![]() Using the mimetic theory of René Girard may help put a spotlight on this dynamic and put scapegoating as a central trope in the othering of the style and person who is considered “out”: an aesthetic form of scapegoating. Or to put it more poignantly, little attention has been put to the human price of the process of trickle-down, to the fact that rivalry, exclusion, and bullying play a part in the demarcation between fashionable and unfashionable, or to the fact that the distinction between “in” and the “out” is as much conceptual as social and spatial. Even if these ideas have been complemented by many other sociological, psychological, and communicative models, imitation is a central trope in the analysis of fashion, yet little attention has been put to the microdynamics of imitation. As sociologist Yuniya Kawamura notices in her book Fashion-ology, early sociologists, such as Veblen, Tarde, and Simmel, all regard fashion as a “concept of imitation.” Even if their specific theories differ, Veblen, Tarde, and Simmel saw fashion as an imitative “flow” most dominantly from the superior to inferior, and this became known as the “trickle-down” theory. It thrives in the pleasures and desires of imitation. Hey, a man can dream.Fashion is a mimetic phenomenon. I realize the chances are slim that Marsellus would let him out of the basement alive, but I'd like to think he managed to extricate himself from that situation once he came to and pulled a Jules Winfield, walking the earth in his bondage suit. I've also wondered whatever became of him after Butch rode away on Zed's chopper. It's possible I'm overthinking this, but everything and everybody else in the film is there for a specific reason, which leads me to conclude The Gimp is more than just a random, living piece of set dressing. He's kept on standby (locked in a cage, no less - another potential Vietnam parallel) until he's called upon to perform a service, much like Jules and Vincent are charged with retrieving Marsellus's briefcase and Vincent is summoned to the boxing arena and tasked with taking out Butch. Is it possible that he's intended to be an analogue of Jules and Vincent, a slave who is completely beholden to his master? Think about it. So, let us look at The Gimp, shall we? He's such a mysterious figure in the film, an un-character who is robbed of his identity (he has no name, save the one he has been given by Zed), his humanity and individuality (covered from head to toe in studded black leather, there could be anybody in there), and even his voice (when he tries to alert Maynard and Zed to Butch's escape, he can only make nonverbal noises, presumably because he's gagged under the hood). ![]() (This is why Koons's monologue is the key to understanding Butch's worldview: not only does it establish why the watch is so important to him, it also explains why he would risk his life by venturing back down into the netherworld to save Marsellus, someone he was prepared to kill just a few minutes earlier.) Even more specifically, I'm most fascinated by the four minutes that elapse between the time Zed says, "Bring out The Gimp," and when the man in the leather bondage suit is unceremoniously punched out by Butch and left to hang from his restraints. Instead, I'm going to concentrate on just one of its Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary-concocted stories: "The Gold Watch." Specifically, I'm interested in the twelve minutes that Butch Coolidge and Marsellus Wallace spend in the basement of Maynard's pawn shop, which is roughly the equivalent of the Vietnamese POW camp Captain Koons was imprisoned in alongside Butch's father. Now, if there's one thing the world doesn't need, it's another amateur film critic extolling the virtues of Pulp Fiction. (According to the IMDb, Attack of the Crab Monsters is in there as well, but I wasn't able to pick it out.) In that time, I've greatly changed the way I look at film in general, but my admiration for Pulp Fiction remains the same, only now I'm capable of picking out the posters at Jack Rabbit Slim's that are for films directed by Roger Corman: The Young Racers (the really big one behind Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace when they enter), Rock All Night, Sorority Girl, Machine-Gun Kelly. It's been at least a decade since I last saw Pulp Fiction, which premiered 20 years ago at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or - the first of many accolades it would pick up on its way to being shoved aside at the Academy Awards in favor of Forrest Gump.
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