Today’s world has become more cohesive and consequently the society is becoming plural. It is filled with people of different races, religion and language. There is also a financial contrast in the society. Even at this stage of social growth and vigilant activism, the society is filled with discriminations and inferiority complexes. And there is no better example of this than America. This volatility of the American society is shown perfectly in the movie “The Hateful Eight”.
Plot
“The Hateful Eight”, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino was released in 2015. The movie is based in post-civil-war era and starts with a bounty hunter Marquis Warren (Samuel J Jackson), heading to Red Rock city with his bounties.
Warren’s horse dies facing blizzard so he hitches a ride on a stagecoach of another bounty hunter John Ruth, who has a female fugitive named Daisy Domergue with him. Ruth is taking his prisoner to be hanged at the Red Rock City. They are later joined by Lost-causer Chris Mannix, who is about to become the new Sherriff of Red Rock.
They halt at Minnie’s Haberdashery. The owner Minnie and her husband are nowhere to be found and they are greeted by a man named Bob who is supposedly taking care of the watering hole in Minnie’s stead. Few more characters already present there are the hangman Oswaldo Mobrey, cowboy Joe Gaze and senior confederate general Smithers, a racist planning to erect a cenotaph for his lost son.
Contrast in the society
The movie depicts the egoism in the American society where people selfishly hate each other on attribute difference.
Warren is an American-African veteran major who, only because of Lincoln letter, gets prominence in a white dominated society. Minnie, the venue owner is depicted as a Mexican hater, Smithers is a racist and Ruth likes to hang his bounties, hence named ‘the hangman’. Mannix is the lost-causer, who rejects slavery as the cause of civil war and projects it around heroism, promotes racism and gender inequality. Mobrey and Gaze are depicted as hangman and cowboy respectively. The only living female character is Daisy who gets back-to-back hits by the society’s differences.
In order to make the movie interesting and accommodate the huge cast in a single plot, Tarantino subtly converges three stories. First is Warren and Ruth’s old bounty connections and conversation over the fake Lincoln letter. Second is Daisy’s extraction conspiracy incorporating Smithers. Third is Warren’s antagonism with Smithers because of his racism mindset and an order of slaughtering black prisoners of war.
Pleasant Masterpiece showing Bitter reality
In picturisation, Tarantino used different gestures to depict the reality like Warren’s white gloves when he puts his hands up against a white man’s gun. Ruth’s stagecoach is pulled by 5 black horses with a white horse leading at the forefront. During an argument between Smithers and Warren a chessboard with black and white pawns is placed in between them.
The movie showcases the present-day reality of the USA, where there is unfounded discrimination among colour, religion, nation and gender. People fight among themselves for no apparent reason than indiscriminate hate for their fellow citizen. This movie expertly rips away the façade of America being the flag bearer of human values.
Conceiving a story in analogy to society is one thing and putting it into reality is another. Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” has been successful in doing this. It clearly depicts how the American society is filled with discriminations and has failed to incorporate pluralism as a peaceful discourse.
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