Lee Daniels has criticised Quentin Tarantino after he defended using the N-word in his films.
The producer and director, who helmed 2009 film Precious and co-created TV series Empire, was asked on CNN about his views on Tarantino’s recent defense for using the N-word in his films, where he told people offended to “see something else”.
Speaking on the US network after Tarantino’s response was aired, Daniels said: “Quentin, that’s not the right answer.”
Asked for the right answer, he added: “10 years ago, or 15 years ago, I would have checked it off as artistic, but n***a is our word. That’s my word. You have no right to say that and you have no right to feel that way. Sorry bro.”
In his original response, when asked what he says when people say there’s “too much violence” and he “uses the N-word too often” in his movies, Tarantino said: “You should see [something else. Then see something else.
“If you have a problem with my movies then they aren’t the movies to go see. Apparently I’m not making them for you.”
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Samuel L. Jackson, who has collaborated with Tarantino on several films, has often defended the filmmaker’s use of the N-word.
“It’s some bullshit,” Jackson told Esquire in 2019. “You can’t just tell a writer he can’t talk, write the words, put the words in the mouths of the people from their ethnicities, the way that they use their words. You cannot do that, because then it becomes an untruth; it’s not honest. It’s just not honest.”
Tarantino has said his next feature film, following 2019’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, will be his last. It was also recently announced that he’s set to direct an eight-part TV series, with shooting set to commence in 2023.