07/27/2026
Listening to the MARVELOUS new Roman Mars series, "The History of the World in 100 Objects". However, this week’s episode, on the cultural history of the nunchaku, gets into something far more dark and consequential: the heartbreaking legacy of anti-Asian racism Bruce Lee had to navigate simply to gain legitimacy for himself-and for martial arts-in Hollywood.
So consider this my yearly reminder to say F**K ALL THE WAY OFF to serial plagiarist Quentin Tarantino and especially to his later, increasingly reactionary-revisionist canon fantasies in which we are expected to believe (and admire) that an aging Brad Pitt gets to beat, humiliate, and lecture Bruce Lee in his prime.
From the out-of-the-gate rip off of Ringo Lam’s CITY ON FIRE to “White Lady" SNOWBLOOD and beyond, QT’s relationship with the cultures and people of color he fetishizes has ALWAYS followed a rather convenient cycle: fetishization to appropriation to disparagement...invariably in service of elevating his white protagonists.
And since we’re talking Bruce Lee, here’s your fun final Hollywood history fact: Lee was famously passed over for the lead in KUNG FU, which instead went to David Carradine- who would go on to alter his eyelids with tape in perhaps the most egregious use of "yellow-face" since Mickey Rooney?
So here’s to Bruce Lee: an artist who had to fight like hell for legitimacy in an industry perfectly happy to consume and capitalize off of Asian culture while simultaneously marginalizing its people.
Give the episode a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/100-objects-10-nunchaku/id394775318?i=1000775828115
And to Quentin: yeah, take SEVERAL fu***ng seats.
