Popular Culture Review Vol. 21, No. 2, Summer 2010 | Page 88

84 Popular Culture Review of the ethnic body remains. The physical differences of the Asian, African American, and Hispanic bodies alone signal difference and ethnicity before any cultural distinctions are even addressed. How can I, a white suburban girl, then reconcile the massacre and mutilation of 88 Asian bodies, whom I view as different from me, by a single blond-haired American woman? The simple answer might be: through the conventions of genre. Kill Bill consists of the story of a former assassin who was shot on the day of her wedding rehearsal by her former lover and former boss, Bill. The entire wedding party is massacred and the fate of her unborn child is unknown until the last chapter of the film. After waking from a four-year coma, Beatrix Kiddo (AKA Black Mamba, AKA The Bride) plans her revenge—the murder of the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who participated in the wedding chapel massacre. She begins with Oren Ishii (AKA Cottonmouth), Queen of the T