TARANTINO as a Textual Poacher

With the concepts that have been previously described on textual poaching by Jenkins where he suggests that fans are active producers and own the right to interpret; when looking at Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Tarantino clearly fits into the role of Jenkins definition of a textual poacher with his work as a writer and director of the films that he has created.

“others think that fans creations count as fair use,” (Gray, Sandvoss, Harrington, Jenkins 2007, p.60) however it also does depend on what his intentions were when he was poaching it. If his intention was to keep the characters going after his favourite film has ended and as a fan, that would be the same as other fans creating fan fiction to they share their own content in the way that suits their lifestyle by poaching the existing character however, because Tarantino is a filmmaker who writes and directs, it means that he does it as a job and this is his primary source of income, it clearly means that not only has he poached the characters, he also poached the community because the fans of the existing texts that he poached from would love to see their favourite characters featured in another story. It is Tarantino’s career to be an active producer of the content and he has interpreted the characters that poached in a way that he sees it. 

Looking at how de Certeau described textual poachers, they are not unique and developed poaching as a form of art. When looking at Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction(1994), the content is clearly not unique as nearly every characters in the film is a reference to something else as seen in the video to the introduction of this assessment. Even the posters on the wall in the film, however because the characters are from the 20s onwards and watching this now in 2016, it is really a form of art within the film that he has created. His style of writing and directing is mostly references to other films, Kill Bill (2003) for example is poached from Lady Snowblood and he used the blood exploding as a form of art in every single movies that he was written and directed.

“At least as long as no one is making any money from selling them. (Gray, Sandvoss, Harrington, Jenkins 2007, p.60), this should be the intention of the fan, not poaching from the content that they love so that the original creators feel that they own the whole right to the characters. Because by making money from poaching means that no matter how much Tarantino claims to be a lover of films, it is still poaching. Although the characters will still be known for what they originally were, they have also moved on to another community that Tarantino has created for his film that he poached the characters into.

“Fewer fan creators are worried that they are somehow doing something wrong, and they are more likely to expect that their readers will understand their basic,” (Gray, Sandvoss, Harrington, Jenkins 2007, p.64). Referring this quote to Pulp Fiction, because Tarantino has already created a community based on the community that has already existed (that he poached the content from) the audience should then understand why because they could see their favourite characters again. Both theorists may have looked at textual poaching from a different point of view however when one fits into both, it states that one is clearly a textual poacher.