Django Unchained was not easy for me to watch. For the first hour, I cringed every time I heard the N-word, and I had to momentarily look away from scenes where a woman was being brutally whipped and two slaves were forced to fight until death. I enjoyed the movie otherwise. I thought it was well written and acted, but I couldn’t get past these disturbing scenes enough to say I was a fan.
Saturday night, at a community discussion about Quentin Tarantino’s film, I came to realize that the uncomfortable scenes should be touted more than anything else in the film.
I arrived at Poor Richard’s Book Shoppe in Uptown unsure of what to expect. I didn’t know what the prevailing community opinion of Django was. I’d heard Spike Lee called the film disrespectful to his ancestors, and I’d seen everyone from activist/comedian Dick Gregory to 2 Live Crew’s Uncle Luke fire back at him in the movie’s defense. Personally, I had no idea what to think.
The discussion’s moderator, God City artist Wolly Vinyl, opened by explaining he hoped the event offered a fresh, real-life perspective on the Django debate, free of the vitriol often spewed online.
As the discussion ensued, most stated they liked the film and expressed disappointment with Lee. A commenter even went so far as calling him racist, saying he would’ve been first in line to see the movie had its director been black.
A filmmaker said she thought some scenes were gratuitous, such as one where a runaway slave is ripped apart by dogs and another in which Leonardo Dicaprio’s character saws open the skull of a dead slave and explains why black people’s brains are “different” than whites’.
Local artist Sophia Matthews countered that these scenes were important depictions of why slavery persisted. The dog scene showed the horrific consequences of attempting to escape, and the skull scene portrayed how whites rationalized slavery.
Another important scene mentioned was one in which the KKK was shown fumbling with their masks and having a petty argument. A teacher spoke about this and said he had been ready to leave the theater until this scene. He stayed because he liked seeing the KKK portrayed as real humans with vulnerabilities, instead of ominous, powerful boogeymen.
An older white man spoke next and echoed my thoughts, saying he hadn’t been able to form a strong opinion on this movie and couldn’t figure out why.
That’s when I began to grasp it. This movie was the first time I’d confronted the graphic realities of slavery. The same was probably true for that man.
An African-American man said he felt desensitized to the violent slavery scenes because he’s lived with knowledge of these things his entire life. Not me. I hadn’t heard about mandingo fighting or scientists in the 1800s claiming blacks were a different species. For most white people, the era of slavery is summarized in a few neat paragraphs fit for high-school textbooks. We don’t go back for more – its too painful, too shameful.
Tarantino doesn’t discuss slavery in a way that’s scholarly or educational. He uses slavery as a back drop – as just the cold, accepted reality of the time period – and does so graphically and unapologetically. Therein lies Django‘s genius: It ropes you in with a badass western love story, smacks you in the face with the atrocities of slavery – forces you to actually see them – and, hopefully, talk about them.
I’ve never sat down with anyone and had a long conversation about slavery, not even the African-American man I was in a relationship with for seven years. We’ve talked about the holocaust and Trail of Tears. Why not slavery?
“… Because we still live together. Jewish people don’t still live with Nazis. Native Americans mostly live on reservations, but here we are sitting together. Bringing up how your ancestors enslaved mine makes for awkward conversation,” Matthews, the artist, said.
With all due respect to Spike, I say it’s more disrespectful to his ancestors for white people to ignore or downplay slavery. It was an ugly truth for Tarantino to put onscreen, but that ugliness could lead to a beautiful, long-awaited understanding between our races, if it continues to inspire community discussions like this one.
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This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 5, 2013.
Ok first let me just say that I am one of those who have saw DJANGO UNCHAINED, and thought the movie was well done. With that being said, there are three KEY things people need to remember, one, its a Tarantino film, why are we even acting like the overly done violence by him in a film is something new? Secondly, last time I checked, there were never any cute and cuddly Disney versions being tossed around about slavery. And finally,….people its A DAMN MOVIE, get over it.
