 32). As noted above, though, both men and women appear to be drawn to these works as moths to a flame, notwithstanding the largely unknown impact of such productions on the national psyche. Perhaps watching movies such as "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill Volume 1" is like pushing on a sore tooth with your tongue; you know it is going to hurt, but the pain is delicious anyway. For Tarantino's fans, the criticisms against the violence in these movies is not important; for his critics, such criticism does not go far enough: "What you might not have heard," he says, "is that Kill Bill boasts a breathtaking performance by Uma Thurman and a serious and coherent theme. For people with a principled aversion to violent cinemania, these factors will not be enough to justify ten bucks spent at the box office" (p. 32). According to Klawans, all of the criticisms leveled against Tarantino are true but that is not what is important, at least from a cinematographic perspective:

For those moviegoers who don't object in advance to Kill Bill, the following might be worth considering: Twice within the first segments of Kill Bill, a young girl witnesses the murder of her mother. Later, the movie's most grotesquely gory sequence climaxes not with another death (what would be the point, when there have been so many?) but with a spanking, as a young boy is released from the killings and told to go home to his mother. The character who is so devoted to maternal care -- and who sins against her own devotion, almost as soon as the movie starts -- is known as the Bride. She spends the movie exacting revenge for the many wrongs that were done to her, of which the most unforgivable seems to have been the killing of her unborn child.

In the final analysis, Klawans believes that while merely presented a legitimate theme in a movie does not necessarily "legitimize" the overall production, there are a number of female-related components to the violent events that are perhaps more poignant and evocative from a female viewer's perspective than a male watching the same events. In fact, many of the violent encounters in "Kill Bill Volume 1" appear to be emasculating in nature, as when "The Bride" (Thurman) chooses to cut of her opponents' limbs rather than kill them outright, and when she seeks to exact her initial revenge in the hospital against the male attendants who had been abusing her while she was in a coma. The loss of her baby adds further fuel to the female fires as well. Although Thurman's vengeance is not restricted to her male adversaries, of course, the fact that a female protagonist is able to overcome such enormous numbers of males in the process may just be "icing on the cake" for some females in the audience. According to Klawans, the loss of the baby, in fact, serves as the catalyst to change the tone of the picture from one of being "jokey" to one that is "lurid and improbable"; nevertheless, he notes that "Thurman goes all out to play the moment as if it's real, while Tarantino nervily prolongs the scene to give the horror time to sink in. When an actress and her director have the will and ability to convert a genre premise into genuine emotion, their theme is no longer just something to distract a few critics. it's been earned" (emphasis added) (Klawans, 2003, p. 32). In their synopsis of the movie, the producers report that, "Having been gunned down by her former boss (David Carradine) and his deadly squad of international assassins, it's a kill-or-be-killed fight she didn't start but is determined to finish! Loaded with explosive action and outrageous humor, it's a must-see motion picture event that had critics everywhere raving!" (Kill Bill Volume 1 Synopsis, 2005, p. 1). As noted above, critics in fact from just about everywhere have been raving about "Kill Bill, Volume 1" (and 2), but not necessarily in a positive fashion; the possible reasons for these negative assertions about Tarantino's work are discussed further below.

Gender-Based Differences in the Perception of Violence

According to Adler and Denmark (1995), there have been a number of theories advanced over the years concerning violent behavior based on various psychodynamic, social learning, cognitive, and family system perspectives. These authors note that past studies espousing such positions, however, have given relatively meager consideration to a motivational analysis of violent behavior. At the same time, the disturbing increase in the report of all manner of violent behaviors makes the issue of psychological causality and the determinants of violence all the more urgent. In this setting, behavioral and social scientists are in an excellent position to help bring some insights into the processes underlying violence in the media and how it plays out in the real world, and a motivational analysis of violent conduct will serve an important role in predicting the dangerousness of a potentially violent individuals in the future, a requirement that is being faced with increasing regularity by most mental health professionals today (Adler & Denmark, 1995).

