Krista Kurt

                            CUNY, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

                                                    ENG 201-04

                                         Professor Lyndon Nicholas         

                                                Due: 03/23/2024

                                      Cover Letter

            In this essay I will be giving my critical analysis of the films “Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2” by Quentin Tarantino using a feminist and psychological lens. I will touch on themes of chauvinistic cultural norms, hetero relationship norms being almost identical to “pimp culture”, how women are objectified as commodities under patriarchy, and or triangulated and pit against each other being used as pawns by men. I will touch on the psychological toll domestic violence and narcissistic/psychopathic abuse takes on survivors, how in many cases attempting to leave an abusive relationship can become fatal, how children become involved/ harmed by a high conflict divorce or the separation of their parents, how child custody can be weaponized by abusers and how this is all a misogynistic system designed specifically to keep women controlled, in fear and subordinate to men. After reading this essay you will see how the protagonist of the film metaphorically represents many women who are survivors of narcissistic abuse, domestic violence, high conflict divorces/custody battles and or human/sex trafficking. You will also see how the film shows the domino effect of children being dangled like carrots for leverage or attachment by abusive men and become objectified, sometimes even harmed, when women try to end the relationship. This essay also shows the rampant culture of misogyny, chauvinism, male supremacy and patriarchy that is fundamentally identical to “pimp culture”, and how many hetero relationships between men and women tend to have an unequal power dynamic where the woman is assumed to be property of her man and a subordinate; where she has to “get down or lay down”, which essentially translates to- ‘do what I want you to do, or die’.

Using a Feminist and Psychological Lens to Analyze How Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2 Represents the Way Abuse Psychologically Changes Survivors of Domestic Violence While Empowering Women Fighting Against Domestic Violence and High Conflict Custody Battles Involving Narcissistic Abuse in The Justice System and Family Court:

                 “Wiggle your big toe” – Uma Thurman’s character ‘Black Mamba’ in Kill Bill Vol. 1

            In the film “Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2” directed by Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman plays Beatrix Kiddo, a woman who attempted to escape a psychopathic abuser, Bill, while pregnant with his child. The movie begins as a scene in a small chapel in the middle of nowhere in a mid-western dessert where Beatrix was marrying a different man, the scene showing her pregnant belly in the wedding dress. It seems quiet enough, safe enough that maybe she has finally escaped and can happily move on, but we know escaping a psychopath or narcissist is never that simple and, in many cases, fatal. Homicide is one of the leading causes of death for young women and about 90% of cases are committed by their spouse/romantic partners. Women who are pregnant or have given birth are more likely to die from intimate partner violence and most commonly by firearms (cdc.gov, Petrosky, Blair, Betz, Fowler, Jack, Lyons, 2017, 66(28); 741-746). This grim real-life statistic is identically depicted in the first scene of the film showing the protagonist, Beatrix (Uma Thurman), as a pregnant woman in her third trimester ready to give birth who is shot in the head by her abuser for trying to leave the relationship.

When a woman attempts to leave an abusive relationship her chances of being killed dramatically increase, in fact the chances increase by 75% within the first two years of separation (jbws.org, 2022), making the first 18 months after ending an abusive relationship the most dangerous. Leaving the relationship is the most common and likely time a woman will be killed by her abuser. This is the main reason many women fear leaving their abusive relationships and feel they can’t escape abusers who use violence as coercive control tactics, which is what keeps these women in bondage.

Also, many abusers attempt to use pregnancy to trap their victims which could have very well been the case for Beatrix’s character in the movie. Perhaps Beatrix always wanted to escape Bill, and he impregnated her under the impression she would be trapped, and the child can be used as a weapon against Beatrix to further abuse and control her- which is what many women experience in high conflict divorces and custody battles against their abusive partners (cdc.gov, Petrosky, 2017). In many cases abusive men target the children and use them as weapons against women to maintain control and wreak havoc in their life. When an abuser loses control of the woman, for example when the woman ends the relationship, he tends to target the children instead to continue the abuse through the children – since that is the only way he can have any control over her.

