The band aid on Marcellus Wallace’s head covers the wound where someone sucked out his mono. And THAT’S the shiny thing in the briefcase
Mojo Goddaammit.
Ha! I liked it better when it was mono. Like he had some wacky alternative medicine practitioner suck out the Epstein–Barr virus as if it were snake venom, and then spit it into the briefcase for containment.
It’s pretty obvious why the band-aid is there and I’m amused at the convoluted efforts people go through to try to justify it.
It’s there so the audience can immediately identify who he is when Bruce Willis sees him in the crosswalk.
I heard this years ago. Except it was his “soul” not “mojo”.
I never noticed it when he was in the crosswalk. 
Mononucleosis is not treated that easily.
So I don’t know if I’ve been whooshed, but if you don’t immediately recognize this as Marcellus, the .2 sec you can maybe see the band-aid isn’t going to help.
The RL explanation from Tarantino is that Ving Rhames had cut himself shaving the morning they shot the bar scene (“Fuck pride.”), so he had a band-aid on. They kept it after that for continuity.
…and so you could see there was a wound where someone (Fabienne? Butch?) sucked out his mojo with a giant syringe.
It was Mia. Who else could catch him with his guard down?
She didn’t know what it was, she just did as she was told. The guys that took it (in the room) were just dumb-assed college kids that found a book in the library about removing souls, and thought it would be funny. Like Bart Simpson selling his soul, they didn’t actually believe they really had his soul, at least before it started glowing. Then they were just holding it for ransom. The book was “left” for them by the Devil himself.
So that explains why Vincent and Jules were immune to the bullets - they were on a mission from God. But when Vincent was looking to murder Butch, God’s protection was not there any longer.
One day, Pulp Fiction will be seen as one of the most religious films of all time.
Drilling a hole in someone’s head to suck out their innards is easy?? Maybe easy for the doctor, but the patient might disagree.
It’s a nice theory and all, but I thought it was well established by Tarantino that it was diamonds in the briefcase. He just thought it would be cooler not to show them and to leave it a mystery.
And I never knew Marcellus Wallace’s bandaid was a mystery. He had a freshly shaven head, so I just assumed he cut himself shaving.
A badass like Marcellus wouldn’t have a bandaid. Makes him look weak. You can only throw so many of your people out of windows to emphasize your badassedness before you run out of people.
I kind of think it makes him look strong. Only a weak man would worry about looking weak. A truly strong man would flaunt the band-aid.
Then why not a Hello Kitty bandy-aid? That’d make Chuck Norris back up and rethink his moves. Besides, Marcellus never struck me as being bright enough to muster that sort of wisdom.
“Never let them see you bleed.” Or put a bandaid on your owie.
Also, Vincent rejected the miracle and did not change his life, unlike Jules
Do you have a cite for this? Everything I’ve read suggests the briefcase was never anything more than a MacGuffin.
It was Tony Rocky Horror who sucked out Marcellus’s mojo/soul. You don’t think he threw him out the window just for giving Mia a foot massage do you? I give my grandmother a foot massage.
Y’know trepanation has a long and NOT respected history and tradition…
–G!
Mom: You need more brownies like you need a hole in the head!
Me: So I can have some?