 Quentin Tarantino and many others probably are kind of racist. So many Asian-Americans to this day, they don't act anything like Bruce Lee. And when it comes to how good of a fighter was Bruce Lee in a real combat fight, it's not the biggest question to me. That does not affect how I view Bruce Lee. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Hot Pop Boys. David and Andrew here. We got to talk about this. The Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Lee controversy is back. Quentin Tarantino went on Joe Rogan recently and doubled down on his negative opinion about Bruce Lee. And of course, Bruce Lee fans are offended. His family is offended. There's articles being written. I can understand his daughter having a problem with it. It's her father. All right, I get that. But anybody else go suck it. What's going on here? Who's right and who's wrong? Quentin Tarantino, he did sort of play out Bruce Lee and once upon a time in Hollywood. I think it's debatable, but for the most part, you would say it was a negative portrayal made him look like a little bit like an F boy or something like that. You're laughing at what I'm saying, but I'm not saying anything funny. So what do you think is so funny? My hands are registered as lethal weapon. A chump, arrogant, cocky, like an F boy. I would say that's the best way to put it. Let me preface this. The five points that we have about this Quentin Tarantino, Bruce Lee beef by saying that I think he was Bruce Lee was obviously incredibly influential. And I got a personal story to say how influential he is. One time, Andrew, our dad had just moved to America and he was working in Chicago at that time in the summer. And people try to rob him on the train with a knife. And I don't know where my dad got the idea to do this, but he struck a kung fu pose in the middle of the subway cart and went and the dudes got scared, backed off and got off at the next station. But because Bruce Lee was popular at that time and everybody did, you know, they didn't know they didn't know if Asian guys could fight or not. And dad, you know, he got big calves, he gave them to you. They got scared and ran off. So Bruce Lee gave my dad some of the best memories in the 1970s. Legend icon, super influential, has inspired all of us in our own way. Yeah, one of the only Asian that ever entered the pop cultural deity realm of America, the American subculture lexicon. I mean, that's the only Asian person I see non Asians want to get tattoos of. Because, you know, like Asians, we will get like, I don't know if people get Confucius, but they get Guan Yu or they get, you know, the Coys and the dragons and stuff like that. But the only like Asian American from the last like 60 years that people get is Bruce Lee. Absolutely. All right, guys, we have five thoughts here, so bear with us. Number one, I think that, of course, nobody likes to see their icon be depicted in a negative or embarrassing way. So basically in the movie, once upon a time in Hollywood, right? If you guys have seen the clip, it's not a flattering depiction of Bruce Lee. He seems cocky, he gets on the ground and he seems like he's overplaying his strength. And most people that watch this scene will say that it wasn't a draw. Bruce Lee lost this fight. Right. And people are like, well, how could Bruce Lee lose this fight? Well, and the sense behind it is that, well, oh, this guy that he was fighting was a killer from the war. He had real combat experience. Some of Brad Pitt's character. Brad Pitt's character, he would take on Bruce Lee, who was a mostly a performer. Right. And I think that the the truth is, guys, this is all like actor land. Like, this is the truth, guys. Bruce Lee was primarily an actor. Yes, he was a martial arts actor who is also developing martial arts on the side. But he was an actor. He was a tournament guy. Yeah. So that's where this argument comes from. Now, I will also say that I don't love this hypothetical because we don't know what happened. You can take any athlete or fighter from the 60s and the fighters like nowadays are all going to be better because things are just more developed. People have better training. And that's why Bruce Lee is so famous for developing the whole art form. Exactly. So when it comes to how good of a fighter was Bruce Lee in a real combat fight, I just feel like it's like not that important. Right. It's not the biggest question to me. That does not affect how I view Bruce Lee. I think for me, the truth is, man, Quentin Tarantino, if you guys know him, he's a weirdo. He's a little bit of a, you know, that's why he makes such good movies about the 60s and 70s. He sort of like lives in the 60s and 70s in his mind. He looks like he's from the 60s and 70s. Yeah. He doesn't even have like a modern face, facial structure or anything like that. What does he do? But basically, guys, we have to understand that if people comment on like the 60s and 70s and feel offended on behalf of people, then like, he used to punch the stuntman. He used to punch the stuntman and violate the rules because, you know, that's what Bruce probably used to do in Hong Kong. And he didn't have