The film director, Quentin Tarantino is in trouble. He is accused of negligence by actress Uma Thurman, who says that he bullied her into driving an unsafe car that crashed in the set of Bill Kill. She also says that he spit in her face and choked her with a chain. It is also alleged that he tried to strangle Diana Kruger in a scene in Inglourious Basterds. Disturbing and bizarre.
An audio recording has surfaced where he is defending director Roman Polanski’s sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, saying she was “down with it” and that rape was a “buzzword” that didn’t apply to the situation. In an interview singer Fergie said that Tarantino bit her on a film set but later she defended the director.
Clearly there is something is not right with this talented film director.
I was quite surprised when Tarantino received the Knight’s Cross from the Hungarian government in 2011. He got the state award for being one of the producers of a documentary entitled Freedom’s Fury although it is not clear if Quentin actually did anything tangible on this film. We know that the other producer of that film was Andy Vajna, the favorite and very well-connected oligarch of authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Perhaps Quentin’s powerful Hungarian friends had something to do with his state award. (More about Hungary’s oligarchs here.)
Old friends: Tarantino, Bunyik and „oligarch” Andy Vajna (right)
Tarantino wearing the Cross with Hungarian film representative Béla Bunyik and his wife Bonnie.
In 2016 when the racist and anti-Semitic political journalist Zsolt Bayer received the Order of Merit of the Knight’s Cross, a similar award, many recipients around the world returned theirs in protest.
I wrote to Mr. Tarantino “please return your award,” and I even published a piece here on Hungarian Free Press. (Read here.) There was not even a brief response. Tarantino must like his award. I assume he discussed the idea of returning with his friends but in the end, he decided to keep it.
I’m optimistic and still hope that one day Tarantino will return his Hungarian Knight’s Cross because that would be the right thing to do. In the meantime, I’ll skip his films and I suggest you do too.
Lázár György
This article was written by a misinformed person. If you’re going to take the time to write an article you should read up on what you’re writing about. You’d think a guy with a Ph.D would know that.
Tarantino’s acceptance of the Hungarian autocrat’s award is perhaps excusable – in 2011 little was known of this small country’s role as a puppet state in Putin’s strategic plans to sow discord within the Western alliance.
By now, and through the actions of the EU Parliament, the UN Commissioner on Human Rights, the EU Court of Justice, Freedom House, the Enterprise Institute, and many hundreds of independent reports by Conservative, Centrist, and yes, Liberal scholars, (uncluding Hungary’s own Academy of Sciences) the Orbán regime has been unmasked as a thoroughly corrupt, rule of law violator, a disgrace within a community that professes to uphold the principles of Justice, Constitutionalism, and Liberty.
Andy Vajna, is not only the cultural czar of the pro-Russian Hungarian autocracy, but the money bag for the Hungarian autocrat himself. He owns a vast media-empire in Hungary, dedicated to the manufacture of the type of fake news, that Special Prosecutor Mueller indicted 13 Russions for peddling in America.
Andy Vajna is one of the “Ugly Americans” playing an active role around the world, picking up a fortune for helping petty tyrants to undermine the democratic rights of their people. Members of the Academy should name and shame “The Ugly American” who has made a fortune, helping to destroy democracy in Hungary, along with others, such as Arthur J. Finkelstein, Orbán’s, Putin’s, or the Azerbaijan dictator’s strategic political advisor during the last ten years of his life.
Thank you Mr. Lazar, for bringing these matters to the attention of the public. Tarantino should follow the example of the great, Nobel Laureat, Elie Wiezel, or the author of the greatest scholarly study of the Holocaust in Hungary, Randolph L. Braham, who both returned their awards to Hungary, after Orbán began to resurrect Hungary’s shameful racist past. Tarantino should set an example for his peers, by returning the award, the pocket-dictator’s oligarch secured for him in Budapest, between two shots of cognacs.
As for Vajna? He should be publicly humiliated for his disgusting championship of an autocratic regime, that glorifies a leader who sent 460,000 innocent Jews to the gas chambers during the last months of WWII. Hope someone will have the guts, the backbone, to call Vajna out, on Oscar night, in front of his own peers. Destroying the human rights of millions of Hungarians is at least as serious a crime as sexually molesting young actresses in the director’s couch.
Within the very lines of those who are part of this ideological cult, we get a glimpse of just how deep ideological bigotry and intolerance runs among leftist-Marxist-globalists. So many people returned an award, because they cannot tolerate having someone they disagree with on an ideological level also getting that award. Author also calls for a certain individual to return the award, although not clear why. First he attacks the individual in question on non-related issues, then bizarrely turns and attacks the award itself, because someone he disagrees with happened to get one.
