Quentin Tarantino, At The Eye Of A Firestorm — And A Brewing Culture War

Quentin Tarantino isn't apologizing for his comments last month about police shootings — but he is trying to explain.

At a rally against police brutality in New York City on Oct. 24, the film director provoked a storm of criticism when he referred to shootings by police as "murders."

"When I see murder, I cannot stand by," he said at the rally, "and I have to call the murdered the murdered, and I have to call the murderers the murderers!"

Police unions, furious with the remarks, have called for people to boycott Tarantino's upcoming movie. Tarantino, for his part, told the Los Angeles Times that he never meant all cops are murderers — just the officers involved in certain high-profile shootings.

That explanation hasn't mollified the police unions.

"Tarantino is a Hollywood figure, and he has a following," says Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz, vice president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, one of the groups calling for a boycott of Tarantino and his movies. If the LAPD officers follow through on that call, it could become a real headache for the director.

"Off-duty police officers are very important," she says. "There's motor officers, as well as patrol officers, that protect the film, protect the Oscars, direct traffic, provide security. Why would any police officer want to work with anyone who does not like police officers?"

Carl Dix, one of the New York rally's organizers, compares this boycott threat to what he calls "a Mafia-style protection racket."

"Only the pay that they want isn't in cash but in toeing a political line — that if Tarantino and people like him want to be able to operate, do their art, they cannot criticize police brutality," Dix says.

There are shades of "Hanoi Jane" in all of this — with a Hollywood star becoming a symbol in a culture war. Only, instead of drumming up disagreements over the Vietnam War, as actress Jane Fonda's 1972 visit to North Vietnam did, the question here is whether American police are getting enough support — especially since the shooting in Ferguson.

That question is starting to crop up in politics, where presidential candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are raising the issue.

"The No. 1 job of the president of the United States is to protect the safety and the security of the American people. This president has failed. And when I'm in the Oval Office, police officers will know that they have the support of the president of the United States," Christie said in the Republican presidential debate last week. "That's real moral authority that we need in the Oval Office."

It's not clear that Christie is gaining traction with his "support the cops" message, but political science professor Jeanne Zaino says she expects Christie won't be the last to use it.

"It seems to have found support amongst the Republican primary caucus-goers, and I think that we're gonna probably hear more rather than less of that."

She sees some parallels between the police boycott of Tarantino and come of the recent tactics on the other side of the debate — for instance, when Black Lives Matter activists interrupted Hillary Clinton during a speech. Activists have criticized Clinton for not embracing their point of view closely enough.

Zaino says there's an uncompromising tone that threatens to undermine the possibility of constructive political debate.

"Both of these groups don't seem to be allowing for that type of cooperation. And yet if you get into a stance where it's a winner-take-all kind of thing, you could run into a problem of not getting any reform at all."

And she says that kind of polarization could jeopardize America's recent moves toward bipartisan cooperation — rare bipartisan cooperation — on criminal justice reform.

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