Furthermore, while the incidence and extent of violence against women is increasing, the pervasiveness and impact of such violence has been better described in the literature than understood to date. "For example," Adler and Denmark report, "in the United States, women are more likely to be assaulted, killed, or raped by a current or former male partner than by all other categories of assailants combined. Women are most likely to be sexually assaulted by people they know and often love and trust" (p. 126). In addition, almost 50% of the aggravated assault and completed rapes that were identified in a recent criminal victimization survey were found to have been perpetrated by men with whom the victims had been romantically involved (Adler & Denmark, 1995). These figures represent an enormous number of real women in real-world settings: in 1990, for instance, 102,555 rapes of women were reported to law enforcement authorities, and a woman reports a rape to the police every five to six minutes. These authors point out that a recent national study in the United States estimated that 14% of women have been forcibly raped (Adler & Denmark, 1995). Unfortunately, violence against women does not stop after marriage, and in many cases is further exacerbated. According to Adler and Denmark, an estimated one in four wives is physically battered; it has also been estimated that some form of violence will occur at least once in more than 50% of all marriages, with 3 to 4 million American women being battered each year by their partners in the process. Furthermore, Adler and Denmark note that the incidence of physical abuse among dating college students on some university campuses in the United States has been determined to match the rate for married couples. Finally, the levels of severe intimate violence in cohabiting or dating partners in the United States also appear to be on the rise (Adler & Denmark, 1995). While the incidence of male-to-female violence continues to increase across the board, some observers suggest that women in the United States are placed at a distinct social disadvantage and experience higher risks for becoming victims of such violent acts in the first place.

According to Caplan, Crawford, Hyde and Richardson (1997), feminist theories of personality development emphasize that so-called "feminine" characteristics such as passivity, excessive concern with pleasing others, lack of initiative, and dependency are psychological consequences of that subordination. These authors note that, "Those members of subordinate social groups who adopt such characteristics are considered to be well-adjusted, even though the same characteristics would not be considered healthy in the case of adult men. Those who do not adopt such characteristics are controlled by psychiatric diagnosis, violence (or the threat of violence), and social ostracism" (p. 94). To date, much of the research on women and gender has concerned documenting the effects of internalized subordination; as the result of such laboratory and field research, as well as empirical observations and clinical experience, Caplan et al. report that, compared with boys and men, girls and women:

Lack a sense of personal entitlement;

Pay themselves less for comparable work;

Are equally satisfied with their employment even though they are paid significantly less than men;

Lose self-esteem and confidence in their academic ability as they progress through the educational system; and Are more likely to suffer from disturbances of body image, eating disorders, and depression (Caplan et al., 1997, p. 94).

In sum, these authors suggest that gender differences are the result of a "self-fulfilling prophecy": "Women are different from men," they point out, "yet paradoxically this is not because they are women. Each person behaves in gendered ways because they are placed in gendered social contexts" (Caplan et al., 1997, p. 94). While scientists point out that there are clear physiological differences between men and women that contribute to their biologic roles in rearing children, for example, these biological functions do not necessarily relate to how genders are created in a social context. For example, Caplan et al. note that, "Women encounter different social contexts from those that men encounter. Women and men face different expectations and norms, even in what appear to be identical social situations. Therefore, if they try not to 'do gender,' they will encounter the social consequences of violating these norms and expectations" (Caplan et al., 1997, p. 94). These gender-related components of social life and expectations can therefore be reasonably expected to play an important role in how an individual perceives the portrayal of violence in the mainstream media, and how these components affect the incidence of male-on-female violence in the real world.

Objectives:

As noted above, the aims of this study are three-fold:

1. To determine the extent to which male and female observers differ in their perceptions of violence content in this movie;

2. To identify those factors that contribute to any difference in the perception of violence by males and females; and, 3. To develop a better understanding of how these factors may contribute to the incidence of violence against women in the general population.

To achieve these three aims, the following objectives will guide the study process:

1. To conduct an online survey of at least 100 male and female respondents (50 each) according to the methodology described further below;

2. To analyze the statistical data provided by the survey to develop insights into how males and females differ in their perception of violence; and 3. To present the findings of the survey and a critical review of the scholarly and peer-reviewed literature to achieve the aims of the study.

Beyond the demographic information collected as described below, the online survey will be comprised of the following five-part Likert-scaled questions, ranged from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree: