*Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon Lee has slammed Quentin Tarantino’s recent comments about the late martial artist star.
Tarantino appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience last week and he addressed the criticism over his depiction of Lee in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.”
“I can understand his daughter having a problem with it—it’s her f—ing father, I get that,” the acclaimed director said about Shannon Lee. Everybody else: go suck a d—.”
You can watch his full remarks via the YouTube clip below.
In a guest column published by The Hollywood Reporter, Shannon said her father’s portrayal in the film is “inaccurate and unnecessary to say the least.” She noted that Tarantino depicted her father “as a dispensable stereotype.”
“If only he’d take the name Bruce Lee off his lips now,” she writes.
READ MORE: Bruce Lee’s Widow/Daughter Slam His ‘Chinesey’ Depiction in ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’
“And 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 adds.
“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,” Shannon continues. “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 writes.
Shannon adds, “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.”
Shannon notes goes on to say… “Look, I understand what Mr. Tarantino was trying to do. I really do,” she writes. “Cliff Booth is such a bada— 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 adds. “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.”
Shannon said Tarantino’s “continued attacks, mischaracterizations, and misrepresentations of a trailblazing and innovative member of our Asian American community” will not be tolerated.
“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,” she writes. “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.”
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