any respect for the white stuntman, just like he didn't respect any of the Hong Kong stuntman. So we would really hit him in the movies. And it's funny to see somebody be offended on their behalf 60 years later. Yeah, I think it's. But it also speaks to like the nerdy comic book debate that this really is, in my opinion, you're saying that this is not like a real debate. Even people need to be having. No, honestly, the truth is, and we'll get into it, guys. This is just the whole fiasco and the fact that this creates so much Internet SEO on the Asian Internet, the martial arts Internets and really the subculture, like 1960s Internets, you know, the ones that analyze that era is ridiculous. Anyways, point number two, guys, Quentin Tarantino and many others in Hollywood, especially filmmakers that have been around for that long, probably are kind of racist because the question always is, oh, does Quentin Tarantino have a vendetta against Asian men because they kill Billy Slot or all those crazy 88s. And then like, does he care about Asian guys? Probably not. Is he kind of racist? Maybe. And he put David Karadine beating up Uma Thurman in a Bruce Lee suit. Listen, the fact is that in Hollywood, there's a lot of like prejudice or racist people or ignorant people who have power, who have influence, who have the budget and the green light to make movies. And they don't owe any community anything. Quentin Tarantino makes entertaining movies. Obviously, I don't agree with all the characters. I don't necessarily even like all his movies, but obviously he is an esteemed director. So he kind of has some creative freedom. Yeah. And he does make movies for older people. Yeah. And Pulp Fiction is kind of like full of stereotypes, too, about like a lot of different groups. But obviously, you know, as minorities, you're going to bear the brunt of worse stereotypes than like Italian Americans. Italian Americans, I think that Quentin Tarantino also views them stereotypically, but they might be more aligned with their stereotype than other groups are aligned with their own. And point number three, why would you let Quentin Tarantino of all people let you dictate how you feel about Bruce Lee? Yeah. Like why? Like he is like a weird director. None of his movies are historically accurate from Django to Inglorious Bastards. They all have a twist that he's all trying to surprise you. He's trying to show you something they've never seen before. Extreme altered reality. Exactly. And so that's why when I look at I'm like, guys, I get it that on the big screen, this was one of the, in a way, best impressions of Bruce Lee and on one of the biggest Michael did a good job. Mike, shout out to Mike Moe. I mean, you know, I'm sure he said in the script, he thought it was a draw, but, you know, that's not how people view it and how the movie came out. But either way, also, he's just trying to get paid. I mean, he's an actor, you know, shout it to him. He got actors. Let me tell you this, actors and activists. Sometimes it goes together, but a lot of times it doesn't. Hey, if Quentin, if you an actor and Quentin Tarantino asked you to be in the film, a lot of people take it. And just like this, as far as Quentin Tarantino goes, just because you're a great director and you're great at your art form, it clearly does not mean you are a great person. Also, he's not a politician. He's not an elected official. He's not supposed to be a great man. No one says Quentin Tarantino is a great man. He defended Roman Polanski after his whole crazy. He's got his own controversies besides all this. So he's kind of a controversial. Yeah, I guess he almost got Uma Thurman killed on the set of Kill Bill. Exactly. To do her own stuff. Yeah, a lot of people feel some type of way about the guy. Why would you, if you were whole Bruce Lee in such high regard from that era, why would you ever let what this trolley guy ever, you know, says about Bruce ever impact what you feel? I'm not let I'm I I dictate how I feel about Bruce Lee. I take what I'm inspired by him from what I relate to. It doesn't matter what I see on the screen anymore. Point number four to me and I think to you, David, Bruce Lee, the philosopher, the the quotables, the teacher, the cultural icon, the fashion icon. To me, that's the coolest part of Bruce Lee. Yeah, that's the thing I drew the most from. It wasn't the photos of him being super ripped with zero percent body fat. It was more of him in the suit, him DJing. Those things were relatable to me. I was like, oh, that's what I connected with Bruce Lee about. Yeah, for us personally, I mean, growing up way past his era guys. Bruce Lee has, you know, RIP has been passed away for 50 years now. When I was growing up, I just took those things away because, you know, we never studied martial arts like that. You know, we did a little bit of light stuff, but like we never were really an MMA and I think a lot of people from our generation feel that way. You know, the way people perceive him, whether you're 50, 40, 30, 20 is completely different every decade. Yeah. And I want to be clear, like I think it is a generational difference, possibly, you