While getting married, Bill shows up to Beatrix wedding with a few other women and his brother, which could metaphorically represent the abuser/narcissist’s family of enablers, ‘flying monkey’s’ that he recruits do his bidding and the women he has affairs with that he uses to triangulate against his victim, (Beatrix), to help him further abuse her. They kill everyone at the wedding in a massacre and Bill shoots Beatrix in the head while the “other women”, and Bill’s brother, stand over her lifeless body with faces of contempt. This scene reflects how abusers will involve their family members to assist with abusing the victim, and how abusers tend to also manipulate other women that they cheat/have affairs with to attack and further abuse their victims. They pin women against each other and turn the women that they cheat with into their ‘flying monkey’s’, (think Wizard of Oz), and alliances. Many survivors of narcissistic/ psychopathic abuse and domestic violence can relate to being further gaslit and abused by their abuser’s family members, and or other women that their abuser is having affairs with. In many cases family members and other romantic interests of the narcissist/psychopath will defend the narcissist’s/psychopath’s behavior and blame the victim for being abused. These toxic family members can also be used as witnesses in courts to lie on behalf of abusers and defend abusers from facing legal accountability for their violent actions, and in many cases even help abusers get full custody of the children.

After Beatrix was shot in the head by Bill, she survived but was in a 5-year coma. She woke up with a flat stomach to realize her baby was gone. She didn’t know whether she lost the baby or if Bill had taken the child from her, but she was full of rage and seeking revenge, like most survivors of abuse who suffer with CPTSD/PTSD. She wanted revenge on all of Bill’s “side chicks” and his brother for attempting to kill her, and not only because they attempted to kill her, but also because they were all an accomplice in losing her child. When Beatrix wakes up, she realizes the hospital employee, Buck, was making money off her by letting men have sex with her in the coma. She then starts getting flashbacks of Buck raping her while in the coma saying, “My name is Buck, and I like to fuck”, (Quentin Tarantino, 2003). The entire movie shows subliminal undertones, (really overtones if you’re paying attention but this is not always obvious to everyone that watches the film; perhaps some of these themes may go over a few heads), of toxic masculinity and the culture of patriarchy that glorifies women being tools used by men, the impact of misogyny on women and the depths of “pimp culture”, (treating women as commodities and possessions vs human beings with autonomy), in our society. Bill is a man who has a team of many women willing to “work for him”, however they are not prostitutes but assassins highly trained in combat and martial arts. This could be symbolism for a trafficking ring and the dangers of escaping a sex trafficking ring, or it could simply be a hyperbole representation of “the fighting”, (maybe figurately and or literally), that survivors of narcissistic abuse and domestic violence must partake in when ending an abusive relationship/ marriage.

 The fighting in the film could represent metaphorically the obstacles women are faced with and the tribulations they are up against, whether it’s the abuser’s family, friends and or girlfriends, they can even represent the family court and the narcissist’s lawyers and the judge who sides with the abuser just off misogyny alone. Or it could potentially represent Bill as a head of a trafficking ring and the other women could be “working girls”, or other prostitutes in the ring who work for Bill, (since they are shown in the movie somewhat as a parody of Charlie’s Angels, where Bill is their boss, they all work for Bill), but there also seems to be romantic and sexual undertones as well between the women and Bill. Perhaps Bill is a ‘Romeo pimp’, a seducer, ‘a Mack’, and he is skilled in manipulating many women into being obedient to him while also fostering an emotional connection, or dependency in the women who “work for him”, (who he is clearly also having sex with…).

 Beatrix in this scene pretends to still be asleep when Buck sends a “john”, (a man who pays for sex), into the room to get his rocks off on her lifeless body. The man gets on top of Beatrix, strokes her face and says, “Wow pretty like an angel” (Quentin Tarantino, 2003), Beatrix then bites his tongue out of his mouth causing him to start bleeding out and he then becomes hysterical, bleeding out uncontrollably until he eventually dies. Beatrix, unable to move her legs due to muscle dystrophy from being in the coma so long, (she tells herself to wiggle her big toe to make her regain feeling in her legs and feet), somehow she gets on the floor waiting for Buck to return with a knife she took out of the dead man’s pocket in her hand ready to defend herself.