One doesn’t often hear this same kind of hysteria on the right of the political spectrum. “Return the award, because it is tainted by Marxist-globalist individual X or Y getting one”. This is beyond lunacy!
Zsolt Bayer has called for the murder of Roma children. So precisely what ideology are you embracing in your defense of Bayer and in your attack of “Marxists”? By the way, if you use this label again, I will delete your comments moving forward.
Here we go again! Never saw you take issue with a large variety of labels used by those who you agree with ideologically-speaking. Please be fair and avoid hypocrisy.
As for Mr Bayer, I do find many of the things he says to be despicable, and I find the fact that Hungarian government does not distance itself from him to be a black spot on their record. But I also find it despicable when for instance some of your ideological kindred spirits advocate for mass-colonization of places like Hungary, which is home to a distinct native culture, and attack Hungary & Hungarians for the simple fact that they reject it. They are in effect calling for cultural genocide against a native culture, through a tried & proven method, which is same as what happened to native Americans, & is currently being implemented in China in Tibet & elsewhere. I know you do not agree with me and you do not have to. But perhaps one thing that you should try to do, given that you took it upon yourself to manage a public platform, is learn to respect a diversity of views and the right of people to express it on your public platform. As I pointed out, your ideological camp, which apparently you now want to censor me into not labeling, has a very low threshold of tolerance for anyone holding different views. And as I pointed out with the pro-migrant example, you give no thought to just how your own views may be seen as despicable and hate-filled towards certain groups by the other side. As a native Hungarian, I certainly feel the hate when people self-righteously declare that we are wrong not to accept mass-colonization with foreign populations. I think it is no different from when native Americans were being demanded to accept European settlers and were called “savages” for resisting. Who were the real savages then? Not the self-righteous Europeans who thought it was all “progress”? I think it is savage now to attack the right of native European cultures to preserve themselves, yet I never ever started such hysterical arguments on how people should return awards shared with any individuals who advocate for such savagery, and that was my point. And please, do not delete my comments, even if I do label the left as “Marxists”, unless you are prepared to also do the same on the other side of the equation. Doing otherwise would be to your own discredit, and simply prove my point in regards to ideological bigotry on the left.
I’m a newbie here and although I don’t agree with Peter’s label (‘Marxist-globalist’) I was quite surprised by the warning about deleting future comments, especially from an organization called “Hungarian FREE Press”.
Are there any publicly available guidelines for which posts are acceptable and which will be deleted?
Thanks
‘Marxist-globalist’ is anti-Semitic code. Clearly this site doesn’t tolerate bigoted speech. And rightly so.
You really need a reality check. It is not code for anything, but a description of an ideology that has taken root in the Western World, with no reference to ethnicity, race or religion. This is typical left wing hysteria meant to silence dissent. “you don’t agree with me, you are a Nazi”
I agree with Mr. Lazar and Gollner, but I have to admit, that this sick freak is one of my favorite film director. Watching all the films he is clearly a very disturbed genius, one of those we admired throughout all arts in many centuries. Yes we don’t appreciate these artists as moral-social heroes. We forgive them for their “weaknesses” because of their contribution to universal art. So I would not hold my breath that he even considers to give a thought to return his dirty award. His ego probably overrides this issue…
However I have to emphasize, that Bayer is not even close to this category. He is just a despicable jerk, who was created as a shameful representative of human kind. His poisonous mind is a true reflection of the autocratic tyranny he is advocating. Just last week I saw him saying that e.g. Tivadar Farkasházy’s “Hócipő” made such a devastating effect on Hungarian culture, that it should have been abolished long time ago. Hopefully he is not expecting more tolerance towards his junk…
Wow! How cynical can you be Adam? In my response to pantanifan, I did not actually use the label you think I should be censored for, I only discussed the label, yet I see you did not publish my comment. Not that your censorship of my use of a label for the ideological left is justified. As I already pointed out, those who you agree with on an ideological level use labels all the time. Let us look at Mr. Gollner and his comment. He labeled Hungary as having a “racist past”, labeled Hungary’s prime minister an autocrat & dictator and so on. Plenty of arguably subjective labels, definitely ideologically motivated. Now, will you erase his comment? Guess not! “Hungarian Free Press”, the place where all are welcome to agree with us ideologically, same as in most communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe. Is this your vision of a free press? Is this your vision of democracy? An ideological autocracy perhaps would better describe your vision?
That Hungary has a corrupt autocrat as a leader, as Prof Göllner correctly noted, is not a matter of opinion. It is fact. Period.