know, depending on how if you saw him when you were alive, obviously, you're going to feel different. Anybody who saw Jordan play thinks Michael Jordan is by far the goat and is not going to like waver in their opinion. People grow up with Kobe, they feel like it's Kobe and the kids feel like it's bronze because you felt that magic at that moment. Now, obviously, being removed so many years, I can only watch the clips. I watch his interviews. I just think Bruce Lee was a really cool, smart guy. He had mastered the Eastern and Western philosophies to me. That is the coolest thing. And he made it cool to talk about Eastern philosophy. And I was like, bro, that is one thing I wish more people would do. Yeah. And I don't need him to have been the best fighter in the world at that time, which I really don't think that he was. And to be honest, obviously, the fight world wasn't even really developed at that time, never find out. I think he would have performed pretty well. In UFC, in his weight class. But let's be honest, guys, weight classes matter a lot. Like that whole old school debate, like Bruce Lee and his prime versus Mike Tyson and his prime, trust me, it would have been Mike Tyson. We have enough reps in modern 2021 to see little guys versus big guys to size as a huge impact. Well, I will say that through time, everybody's kind of IQ on how sports and boxing and wrestling and MMA works has developed more. Now we understand weight class means a lot. As you can see from these recent boxing matches, right? Yeah, maybe maybe Conor McGregor would take Bruce Lee in the UFC. I mean, by the way, Mike Tyson would wash Floyd Mayweather too. Yeah. Simply because of sizing. And also Floyd, right? He's the best boxer, but he's the best fighter. We never seen him in the street fight, blah, blah, blah. We get it. We can we can play with these hypotheticals all the time. And I'm just like, yeah, there's a bunch of hypotheticals for Bruce Lee. I get it. But that doesn't change how I view it. Point number five. We can move forward without leaving Bruce Lee's legacy behind. I'm not saying by all means forget about Bruce Lee or move on from Bruce Lee. We're not saying that at all because, like, I think he's going to be icon for also, you don't want to say that because of the way people feel about. Yeah, I mean, it's just and I just don't believe it. I just believe that there's so many things you can take away. And in our own life, we can embody more Bruce Lee. To be honest, in Asian America, we could use some more, right? I think that Asian America was so starved for having a Marilyn Monroe James Dean type icon. And Bruce Lee is an Asian that was born in America, even though he's mostly raised in Hong Kong that entered that tiny, tiny elite circle. So people are ultra protective of him. I think if Bruce Lee was still alive or got transported to modern days, he'd be like, hey, guys, who do I inspire? Who's the next one of me, man? I wish I could see it because he probably knew like he's going to inspire a bunch of people that are going to go off and do a bunch of things. And he did, but he would like to see who was the next me. I spent 50 years away and no predecessor was produced from this community. Although I have many statues instead of it'd be like, you must be the sparkling water. The Perry Ada LaCroix, not to shout out any brands or anything. But like, basically, I think for me, I always viewed Bruce Lee sort of as a fashion icon and a philosopher. And I didn't need him to be my everything because as much as people shade like Jackie Chan and they're not into Jet Lee and Chaoyang Fat, who Quentin Tarantino also dis, by the way. So that's, you know, there's some history of Quentin Tarantino going against Chinese superstars from. But basically, like for me, I was able to get that same feeling like I would listen to rap music and I would get a lot of rap quotes from Jay-Z. First of all, I know the Bruce Lee quotes are dope, but I already had a lot of quotables in my life from like other aspects, other realms of poetry or philosophy. And then as far as like the Kung Fu aspect, I always kind of related to Jackie Chan style. You know what I mean? Because you have to understand that like Jackie Chan is like more like Asian Asian. You know, Bruce is almost like coming in as like an alpha Asian from the West that and he's kind of like a type of personality you don't even find in the East. Yeah. And I think that's why people were so attracted to it. And I think that that's why he's so amazing. But Jackie in his sort of like goofy, like, oh, I don't want any trouble. But then all of a sudden you just keep coming at him and then he's just hitting you with the chain punches. That's more probably representative of the majority of how people are. Yeah, coaching is supposed to be. That's a good point, man. I think that, you know, Jackie really took a beating over his career, broke every bone in his body like twice. And he just got back up and kept doing it. And he's still walking. So he's he's a Jackie is a Hall of Fame entertainer. You know, he's funny. Honestly, he has a superhuman body having his own broken. It's just