SOURCE: "Geek Chic," in Artforum, Vol. 33, No. 7, March, 1995, pp. 63-6, 104, 108.

In the following essay. Indiana discusses the depiction of black experience, violence, and masculinity in Tarantino's films.

Like O.J. Simpson and Newt Gingrich, Quentin Tarantino has become one of those cosmically disseminated mirages that even the most resolute ascetic living in a hole somewhere becomes aware of "through the media." For us ordinary folks who consume magazines and TV programs haphazardly, he—like O.J., like Newt—has acquired the pull of a vortex into which all conversation eventually spills. Edgy from coffee nerves, verbally diarrheic, a study in hip geekiness or geeky hipness, Tarantino's personality is on display in dozens of print interviews and talk shows, and it's the same one he gives all his characters. Like them, he's fond of crunchy breakfast cereals, cartoons, obscure movies, and disco hits of the '70s; like them...