buried alive, and numerous other assassination attempts. Not only did she slay her former colleagues Vernita, Elle, O-Ren, and Bill, but she killed Gogo, a rapist, a potential rapist, and approximately 38 members of the Crazy 88 (O-Ren’s assassin squad). Although she experienced hardships, she ended triumphant. This hearkens postfeminist heroism; these “heroines are sometimes simultaneously worshipped as goddesses, reviled as villainesses, raped and beaten as victims, lusted after as sex objects, [and] placed on pedestals as positive role models” (Jones, Bajec-Carter & Batchelor, 2014, p. ix).
Clearly, the Kill Bill films present strong, powerful women who are extremely competent in their dangerous profession. After the release of the first film, the New York Times reported women’s favorable opinions; they deemed it empowering to women and claimed they would take their daughters to see it (Leland, 2003). Despite being trained by or lead by men, these assassins ended up killing the men, demonstrating not only their equality to men, but appearing to dominate and surpass the men’s abilities. Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2 illustrate “the perception that we now live in a postfeminist era—where women can be heroic and independent, where they can do whatever they want, and where they can overcome oppressive patriarchal systems” (Brown, 2015, p. 11). These films make arguments about women’s empowerment via a strong female-bodied lead who fights against strong female-bodied adversaries. By demonstrating that women can be just as heroic, successful, and powerful as men, if not more so, the films convey the postfeminist myth that equality has been achieved and that feminism is outdated and no longer necessary.
The Façade of Postmodern Imagery, Excess and Spectacle
In addition to postfeminism, the Kill Bill films embrace postmodernism in Tarantino’s auteur style rife with intertextual references. Marked by excess and spectacle, postmodern films may include nostalgia, fragmentation, intertextuality, non-linearity, and the apolitical embrace of difference (Borchers & Hundley, 2018; Denzin, 1991; Hodkinson, 2011; Turner, 1990). From ←28 | 29→the opening credits which pay homage to kung-fu films and appropriate the Shaw Scope logo, to its intertextual winks to a soundtrack spanning multiple decades, the Kill Bill films exemplify postmodern aesthetics.
Excess and spectacle are apparent in the films’ bloodshed, death, and carnage. The lead character killed approximately 45 characters on camera, and the other characters combined killed an additional 16 on camera and 1 off camera. This totals 62 deaths in the 4 hours and 10 minutes of the films’ total run time; this is roughly a death every 4 minutes. Beyond the number of deaths, the blood and gore are equally extreme; in many scenes, blood is shown spewing and gushing from limbs severed with a single swipe of a sword. In fact, according to special effects artist Christopher Nelson, over 540 gallons of fake blood were used in the two films (Kill Bill trivia, 2003, para. 9).
Beyond excess and spectacle, viewers possessing popular cultural capital can easily identify additional signifiers of postmodern aesthetics, pointedly, the films’ nostalgic intertextuality and pastiche. The Kill Bill films are a “postmodern barrage of references to other filmic sources” (Grady, 2014, p. 70). These include nostalgic intertextual throwbacks to grindhouse films like Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns,7 Bruce Lee’s kung-fu films, and blaxploitation films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Additionally, the soundtrack comprises a pastiche of hip hop (The RZA’s “Banister Fight”), rockabilly (Charlie Feathers’ “That Certain Female”), Latin funk/soul (Santa Esmeralda’s “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”), soul/funk/disco (Isaac Hayes’ “Run Fay Run”), instrumental (Vincent Tempera “Ode to O-Ren Ishii”), and 1950s pop (Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang”) music.
The films’ production values and narrative cement their postmodern aesthetic. Specifically, Tarantino’s signature nonlinear narrative style unfolds in a series of flashbacks, with each scene titled as if it were a chapter in a book of one’s life. The subtitles provide markers and insights for audiences, establishing expectations and navigation for the complex storyline. For example, the first segment after the opening scene is simply called Chapter One, and it shows The Bride confronting Vernita in her Pasadena home. Chapter Two occurs four years earlier, when the sheriff enters the bloody chapel. Then the film jumps to The Bride laying comatose in the hospital. As Elle prepares to kill her, Bill calls and cancels the mission. Next, The Bride awakens from her coma, four years later. Chapter Three, subtitled Origin of O-Ren goes back in time to trace how she came to power. This story fragment juxtaposes anime-style visuals with spaghetti western music. At the end of this segment, audiences are thrust thirteen hours forward to the hospital’s parking garage. ←29 | 30→The remainder of the film and its sequel continue to employ this postmodern aesthetic and narrative structure, jumping back and forth in time, changing from color to black and white, and fragmenting the story into chapters with sectional subtitles.
Finally, Kill Bill signifies postmodernity by seemingly embracing and celebrating difference. Of the four female-bodied DVAS members, Elle and Beatrix were white, Vernita was African American, and O-Ren was Chinese-Japanese American, but all the characters had equal status. Gilpatric’s (2010) content analysis of violent female-bodied action characters from 1991 to 2005 found Asian and Latinx people were missing from U.S. American cinema; however, in the films under investigation Asian characters and cultures are especially prominent. Myriad Asian characters were included as audiences learned O-Ren’s backstory and Beatrix travelled to China for training and to Japan to obtain her katana and then to take on O-Ren’s posse, bodyguard, and ultimately defeat O-Ren herself. Beatrix and others also oscillate between speaking Japanese and English in Chapters Three, Four, and Five of the first five-part movie. In the second film, Beatrix and her sensei Pai Mei speak Cantonese and English in Chapter Eight.
Moving beyond the fact of inclusion to consider how the characters were illustrated, non-white characters were not only featured but often respected as powerful, dangerous, and dignified. For instance, white characters Bill, Elle, and Beatrix all sought instruction from a Chinese mentor, Pai Mei, and DVAS members prized the work of a Japanese swordsmith, Hanzo Hattori. Hence, the films portrayed the value, skill, and respect of people of differing ethnicities and cultures without trying to impose Eurocentric norms or standards on Others. This suggests that Kill Bill’s postmodern aesthetic celebrates multiculturalism by engaging in representation without assimilation.8 Thus demonstrating that white people accept, appreciate, and accommodate Others. Simultaneously, the films also at times reproduce stereotypes, such as the gendered, racialized stereotype of the Dragon Lady fulfilled by O-Ren’s portrayal (Shah, 1997), and the focus on martial arts as the enabling vehicle for Asian representation.
Similar to the postfeminist portrayals of gendered and sexual equity, the films’ postmodern construction of multicultural characters as equally or more powerful than white characters simultaneously suggest that we live in a postracial society as well. In a corresponding logic to postfeminism, postracialism dangerously implies that racism is an obsolete concern not applicable to today’s culture. Yet, upon deeper reflection and analysis, both the postfeminist ←30 | 31→and postmodern elements of the films merely serve to conceal more problematic representations.
Specifically,