that it's wrapped up in this goofiness that a lot of people write off. He's not a very good look or as good. No, but a lot of people write off Jackie and I get it because he's goofy and he makes, you know, not like women women don't like Jackie Chan as much as they like Bruce Lee doesn't really have like that big personality. Right. So maybe we don't tell young fat at the end of the day. He's more famous for gun gun work. Gun play, not really. So we don't have shot at the eco, though. I like eco. I like Tony John. No, I think there's a lot of people to look up to. And and then I think on the other side, there is a lot of good Asian personalities in the past 50 years, obviously. Now, maybe to me, man, I'm going to keep it real, man. First of all, like we said, we supported Bruce Lee. We sent Shannon Lee, his daughter, a video of us shouting out to Bruce for his 50th birthday. But at the end of the day, man, you don't sometimes people act like he was the only one that matters because he was the only one that white and black people also cared about, right? And I guess I'm just like, man, I disagree with that. Like I view him as a long lineage of people. That's like, I don't need to say Kobe sucks to to love Jordan. Right. And to love, you know what I mean? And before Jordan, there was Oscar Robertson. You know what I mean? In terms of ultra dynamic. Right. You don't have to hate on Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell just as if you think Jordan is the goat. Yeah, just a shout out to Hakeem or whatever. Right. Right. I mean, I just think that so many like you were saying to your point, so many Asian Americans to this day, they don't act anything like Bruce Lee because if you really study Bruce Lee's story, I've read like a 50 page deep cut biography on him on his all the stories growing up all the way throughout his 20s, like because if you just lionized somebody like a God, it actually makes them untouchable. Yeah, you can't be like them. Yeah, you know what I mean? And if you look at the situations that created this very brash, ultra confident and in some ways like so ultra overly ambitious person, which you sometimes need to be obsessive. Yeah. No, you need to be almost like borderline delusional to do groundbreaking things, whether that's right or wrong. That's just the way society works. Right. To even attempt like ultra incredibly unrealistic goals like he did. And so I'm just saying, like why if we don't study him and break him down for all his pros and cons, how are we ever going to become more like that? That's a good question. So that's my whole question. I think the people who are debating and caught up in this Quentin Tarantino thing and are always kind of trying to justify Bruce Lee's like superhumanist that, you know, some people believe he had like 60, 70 years ago. That is so ridiculous. All right. How about this for every hour that you're debating this online? You got to go hit the gym and train for an hour. That's my challenge. That fair. You got to become more spend one hour becoming more like Bruce Lee as you complain and tear down Quentin Tarantino, which is fine. Do you share your opinion? I think that, you know, to your to one of your points, man, it's almost like Michael Jordan. If you look at Michael Jordan, people used to view him as like God. At one point, at one point. And then all of a sudden all this stuff came out about gambling, all these like a whole stories when he's out in public. Because a lot of people say Michael Jordan is like kind of a jerk in person. Well, he lived long enough to see himself become a meme. But then he went downside, right? He had all the choppy suits. You just like his jeans looking crazy, right? And then the last dance came back out and painted him in a good, like ultimately, but more nuanced. Yeah. So don't we need to see Bruce Lee like the way we viewed Michael Jordan? I agree where we're like we could see him with all the nuance and all the flaws and all the pros and the cons. And that's how you actually learn. I feel like people actually learn from Jordan the most through the last dance. You couldn't really learn from Jordan when he was called Black Jesus. I mean, Kobe, RIP, he had flaws, too. Listen, every goat has flaws and it's OK to acknowledge that they got the flaws. But their greatness is the thing that you remember about them. But you have to learn from them because they're humans. In fact, really, what I'm saying is instead of putting Bruce Lee as a God, we should just learn from him. All right, guys, learn from Bruce Lee. And by the way, yes, Quentin Tarantino still racist, probably still has an agenda against, you know, masculine Asian males. A whole Tarantino. All right, everybody, thanks so much for watching this video. Let us know in the comments below how you feel. I know that this can be a sensitive subject for a lot of people who grew up loving Bruce Lee and respecting him. We just wanted to have a very, you know, good and honest and real discussion, of course, as supporters and fans of Bruce Lee. So thank you so much for watching that and hit that like button. Click subscribe. And until next time, we out.