Thanks for the attitude adjustment! In the country I was born in, that the West and its democracy was evil, imperialistic, while the Marxist utopia was perfect, moral and right was also a “fact”, enforced in the media, schools and in the general public. In my view, facts can stand by themselves, they can withstand challenge through debate. In fact, the process of free debate is what is supposed to separate facts from “facts”. Acceptance of facts does not have to be enforced. Evidently, you run a site which aims to enforce “facts”, by among other things censoring challenge through debate. Says a lot about such “facts”, as well as this site and the ideology it aims to suport & spread. I think you would have made a great communist-era newspaper editor.
Some readers don’t care that your feelings are hurt because you can’t spew bigoted speech. What’s not bigoted is too often simply tedious, vacuous, and verbose. You flatter yourself if you think you are engaging at the level of an academic debate. In your last two comments there was not a thread of evidence to counter the assertions made by Adam and Andras. Just a bunch of “you’re not fair”, “you’re marxists”, you this/your that, etc.
Thank you very much reality check, because you just managed to prove my point. You labeled me “anti-Semitic” and more and by extension all those who are not on board with the globalist agenda, and as we can see, Adam has no issues with it. He cheerfully published your comment, even as he did not mine which I addressed to pantanifan, which did not include use of any label, but rather an explanation of why I use it, due to historical reasons.
And yes, my criticism on this behavior is entirely justified, because the hypocrisy involved is just shameful. Especially so, given that this is a site dedicated to “Viktator” labeling. I have to say that I have never seen any evidence of such zealous, bias-driven censorship on any Hungarian site, regardless of political or ideological affiliation. I guess the vision that Adam, and others on this site, including yourself have of freedom, democracy and so on is “listen to what we have to say, and if you feel the need to disagree, shut up!”
BTW: Those labels you proclaimed to be “fact” are generally accepted to be relatively subjective labels. For instance, for the average Trump supporter today, one of the most corrupt institutions in the World must be their own FBI, and the American deep state is what is authoritarian, as it tries to undermine the democratic will. So, do you see how such perceptions depend on one’s ideological inclination? And please, let us not pretend that it does not happen on both sides of the ideological divides.
@ Peter
You say: “we get a glimpse of just how deep ideological bigotry and intolerance runs among leftist-Marxist-globalists. ” I tried to follow your glimpse by re-rading the article above and the comments, but came up empty handed.
I trust you are not referring to Mr. Lázár or myself. I can not speak for my colleague – though I for one have never read a leftist-Marxist globalist line from him in my life. As for me – I spent my life arguing against marxist globalism. In case you are curious, I’m an advocate of justice, constitutionalism and sustainable economic development on a global scale – the values that your hero, Viktor Orbán and his Russian puppet-master abhor.
Do enjoy visiting with us here at the HFP, but try to keep your little troll-head out of the sand, and keep your feet firmly grounded in facts rather than fiction. That way, you’ll go further in the world than the nameless troll you are in the basement of this Canadian portal.
Really? You came up empty-handed? Interesting!
I guess you missed the part where you once more labeled me a “troll”, reality check labeled me “anti-Semite” and other things, and neither one of you were censored, while Adam threatened me over the “Marxist” label, and then actually went ahead and acted on it in this conversation, even though all I did was explain to pantanifon my justification for using the label, did not actually label anyone or anything. Is this biased censorship not precisely the proof of my original point in regards ideological intolerance and bigotry that is prevalent on the left? Adam just acted in a way that shows I am correct, and there are also those who agree with him on this forum as well, reinforcing my point. But… I guess you just missed all that! I wonder why?
@ Peter
My apologies for not responding to your references regarding my humbleness:
“Let us look at Mr. Gollner and his comment. He labeled Hungary as having a “racist past”, labeled Hungary’s prime minister an autocrat & dictator and so on. Plenty of arguably subjective labels, definitely ideologically motivated. Now, will you erase his comment?”
Unlike you “Peter”, I comment under my own name. Unlike you, I publish empirically verifiable information. Prove me wrong ! Refute me with facts rather than fancy !
Hungary persecuted the Jews, passed the first anti-Semitic laws of the 20th century anywhere in the world, in 1920, when Hitler was barely learning to raise his arm. 460,000 of her Jews, Roma, Gays and otherwise law abiding democrats were sent to the abattoirs of Auschwitz and elsewhere. Hungarian troops fought on the side of Hitler to the very last days of the war. 60,000 Hungarian troops were caught deep inside Germany, and contributed to the delay in liberating Auschwitz, and to the unnecessary prolongation of the war Prove me wrong !
According to virtually all of the objective, NON MARXIST AND CONSERVATIVE RESEARCH CENTERS (Freedom House, Enterprise Institute, The Hoover Institute, The Center for Democracy, or Hungary’s own Civil Liberties Union, not to mention the EU parliament) Hungary is a rule of law violator, and Orbán is an autocrat.
Prove THEM wrong !
