20 Things You Didn't Know About Jackie Brown

And so we come to the stickiest issue with any Tarantino film, particularly work from his early period. HIs liberal use of the N-word has always been the subject of controversy, especially after watching the director himself casually spout it out in a character in Pulp Fiction. He was getting hit hard from critics, most notably Spike Lee, who was outraged that a Caucasian filmmaker would even try to use the word in such a casual way.

But Tarantino had one Get Out of Jail Free card in Samuel L. Jackson, who has often come to his defense and called out journalists who wanted to make it a controversy without ever using the word themselves. Jackson was a former Black Panther who had once held the Morehose College Board of Trustees hostage until they reformed the school's curriculum. He knew from where he spoke when it came to the Civil Rights movement and the struggle African Americans faced in America.

In a sentence that could only sound reasonable in the 90s, producer Harvey Weinstein intended to serve as a mediative voice in ongoing controversy, inviting Lee and Tarantino to debate the issue in a public forum.

Lee refused to have that conversation.