Bruce Lee's daughter has said that she's "really f***ing tired of white men in Hollywood" sharing their portrayal of her legendary father.
In a guest column for the Hollywood Reporter on Friday (July 2), Shannon Lee hit back at Quentin Tarantino for his latest depiction and subsequent comments of the late Chinese-American martial artist and actor in the 2019 movie Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.
The movie's fictional stuntman Cliff Booth (played by Brad Pitt) is challenged to a fight by Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) in the scene.
Watch the movie scene below:"I’m really f**ing tired of white men in Hollywood trying to tell me who Bruce Lee was," Lee - who is the chief executive of the Bruce Lee Family Co - writes.
"I've come across enough of them over the years (and not just in Hollywood) who want to mansplain Bruce Lee to me and use Bruce Lee when and how it suits them without acknowledging his humanity, his legacy, or his family in the process that a bit of a pattern has emerged," she adds.
"I'm… not saying that no one is allowed to have a negative opinion of Bruce Lee. I'm saying your opinion might be colored by personal or cultural bias, and that there's a pattern."
This comes after Tarantino spoke about the movie The Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Tuesday (June 29), to promote the movie's novelization.
Tarantino also took the opportunity to hit back at those who have been critical of its portrayal of Lee, saying that while he understood Shannon Lee "having a problem with it", he dismissed other critics by saying that it was accurate.
Lee biographer Matthew Polly, however, told Esquire that the scene "is not only completely inaccurate, it turns Lee into a disrespectful blowhard and jerk."
Shannon slammed the scene to the LA Times after its release, saying: "The script treatment of my father as this arrogant, egotistical punching bag was really disheartening - and, I feel, unnecessary."
Lee wrote that Tarantino's comments come at a particularly unwelcome time because of the increased discrimination Asian-Americans face in the wake of Covid-19, as per the Pew Research Centre.
"At a time when Asian Americans are being physically attacked, told to 'go home' because they are seen as not American, and demonized for something that has nothing to do with them," she wrote.
"I feel moved to suggest that Mr. Tarantino's continued attacks, mischaracterizations, and misrepresentations of a trailblazing and innovative member of our Asian American community, right now, are not welcome."
