Is Pulp Fiction a cult classic?
Absolutely F***ing not!
Forgive my profanity, but please. My Uncultured (possibly inbred) roommate says yes it is. Someone has to put their foot down on this issue though. Pulp Fiction is undoubtedly a monumental film, but not a cult classic. That would require it to underperform at the box office, but it made more than its budget back in the first weekend alone. Does it really have a distinct niche following when every other college student has a poster of it on their damn wall? By Lance Armstrong’s single testicle NO. And while most (but not all) cult movies are unpopular upon release Pulp Fiction was instantly renowned. That’s like calling Mad Max: Fury Road a cult film, It’s great, but not cult, and at least not yet classic.
Look at other cult films: Blade Runner, excellent, artsy and inventive, but without mainstream appeal. The Room, a vile movie that bombed at the box office, but became ironically popular. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, arguably a mainstream cult classic that is well known and well referenced piece of cinema, yet still weird and with enough of a B movie feel to qualify it (in my mind). All these movies have become more famous with age and while Pulp Fiction has done this, it was never dismissed or seen as a niche cultural phenomenon, everyone knew how great it was.
No sane cinephile gives Star Wars cult status. When it came out it may have been cult and not classic, but since has become classic and not cult. Jurassic Park, Jaws, Terminator, Titanic, Die Hard, The Breakfast Club, The Wizard of Oz, Forrest Gump, etcetera, etcetera. None of these films are cult classics. All are mainstream, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not hip and different to like them, EVERYBODY LIKES THEM. Movies that do well and become a part of the mainstream, regardless of following can’t be considered cult. That’s like calling all major religions cults, when what makes these movies (and religious groups) unique is their fringe place in cinema. In the case of Pulp Fiction the people calling it a cult film are the pseudo-intellectuals of the movie world. You can’t just see a great movie that everyone knows and say you like “cult films.” Christ sake that’s not even a genre! I don’t make any claim to being one of the pompous snobs of the film world, but these stupid schmucks calling Pulp Fiction a cult classic!? Someone call a 1950’s psychotherapist to prescribe them a lobotomy.
Normally I would say it’s subjective as to what movies you like and what constitutes a cult classic, but a line needs to be drawn, and I’m drawing it here God damnit. Pulp Fiction is not a cult classic.
This is how my argument with my roommate went: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uznUlgpKBzE
Submitted February 26, 2019 at 12:48PM by Mr_Macph1sto https://ift.tt/2NuRQ0O