Some instances of children and violence –well, really, young girls and violence– from the first volume of Kill Bill:
- Black mamba is with child when attacked by Bill and his cohort, and is traumatized (on waking from her coma) to discover her pregnancy has been terminated (though that turns out not to be true.).
- Black mamba kills Copperhead in front of her daughter (aged four). Children’s toys are prominent outside the home. A school bus appears while the two are fighting.
- As a child, Cottonmouth watches her parents being murdered, and (still a child) she kills their murderer, who is a pedophile. (This segment is told in the form of a cartoon/ animation, itself perhaps suggesting childhood.)
- Cottonmouth’s bodyguard is notably young herself, 17 we’re told, and carrying herself still more girlishly — Black Mamba offers her a chance to escape without fighting/ violence. (“Charlie Brown” in these scenes again evokes the cartoon/ the comics.)
- “Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.” The phrase spoken by both Black Mamba and Cottonmouth suggests childhood/ a shared sense of childhood.
- Black Mamba spares one of the crazy 88’s, who is a young boy. After spanking him with a sword, she sends him home to his mother.
Although the theme is mainly absent from Kill Bill’s 2nd volume, it reappears in the final chapter when The Bride and B.B engage in a mock gun battle and later watch Shogun Assassin. A distinction might be made (as Tarrentino himself appears to do in this youtube) between BB’s engagement with portrayals of violence, “fake violence”, and the girls of Volume 1, who have dealt with the real thing.
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