I just realised something interesting about Death Proof, and I think it speaks volumes about Tarantino's feminism - if he calls it that (he clearly thinks highly of women and their strength and humanity).

After picking Zoe up at the airport, the women have breakfast together. At one point, Kim reveals she's still carrying a pistol to Zoe. The other two women, actress Lee & make-up artist Abernathy, ask why she can't have a knife. "People who have knives get shot!" Kim replies.

"You can't get around the fact that if I go down to the laundry room of my building at midnight enough times, I might get my ass raped." Kim says to Abernathy.

This is the crucial bit:
Smiling smugly, Lee replies "Don't do your laundry at midnight."
Kim replies: "Fuck that! I'm gonna do my laundry whenever the fuck I want to do my laundry."

To me, this is two versions of feminism conflicting.

Lee, dressed as a skimpy cheerleader, bubbly, dumb, is the stereotype of feminism. Men are evil, don't do shit that puts you in the path of an evil man.
Kim's dressed feminine but tough. She's realism feminism, that women have power & control no matter their situation.

In a way, the Lee mindset of feminism is very sexist towards both men and women, positing women as helpless objects and men as monsters who only rape.

The irony is, Lee is left with a suspect man by the other three women and it is insinuated she is, in fact, raped.

While it may soothe to know the rapist is the same rapist we meet in Kill Bill who's killed by Beatrix faking a coma, that doesn't mean this isn't irksome. It's not explicitly stated or shown, but the implication is loud and clear.

So what's Tarantino saying, if this interpretation is correct? Well, hold on: remember how I said the other three women leave Lee with the rapist? They're being driven by Kim. Is this problematic? No. Because this is the point. Kim takes Zoe and Abernathy on "realism feminism"

In their drive they encounter Stuntman Mike, who, in the script, masturbated in his crashed car after killing women (this was cut from the standalone and Grindhouse versions if filmed at all), meaning he's essentially on the same level as the rapist Lee's left with.

What happens? Kim, Zoe and Abernathy beat the ever living shit out of Stuntman Mike, and it's implied they kill him, ending his reign of terror against women across America. It's treated as a victory as all three women fist pump the air and jump for joy.

But wait, Lee's being raped! There it is: if this interpretation holds water, this is about the danger of broken/conflicting versions of the same ideology. If Kim and Lee thought alike, perhaps Lee would have been with them. Perhaps Abernathy would have stayed with Lee.

Abernathy - the make up artist - only comes along with Kim and Zoe - the stunt women - because she has a tantrum about them using her motherhood as a reason not to involve her in their escapades. This then deepens the film's depiction of feminism further.

Abernathy, fulfilling the soft make-up role and mother, complains she can't do anything fun with the tough, tomboy-ish stuntwomen. This is a shallow light shining on the feminism that excludes career women or women who choose to build families & become mothers.

What's my point? We all have to get on the same page. People need to stop interpreting feminism, and ideologies in general, to their own needs. They aren't malleable. If they are then they aren't ideologies, they're agendas.

Sure, Kim, Zoe and Abernathy kill Stuntman Mike, but there's ANOTHER man committing another act of atrocity not far away to one of their own. If they were all on the same page, could they have taken both men down?

End