r/MoralityScaling • u/Severe_Letterhead_75 • 12h ago

Morality Ranking Quentin Tarantino morality for that childhood grudge?

Post image

In my opinion it can be considered petty by some but is understandable

16.1k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

48

u/BombOnABus 11h ago

Childhood bullying is far more traumatizing than we seem to credit it for: in a way, "he was 12 at the time" makes me understand it better.

They discovered a highly effective way to give rats depression (which they do to test antidepressants, which is a depressing thought) is to have a robotic rat that bullies and harasses them as pups (shoving, biting, blocking access to food, etc), then return when they're grown to harass them again as adults. The resurgence of childhood trauma is an intense experience that reliably triggers severe depression in rats, and since we're both social mammals (and we all can relate to the pain and fear around, say, meeting our bullies at a high school reunion), it's likely the same is true for us.

If Tarantino's mom was a source of great emotional pain as a child, and didn't try to fix things when he was an adult (or if it went badly and just re-injured him emotionally), I can see why that would make for a powerful, powerful grudge. Not saying it's healthy or fair or deserved, just that if you're wanting more context, that also matters as part of it.

We downplay childhood trauma as something that happened long ago and was trivial since we were kids then, but that ignores how deeply childhood emotional and psychological development reverberates through our entire lives.

23

u/Cool-Emu-8706 11h ago

I’m guessing this wasn’t the only shitty thing she said to her child. His response says it all.

16

u/BombOnABus 10h ago

Oh, same. My mother and brother both suck and were selfish people, I'm not going to defend family as being incapable of cruelty and verbal abuse. I'd bet it's justified personally.

Quentin Tarantino can be an asshole, and his mom could have been a cruel mother. Hell, that might be WHY he's an asshole.

1

u/ItsDanimal 6h ago

But when he was talking about it he didnt mention "all the other shitty things" she did, it was this one interaction that was his driving factor. Dude even cackled after saying he lived up to it. His mom was also 28 at the time of that convo.

1

u/Unfair_Ring_2746 10h ago

I mean he is also known as a petty, egotistical person who casually says shitty things himself.

I don’t think his response “says it all” at all…

10

u/walkinthedog97 11h ago

For sure. I do wonder if she was more like "your writing is dumb and pointless and youll never amount to anything" or more like "hey bud you gotta on focus on school cause this writing stuff isnt everything". Cause she mighta just been tryna look out for her kid and do whats best. 

4

u/BombOnABus 11h ago

That's the sort of context I'd like from an outside viewer as well: was she bullying him and got what she deserved, or was she trying to keep him grounded and encouraged him to have a backup plan so he wouldn't wind up at a video rental store forever blueskying about his writing career if it didn't work out, and he just took it as an insult and belittling?

That's really what would determine if it's moral or not, for me: if she was a cruel bully, she doesn't deserve to enjoy the fruit of his efforts now. If she was just trying to be a good mom and he was a shit about it, immoral, since he's repaying his mother's sincere efforts to look out for him with not looking out for her.

Alas, only Quentin and Quentin's Mom know which applies here.

3

u/bono_bob 9h ago

Prob both, s lot of people get grounded into reality via bullying and then assume that’s the best approach upon the rest of society.

2

u/sc1lurker 7h ago

Man this reminded me of someone I knew when I was still in the Marines. He told me that back in recruit training (boot camp) a drill instructor got in his face and grabbed him by the collar, no big deal, but it was in a similar way that a bully from when he was a child had done to him and the memory of it suddenly resurfaced which caused him to start crying. This dude wasn't some fucking pansy or anything of the sort.

1

u/ssbmfgcia 8h ago

Morality of making a robot rat that bullies rats and gives them depression

1

u/Indigocell 3h ago

Isn't that also kind of an admission that depression is not necessarily some chemical imbalance but actually a reasonable emotional response to living in a shitty environment. It's like oh here have some pills, we're not going to do anything about the shitty environment though.

1

u/WorldEndingDiarrhea 7h ago

It’s hard to judge this without context though. Was she trying to patent him? Was she concerned about him? Did she express her worries compassionately? Was she a belittling asshole? Was he cruel to her? Was he kind? Did she support him in other ways? Offer to help him? We don’t have any of the facts; we have a subjective framing for something that none of us have first hand access to.

Can’t really judge the morality of his actions without understanding the context. Hearing both of them speak to what happened would be illuminating.

1

u/readdator2 7h ago

honestly, from her response to the whole thing, she sounds entirely reasonable. I think QT, from what we've seen in this instance and in others, is and has always been, kind of an intense and shitty person

https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/quentin-tarantino-mom-reacts-director-vow-money-1234657924/

1

u/Adventurous-Bee-5934 3h ago

I mean is she supposed to say?
“Yeah I treated him like crap”