Anybody who can not take into account these three main catalysts of Django Unchained are both naive and in denial. Violence in the movies and the fact that Tarantino uses it to his advantage shouldnt be a discredit to him. Thats why you have the Motion Picture Association to give out the ratings, the fact that Tarantino has a unique vision of maximizing the R Rating system, just goes to show how brilliant he is. But seriously not much of what was shown in Django, I hadnt seen on screen before,…I can reflect back to the first time I saw SAVING PRIVATE RYAN at the movie theatres,…and the opening scened when the men were coming up into the beach on the boats, and how caught off guard I was when the camera view changed to the soldiers point of view and the gate of the boat dropped down, and immediately there after the bullets just started flying and the bodies began to get shredded one after another….that to me was the beauty of the entire film. War is graphic, there is nothing glamourous about being shot in the head or having a grenade go off 2 feet away from you. Just because some movies like to give us the standard “oh he got shot in the chest and all you see is a puff of smoke from the impact and the body drops.” isnt neccessarily the way it looks. And the same can be said about slavery. Too many folks wanna stick with slavery as being that good old GONE WITH THE WIND type slavery, where the negroes were just treated all kinds of nice huh? Slavery was just what it was,…a torturous burden. Hell you think slaves on the masters plantation was bad,…somebody need to let Tarantino do a film about the trials of slaves who were actually on the slave ships for months on end,…disease, shackled next to each other, either as a dead body or rolled over in your own feces. Lets not forget when the slave traders did decide to take a trip down below in the slave ships and found ya dead, they’d just toss the bodies in the ocean, or if the slave woman refused to have sex with them they would toss them in the water to the sharks, pregnant and all, they didnt give a damn. But yet America just feels comfortable making films that just show negroes in chains as if to say OH THATS ALL THAT HAPPENED. People need a strong dose of reality, like seriously. So the problem is with Django Unchained is that when Tarantino gives his interpretation (which lets be honest wasnt far off from the truth) folks on both sides black and white wanna get all offended. Whites for the most part don’t want to see it because its a harsh reminder to them of what their own ancestors had done, and to some theres a degree of shame that prompts them to say “Look let’s move on from this time in American History.” Whereas blacks are attacking Tarantino as if to say “What gives him the right to have us portrayed in this manner?” Which to I would say is WHAT MANNER SHOULD HE HAVE PORTRAYED US IN?
Being a black male (and I say black male because I will never refer to myself as a African American) it bothers me how today in black society in this nation we have this huge double standard. We are quick to attack certain individuals for speaking on blacks or making jokes about blacks, as comedians, when we all know comedians like Martin, Dave Chapelle, Cedric The Entertainer, Bernie Mac (rip) all have came out during there routines and at one point said “Whoooa, so I see we gotta lot of white people here tonite to see me. So yawl crackas like me now huh?” To which the whole audience busts out into laughter,….yet had the roles been reversed and Jerry Seinfield, or Chelsea Handler starts off their routine “Oh man I see a bunch of you niggas in the house tonite, yawl niggas like me now huh?” folks is screaming racism, and so on and so forth,…you can’t have it both ways. I say all that to say this…..LIFE IS LIFE. And it don’t matter what the color is of the individual who depicts it, it doesnt change the truth, or their perception of what that truth is. Add to the fact that as a American citizen, Tarantino is expressing his right to be creative in the manner he deems fit. Is it a bit over sensationalized? Maybe, but then again we live in a society where a man sat and murdered gay black men and kept their heads in his refridgerator (Dahmer)…and thus far I’ve seen two movies done on that, but never a scene depicting the actual decapitations and cannibalism. But if a director was to go such a route, is he wrong for in doing so? The shit happened, what else do you want from me, I didnt do the crime, Im just giving you a more vivid interpretation of the accounts. And thats what Django does. And folks need to understand just that, and understand its not a film for everyone, but if you are going to see ANY Tarantino film and dont already know this going in beforehand, then to me you’re a idiot to begin with. Great movie Tarantion….and if their complaining now, just wait until he releases the unedited directors cut on dvd and blu-ray,…oh yeah the poo gonna really hit the fan then. Haha!
Wow, just read this! Thank you for the props and great job! I think you captured every facet of the discussion and the movie perfectly. Well done, miss!!