Buck comes back into the room unsuspecting, and Beatrix slices his ankle with the knife, causing Buck to fall onto the floor. She repeatedly slams his head into the wall shouting, “Where is Bill?”, (Quentin Tarantino, 2003) which Buck, who is just a sleezy hospital employee, pleads with Beatrix that he does not know Bill or who she is talking about. She kills Buck then steals his car keys and hospital scrubs to disguise herself and escape the hospital without being detected. She then makes it to his car, somehow crawling all the way to the parking lot to Buck’s car from the hospital room, which she finds out to no surprise is called “The Pussy Wagon”. This scene shows the resilience of domestic violence survivors and how strong they must be to fight against the narcissistic/psychopathic abuse they’re enduring. It also shows how PTSD and CPTSD can cause heightened paranoia, (which is hypervigilance), which can put survivors in a mental state where they start to believe that everyone they encounter is involved with or connected to their abuser. For example, Beatrix screaming for the hospital employee, Buck, to tell her where Bill is when he most likely has no idea who Bill is, but after realizing she was being raped by him while in the coma, her fight or flight response caused her to react violently assuming he was also involved with Bill, without a second thought. Nope, he wasn’t one of Bill’s accomplices just another man who happens to also be an abuser, and under patriarchy, misogyny and chauvinism a large majority of men are more inclined to treat women as if they are disposable objects or less than human. Necrophilia is a real problem where men sexually assault women’s corpses and Buck profiting off Beatrix being sexually assaulted while in a coma shows how women are treated as commodities for sex in our society.

So, although he too abused Beatrix, he was not affiliated with her abuser, which also shows how prevalent abuse, degradation, and dehumanization towards women occurs in our society and how it is almost seen as “the norm”; sometimes even praised and encouraged. CPTSD/PTSD from psychopathic/narcissistic abuse causes survivors to become hypervigilant, paranoid and distrusting of everyone, irrationally believing that everyone is also a flying monkey helping their abuser, even if that’s realistically not the case. It also shows that survivors of domestic violence tend to be revenge seeking, become more violent and aggressive partaking in reactive abuse (fight or flight response), and start having homicidal ideation and fantasies of killing their abusers. This movie provides that satisfying fantasy to survivors of abuse who can relate to having homicidal thoughts towards their abuser. This can even be empowering, healing and give survivors of domestic violence feelings of “justice being served”.

            After Beatrix escapes, she goes to one of Bill’s “working girls”, or “side chick’s” house, Vernita Green, who is played by Vivica A. Fox, to kill her. During this scene we see Vernita copping pleas in her nice suburban home begging for Beatrix not to kill her because “she is a mom now and has changed since then”- ‘since then’ being when she came to Beatrix’s wedding to help Bill kill everyone including her. Beatrix then explains how, due to her and Bill’s murdering spree at her wedding five years ago, she has not only been in a coma for the last five years due to being shot in her head, but she also had lost her child. Which makes Vernita realize

that Beatrix has no empathy for her, and in fact telling Beatrix that “she is a mother” will only enrage her more, triggering Beatrix’s PTSD into fight mode.

This scene, again, shows how PTSD/CPTSD causes issues with rage, hostility, aggressive behavior and thoughts of seeking revenge in survivors of domestic violence and narcissistic/psychopathic abuse. After killing Vernita Green in front of her child with no remorse, Beatrix then goes to visit Bill’s mentor and business acquaintance to find out more information on where Bill may be located, and he happens to be an old and well-respected pimp. The scene makes this known by him flat out saying and showing he has prostitutes and is in the business of sex trafficking women, which is even further depicted in the scene by showing one of his scantily clad “working girls” with a nasty scar vertically cut through her entire mouth. He starts boasting and showing off the scars that he inflicted on his “property”, (the girls), as punishment for their disobedience, another display of our culture of misogyny and how patriarchy combined with capitalism breeds an environment of “pimp culture”. This toxic masculine behavior and violence towards women is almost second nature in our society due to the severe generational social conditioning of seeing women as inferior to men, as if that is just a “biological fact that everyone must accept”. The everlasting resistance to feminism in our society, which is simply equality for women and a movement for basic human rights, also shows us that a large majority of society is deeply conditioned by misogynistic ideologies.  

