Understanding the Culture: Pulp Fiction

If we want to engage the culture, we have to understand the culture.

Sometimes I think we as Christians are blinded by our distaste for foul language and violence. Now I’m not promoting any of these things and I understand we are called to be holy, but I am saying that sometimes our hatred for “vulgarity” prevents us from understanding and appreciating the culture and from truly seeing the beauty in secular films and music.

Now I can understand why some people are offended by Pulp Fiction and its barrage of swearing and blood. However, to me, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Yes, the tip is a little dark and a little bloody, but if you take the time to dive beneath the surface, if you hear the thoughts and minds and souls behind the f-bombs, if you begin to truly see the motivations and hearts behind the pools of blood, if you start to empathize with Jules and Vincent, then maybe you will understand why there’s more to Pulp Fiction than what meets the eye.

I was involved in a homeschool Christian speech and debate league, and one event I competed in was Mars Hill. Individuals presented either a book, movie, or song, dissected its worldview and underlying philosophy, and related it back to Christian themes and principles. However, most of the pre-assigned films were PG, family-friendly, moral-inducing, kid-safe films, and whenever I gave a speech, I always felt dissociated from the real, nitty gritty movies that my friends and I discussed and heard about on a regular basis.

So in light of that, here is one of those films, perhaps one of the most celebrated films that has shaped our culture: Pulp Fiction.

(spoilers alert)

#1 Life is short

When we first meet Mia Wallace, we are captivated by her. She is brilliant, charming, clever, and competent with a persona all her own, full of life, full of vitality, and a little full of herself. She seems untouchable, as if the world and all men are at her fingertips, and we the audience can only watch, half-bewitched, as she charms us with her wit. However, we soon notice she is a cocaine addict, and after a passionate and heartfelt dance, Mia Wallace is found unconscious, slumped over on a sofa, blood dripping from her nostrils, due to a drug overdose.

Although she later recovers, we cannot help feel a little disturbed and a little uneasy. A few minutes prior, Mia had been drunk on her own happiness, and it seems too sudden, too unreal, that such a sensational human would fall down comatose within a matter of seconds.

In another scene, Vincent, Jules, and Marvin drive home from a successful endeavor. All three men have somehow miraculously escaped death, and they feel invincible, insurmountable, wild with adrenaline. During their animated conversation, Vincent carelessly waves around a handgun, and all of a sudden, the gun goes off and Marvin’s brains splatter all over the rear windshield. By sheer accident.

Life is fragile. Life is fleeting. Life is fickle. Life is unpredictable and brief, and though we may not die from drug overdose or a stray bullet, life is short. The most successful, charming, intelligent, rich, beautiful people are just as prone to death as anyone of us, and Tarantino understood this well. He placed some of the most graphic scenes in the least expected of places dealing with the least expected characters just to show us that death defies expectations. 

#2 Doing what’s right is only noble if it's hard

In an oversimplified plot summary, Butch endangers himself and puts his own life at risk to rescue Marsellus Wallace, a man who wants to kill him. Jules allows a robber at the diner to walk away unharmed with all the cash in his wallet.

Why? Because it is the right thing to do.

Anyone can sacrifice himself for a friend or live a life of integrity when there are no consequences. Anyone can do the right thing when it’s easy. But when the going gets rough, when our own lives become threatened, when we really have to relinquish something, our dreams, money, careers, friends, that's when doing the right thing becomes noble.

Tarantino understood this also. The natural instinct of both men wrestled against integrity and morality. It would’ve been easier for Butch to escape when he had the chance, to let his enemy suffer from rape and torture, because after all, Marsellus had tried to kill him. It would’ve been easier for Jules to put a bullet in the robber’s head, rather than part with all his cash and also some of his pride. However, both men chose to do the right thing, to listen to morality, to sacrifice their own self-preservation, and Tarantino honored them.

#3 It’s never too late for redemption

Jules, a contract killer for Marsellus Wallace, wildly misquotes Scripture, using it as a glorified drumroll before he executes his enemies.  

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know My name is the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon thee.”

Yet, towards the end of the film, he reflects upon this passage and he remarks to the robber at the diner, “I'm thinking: maybe it means you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here... he's the shepherd protecting [me] in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. And I'd like that. But [that] ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.” 

Jules begins to doubt his motives, realizes the depravity of his own nature and the selfishness of his heart, and decides to quit the business. His buddy Vincent doesn’t understand, and he sees nothing wrong with his current lifestyle, which sums up the two types of people in life, doesn’t it? There are people around us who see our innate filth and desire to change and live nobly. And there are those who don’t want to change, who like life the way it is, and who refuse to see and are blinded to the darkness within.

When Jules realizes his true condition, he doesn’t feel hopeless nor does he wallow in depression. Jules’ realization of his own depravity results in an immediate transformation to become his brother's keeper, where he shows compassion, strength, and mercy and lets the robber go free.

And so Tarantino concludes his film with a brilliant picture of redemption where a contract killer decides to become a shepherd. Perhaps that’s where he meant to leave us, in a cloud of self-introspection, where we realize the beauty of redemption. Redemption leaves no one behind, and if Jules, a hardened contract killer who lived a life of profanity and bloodshed, can change, so can we.

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We have to understand the culture to engage it, but sometimes we have to be open to let the culture teach us. I was humbled by the messages within Pulp Fiction, humbled because it defied my expectations and it made me realize how blessed my life is and how glorious redemption can be. And if a secular film ridden with degrees of profanity and violence can remind us of that truth, then it most definitely is worth appreciating.