By Drew Dietsch
| Published
One of the most memorable moments in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill is when the villainous Bill paralyzes the heroic Bride a.k.a Beatrix Kiddo and waxes philosophic on his views about the character of Superman.
It’s a stellar bit of writing delivered expertly by David Carradine in what’s arguably his greatest screen role.
Unfortunately, it is so beloved that a lot of people take it at face value. They buy into Bill’s take on Superman as a legitimate one. That tells me they aren’t seeing the forest for the trees during this crucial moment, either as an actual evaluation of Superman or the actual reason for the scene.
Bill Can’t See The Real Clark Kent Or Superman
The key flaw in Bill’s read on Clark Kent and Superman comes in his fundamental misunderstanding of the personas of Clark Kent and Superman. He can’t see Clark Kent as anything more than an outright performance –– an opinion shaped more by the Christoper Reeve films than comic books –– while Superman is the true identity due to it being the persona he was born into.
Anyone with a fuller understanding of the character’s history and stories knows how reversed this assignment of roles actually is. Though Clark has this incredible heritage that informs his character, he was raised as Clark Kent and lives a life as Clark Kent. It’s only later that he adopts the Superman persona and crafts it to be a kind of performance that integrates his truest self.
Eventually, he finds a healthy life balancing the two sides of his alien lineage and his homegrown American upbringing. It doesn’t actually reflect Bill’s view on the character at all. It seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of the character.
Which is why it’s so important to remember that Bill is the villain of the story.
A Villain Warps A Hero To Control Another Hero
The Kill Bill Superman monologue takes place within a very important power dynamic in the story. Beatrix Kiddo is pumped with a super truth serum Bill calls “the undisputed truth.” Bill is using this scenario and his Superman analogy to argue that Beatrix was lying to herself about trying to live a simple life.
Beatrix does admit this harsh emotional truth about her attempted escape into anonymity, but she also fires back that she would’ve had her daughter. She would’ve found a way to happiness. But the opportunity to chase that was eliminated by Bill because of his need to control Beatrix.
And that’s what this scene and monologue are really about: controlling the narrative Beatrix tells herself. Bill weaponizes his warped view on Clark Kent and Superman to weaken Beatrix’s resolve. Even if he truly believes in his take on Superman, he’s not espousing it to be a mouthpiece for the writer or to present some grand creative argument. He’s a character all about manipulation and his twisted idea of Clark Kent and Superman is just more manipulation, both of the truth about the character and Beatrix’s truths about herself.
Look, let me boil it down to a more relatable framework for this discussion: do you actually believe anything Lex Luthor says when he describes his appraisal of Superman’s character? If you wouldn’t listen to that villain’s opinion, why would you listen to Bill? They both use their viewpoints on Superman to actually push their own wicked agendas.
I love Kill Bill, I love Superman, and I love this scene. However, it’s time to stop reading it as a worthwhile critique on the Man of Steel. Instead, see it for what it really is: a bad guy who plays at knowing what a good guy is so he can keep being a bad guy.
