Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee’s Daughter, Blasts Quentin Tarantino’s Portrayal of Him

Just recently, Quentin Tarantino defended his portrayal of martial arts expert and actor Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Many had questioned how Brad Pitt‘s character Cliff Booth had easily knocked down his depiction of Bruce in the movie.

His response was: “I can understand his daughter having a problem with it—it’s her f***ing father, I get that. Everybody else: go suck a d***.”

Now, Bruce‘s daughter, Shannon Lee, is responding…

Click inside to see what she said…

In a guest column with The Hollywood Reporter, Shannon put Quentin on blast for not only his comments, but about his portrayal of her father as well.

“While I am grateful that Mr. Tarantino has so generously acknowledged to Joe Rogan that I may have my feelings about his portrayal of my father, I am also grateful for the opportunity to express this: I’m really f***ing tired of white men in Hollywood trying to tell me who Bruce Lee was,” she wrote.

Shannon continued, “I’m tired of hearing from white men in Hollywood that he was arrogant and an a**hole when they have no idea and cannot fathom what it might have taken to get work in 1960s and ’70s Hollywood as a Chinese man with (God forbid) an accent, to try to express an opinion on a set as a perceived foreigner and person of color. I’m tired of white men in Hollywood mistaking his confidence, passion, and skill for hubris and therefore finding it necessary to marginalize him and contributions.”

“I’m tired of white men in Hollywood finding it too challenging to believe that Bruce Lee might have really been good at what he did and maybe even knew how to do it better than them,” she adds.

Shannon went on, “And while we’re at it, I’m tired of being told that he wasn’t American (he was born in San Francisco), that he wasn’t really friends with James Coburn, that he wasn’t good to stuntmen, that he went around challenging people to fight on film sets, that my mom said in her book that my father believed he could beat up Muhammad Ali (not true), that all he wanted was to be famous, and so much more.”

She does note that all of these things to apply to all white men, but that many opinions about Bruce “might be colored by personal or cultural bias, and that there’s a pattern.”

“Look, I understand what Mr. Tarantino was trying to do. I really do,” Shannon writes. “Cliff Booth is such a badass and a killer that he can beat the crap out of Bruce Lee. Character development. I get it. I just think he could have done it so much better.”

“But instead, the scene he created was just an uninteresting tear-down of Bruce Lee when it didn’t need to be. It was white Hollywood treating Bruce Lee as, well, white Hollywood treated him — as a dispensable stereotype,” she says. “But that was Mr. Tarantino’s creative device that he chose, so he initially claimed, though now he seems to be arguing that this is actually an accurate portrayal of Bruce Lee and is what would have happened if indeed Cliff Booth (a fictitious person) and the real Bruce Lee (if he were a mediocre, arrogant martial artist) had squared off.”

“Mr. Tarantino, you don’t have to like Bruce Lee. I really don’t care if you like him or not. You made your movie and now, clearly, you’re promoting a book,” Shannon concluded. “But in the interest of respecting other cultures and experiences you may not understand, I would encourage you to take a pass on commenting further about Bruce Lee and reconsider the impact of your words in a world that doesn’t need more conflict and fewer cultural heroes. Under the sky, under the heavens, we are one family, Mr. Tarantino, and I think it’s time for both of us to walk on.”

Originally found on Just Jared Read More

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