In this scene, the violence Bill’s ‘professor pimp’ uses against his women when “they don’t listen”, shows us the ideologies and belief systems about women that were instilled in Bill by this mentor. It also shows us the company Bill keeps are pimps and abusers, possibly hinting at Bill overseeing his own trafficking ring, (or assassin ring as displayed in the movie, either way he has a bunch of women working for him). This also shows us the glorification of misogyny, pimp culture, how pimps and abusers are praised, and victims/survivors are devalued and discarded. It also shows us that violence against women is normalized and even systematic, and many of these abusive narcissistic/psychopathic men are in positions of power with money and resources, who stick together ultimately to uphold patriarchy since it allows men to continue to disproportionately abuse and exploit women.

            Throughout the movie of both Vol. 1 & 2, Beatrix goes on a mission fighting against Bill’s brother and all of Bill’s multiple women around the world, which shows us that misogyny and patriarchy are global issues that occur on a large scale. Again, these women could potentially be metaphors for his ‘working girls’, maybe Bill’s character is a metaphor for a pimp, but they can also simply be women metaphorically representing his affairs and “side pieces”, since many abusers partake in infidelity. She kills all of them but doesn’t stop until she finds out exactly where Bill is, because that is who she wants to seek revenge against more than anyone.

Again, many women in high conflict divorces, custody battles or women who are escaping abusive relationships with narcissists/psychopaths, find their selves fighting against their abuser’s enabling family members and the women that he was having affairs with. A man having multiple women is praised in our patriarchal society and it’s almost expected as a “normal” part of heterosexual relationships/marriages. Women are expected to tolerate infidelity, yet women are also expected to never partake in it.

In the final scene, Beatrix finally gets to Bill’s house and sees her 5-year-old daughter, who of course Bill knew would lead Beatrix back to him. Bill used their child as a weapon to keep an attachment between him and Beatrix, and this scene represents how many abusers will use the children as coercive control weapons to hoover and love bomb their victims, or to keep them in bondage/ break the woman into submission. Beatrix, however, kills Bill, (hence the title of the movie), and rides off into the sunset with her daughter. This emotional and relieving scene shows us that after all the abuse, after fighting with Bill’s family and his many love affairs, and fighting hard to get her daughter back out of his clutches, to be rid of her abuser once and for all, Beatrix gets “justice”, in her way, (in the way many survivors of narcissistic/psychopathic abuse wish they could). This powerful ending gives women who are dealing with these situations the inspiration to keep fighting. It can empower survivors to be resilient and overcome their trauma, showing the protagonist of the movie, Beatrix (Uma Thurman), in a role of strength rather than as vulnerable and weak, (which is how most victims of violence are portrayed).

This film can validate the complex feelings of rage and the homicidal ideations that many abuse survivors suffer with due to CPTSD/PTSD. It can also validate many women’s experiences living under a patriarchal society of misogyny and the way violence by men against women disproportionately affects women in society. This film also shows that even after all the trauma, fighting and suffering that Beatrix had endured, she was still able to have her ‘happy ending’ and get justice against her abuser in the end, which I believe overall is a powerful and meaningful message for many women who watch this film.

References

Petrosky E, Blair JM, Betz CJ, Fowler KA, Jack SP, Lyons BH. Racial and Ethnic Differences in Homicides of Adult Women and the Role of Intimate Partner Violence — United States, 2003–2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2017;66:741–746. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6628a1

Jbws.org, Jersey Battered Women’s Services, First 18 Months After Leaving An Abusive Partner Are The Most Dangerous, article on Sania Khan, United States, 2022

The First 18 Months After Leaving An Abusive Partner Are The Most Dangerous