Quentin Tarantino made his breakthrough in Hollywood 29 years ago with Pulp Fiction. The director created a dense portrait of the Los Angeles demimonde with unforgettable characters, moments and quotes. Today the gangster grotesque is running on TV for the first time in prime time. In this article we look at the disturbing limp scene more closely.
Pulp Fiction on TV: The most important information about the broadcastWhat is Pulp Fiction about?
The film tells different gangster stories in parallel, which overlap and influence each other several times in the course of the story. We follow hit men Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) on a job gone wrong and boxer Butch (Bruce Willis) after the last fight of his career – which he was supposed to lose on purpose, hired by the gangster Boss Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Butch wins and wants to break away. In escaping, he encounters… Marsellus Wallace.
What happens in the limping scene?
Pulp Fiction spoilers follow: The ensuing altercation between Butch and Marsellus ends up at a pawn shop. Both get knocked down and awake in torture chamber by Maynard (Duane Whitaker) and Zed (Peter Greene). New rules apply in this basement, where Zed and Maynard can live out their rape fantasies undisturbed.
It’s probably the most dangerous place Butch and Marsellus could have stumbled into. One after the other they are to be raped. They get a glimpse of their fate as the words fall: “Bring out the Gimp”. The Sex slave limp climbs out of a locked chest in the next room. He is led into the scene on a chain. The leather creature, only the eyes visible from the face through two slits, giggles in the face of the new victims of his tormentors. You can read exactly what makes this scene so traumatizing in our limping leg analysis.
That’s how Tarantino explained the limp backstory years later
In an interview with Empire, director Tarantino revealed the character’s backstory. He said that limp “was a hitchhiker or anyone they picked up 7 years ago. They trained him and he’s their perfect victim.” Hinkebein actor Stephen Hibbert explained in another interview, why the character can’t speak.
I assumed Hinkylegs was kidnapped and lived a life as a sex slave for God knows how long. We decided, that they cut out his tongueso the poor limp couldn’t speak.
Hinkebein had to lead a life as a tongueless and willless sex slave for no longer than 7 years. According to Quentin Tarantino, the character died by strangulation after being knocked out by Bruce Willis’ character.
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