NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has weighed in on Quentin Tarantino’s portrayal of Bruce Lee in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Jabbar was friends with Lee since his days playing college basketball at UCLA. The two become close as Lee taught Jabbar martial arts which helped reduce his injuries in the NBA. In an essay in The Hollywood Reporter, Jabbar said he understood that Tarantino had artistic license to do what he wanted but he ultimately disrespected Lee.

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“That’s why filmmakers have a responsibility when playing with people’s perceptions of admired historic people to maintain a basic truth about the content of their character,” Kareem wrote. “Quentin Tarantino’s portrayal of Bruce Lee in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood does not live up to this standard. Of course, Tarantino has the artistic right to portray Bruce any way he wants. But to do so in such a sloppy and somewhat racist way is a failure both as an artist and as a human.”

Although Jabbar is a huge fan of Tarantino, he felt disappointed with the Bruce Lee scene because it was “a lapse of cultural awareness.”

“That’s why it disturbs me that Tarantino chose to portray Bruce in such a one-dimensional way,” he wrote. “The John Wayne machismo attitude of Cliff (Brad Pitt), an aging stuntman who defeats the arrogant, uppity Chinese guy harks back to the very stereotypes Bruce was trying to dismantle. Of course the blond, white beefcake American can beat your fancy Asian chopsocky dude because that foreign crap doesn’t fly here.”

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also pushed back on the assertion that Bruce Lee was an arrogant guy who bragged about his fighting prowess. He recalled how Lee was challenged to fights by random people but Lee turned them all down because “he felt no need to prove himself.” The only fight that Bruce Lee cared about was changing the negative stereotypes of Asians. “He knew who he was and that the real fight wasn’t on the mat, it was on the screen in creating opportunities for Asians to be seen as more than grinning stereotypes,” Jabbar wrote. “Unfortunately, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood prefers the good old ways.”

The portrayal of Bruce Lee in OUATIH has become a point of contention since the movie’s premiere. Many, including Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, were upset with Bruce being portrayed as a cocky blowhard. Shannon told The Wrap it was “uncomfortable” to watch her father being laughed at in the theater and that she was disheartened to see her father come “across as an arrogant a**hole who was full of hot air.”

In response to the backlash, Tarantino replied that his portrayal of Lee wasn’t that far off. “Bruce Lee was kind of an arrogant guy,” he said.

After hearing Tarantino’s reply, Shannon Lee snapped back and said Tarantino should “shut up about it” and “apologize or he could say. ‘I don’t really know what Bruce Lee was like. I just wrote it for my movie. But that shouldn’t be taken as how he really was.'”