The reason why you should be banished troll, is not for falsely accusing somebody of being a “Marxist” but for spreading “fake news” like those Russians who were indicted by the US Special Counselor, Robert Mueller. The reason why you should be banished from here, is for your service of those who are exploiting the weak, the downtrodden. The reason why you should be expelled is for justifying the unjustifiable, and for supporting those who are hijacking people’s right to justice, constitutionalism and sustainable economic well being.
If you were a student of mine I would expel you from my class for being ignorant, unprepared, and for handing in works under an assumed name, filled with factual errors, and plagiarized from the works of similarly ignorant trolls.
1) It is your choice to use your name, and mine not to. I would argue in this case that given where our society is right now, anyone raising objections to the ideology I can no longer define or name can expect not only censorship, as proven here but potentially retribution & persecution. Take the case of Amy Wax, for instance, where her position is now threatened by the PC police.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-cant-be-debated-on-campus-1518792717
We clearly live in a Western world where pretty much anything on the left is acceptable, no matter how extreme, while anyone daring to express an opinion that is right of center? Well we saw in this very debate and we see it in all walks of life these days. For anyone daring to stray ideologically, this no longer feels like a democracy.
2) You automatically assume that the integrity, impartiality and unbiased approach of some of the institutions you named is beyond reproach. Take Freedomhouse for instance and look where it ranks a country like Germany. The same Germany, where in 2016 it took four days for their national media and authorities to publicly admit that 1,200 women were raped or molested on a number of German streets by gangs of recent or less recent migrants. The same Germany which recently implemented the social media censorship fiasco. That is where Freedomhouse’s credibility falls apart!. As for EU institutions being ideologically impartial? give me a break! Even most who these days are labeled “conservatives” are in fact as liberal as can be on some core leftist issues, such as immigration, globalization and so on, so on these core issues, they will stand with the left, against all challenges.
So, no you are not stating facts, but ideologically-biased opinions, just like me. Opinions that Adam agrees with as well, so he will never censor you, while he censored me on numerous occasions now, further proving my point.
And if Adam’s behavior here of censoring me for a pretext that none of the people he agrees with would ever be censored for, because in his view they are stating “facts”, while obviously I do not, because he does not agree with me is not enough to reinforce my view in regards to left wing intolerance & bigotry, there is this news I came across today in regards to Hungary:
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/02/eu-hungarian-town-cant-be-european-capital-of-culture-because-there-are-too-many-happy-white-people/
Szekesfehervar apparently cannot be a European capital of culture, because there are too many happy white people according to panel that awards that title. A little bit like saying that Lagos, Nigeria cannot be African capital of culture because there are too many black people. Or that Churchill, Manitoba cannot qualify in Canada, because of too many happy natives engaged in their own native culture.
What can I say? Silencing dissent, attacking homogeneous native cultures for being homogeneous, and as I originally pointed out hysterical reactions to anyone having a different point of view. Its a very “healthy” movement and ideology! And the scary part is that it largely succeeded in silencing dissent, having taken over most of the higher learning institutions, which in turn churn out most media employees, government workers, most politicians, as well as business elites. I think a new brand of …… was born and has taken over our society (I used dots, because I will get censored if I were to submit a label)
@ Peter
Let me help you out of your misery, troll. It’s the weekend, I have a bit of free time, even for trolls like you.
You say to me: “It is your choice to use your name, and mine not to.”
I say to you: Right on ! You are a coward. I’m not. You chose to hide behind a mask like a troll. I did not.
You say: “We clearly live in a Western world where pretty much anything on the left is acceptable, no matter how extreme, while anyone daring to express an opinion that is right of center? ”
I say: It’s not your ideological bent that is the problem troll, but your persistent lying, troll. Virtually all of the governments in the West, in Britain, the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Austria, and yes, Hungary, are Center or Center Right governments. Why don’t you pull your head out of the sand troll and rejoice instead of blabbering about a non-existent Marxist conspiracy ? All of the organizations I referred to earlier, Freedom House, American Enterprise Institute, Center for Democracy, Hungary’s Eotvos Institute, etc, who refer to the Orbán regime as a rule of law violating autocracy, are conservative, non-Marxist organizations.
Troll ! You label me a Marxist, without being able to attribute a single Marxist expression or deed to me. You are a cowardly troll, spreading fake-news by hiding behind a false name. You are non-other than Peter Peter pumpkin eater. a.k.a. a flunky. You should thank your lucky star I’m not the editor of this portal. I would throw you out of here so fast, your feet wouldn’t even touch the ground. You should be banned from any forum, where people come together to pursue the truth, based on facts, and in defense of justice, constitutionalism and sustainable economic development. Everyone of your utterances here are a disservice to Conservative, Christian Democratic values.